The SEC is Having a Disastrous Bowl Season

Drew Thirion|published: Sun 4th January, 11:15 2026

Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer watches on during warm ups before Auburn Tigers take on Alabama Crimson Tide at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala. on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.

It just means more. That’s something you had to hear all season when the media talked about the SEC. Football just means more in the South. That might be true, but that doesn’t mean football is better.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey argued that seven teams from the SEC deserved spots in the playoffs. I’m not sure there’s been a take more delusional and further from reality than what Sankey gave before the playoff bracket was released.

Since then, the SEC has gone 4-9 in bowl games, with two of their wins coming in head-to-head SEC matchups. The team that bothered me the most was Alabama. All season long, we had to hear about “the gauntlet” that Alabama had to go through to make it into the playoffs.

First off, Alabama didn’t deserve to make it into the playoffs. Once they suffered their third loss of the season, a blowout to Georgia, we should have eliminated them from the playoffs. Notre Dame or BYU might not have performed well in the playoffs, but they still deserved the opportunity.

But let's take a look back at that gauntlet to see how challenging it was.

#5 Georgia
#16 Vanderbilt
#14 Missouri
#11 Tennessee
#11 Oklahoma

Outside of Georgia, none of these teams were actually any good. Vanderbilt turned the “vaunted” Iowa offense into 2019 LSU. Tennessee lost its bowl game to a middle-of-the-road Illinois team. Missouri didn’t put up a real fight in a ranked game all season. Because these teams have SEC next to their name, they become marquee wins for the few decent teams in the conference.

At what point are we going to realize that the SEC isn’t the big bad wolf anymore? Ohio State obviously had an abysmal showing against Miami, but Indiana and Oregon have been the two best performers in the playoffs this year. Both of these teams were told all season how bad their schedules were, but if they benefited from the SEC's overranking, nobody would ever be complaining.

It’s too early to crown Indiana or Oregon as national champions, but their semi-final matchup does feel like the de facto national title game. If Miami can beat Ole Miss in their semi-final, it could be the third season in a row where the SEC isn’t even represented in the championship.

The college football world has caught up to the SEC with NIL. ESPN has a stake in their conference, so they will always do their best to prop it up; however, at some point, reality will set in that the Big 10 is now the best in the business when it comes to college football.