re: No team can dominate the SEC?

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I doubt anyone is going to repeat Alabama's run of the 1970s, but I think someone could certainly win back-to-back conference titles again.

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I think you hit the nail on the head. The game is so different now compared to then. The biggest change is the scholarship limitations placed on programs coupled with the fact that virtually all SEC programs have at least decent national exposure.

If you look at the SEC since the end of the 70's you will note that primarily the conference has two tiers. The top tier is Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee. One of these six teams has been the conference champion every year since Kentucky shared the title with Georgia in 1976. Then there is the second tier of the conference. There you have Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. While some of these teams will have what most would consider good season and even good runs of seasons, especially Arkansas, they never find themselves atop the conference at the end of a season.

Now, having established the hierarchy of the conference you can look at the records since the end of the 70's and see that even though there are the same six who usually sit atop the conference, they move places quite frequently. Each of the big six will cycle through times where they are the dominant team for a period and then inevitable fall off for a time to be replaced by another "Big Six" team. And in a few years that team will fall off to be replaced by another of the Big Six.

So to answer the original question... no, no one SEC team can dominate the conference, at least not for more than a few years. However, without fail, the same six teams have dominated the conference every single year for the past 36 years in a row.