Some perspective from the Houston Chronicle. SEC a little down this year but the sky isn’t falling, and I seriously believe that if we’d won a couple more bowl games than we did then no one would be talking about this.

Reports of the SEC's death are greatly exaggerated
Kirk Bohls

There's no tarnish on the SEC brand. It's still the best conference in college football even if the Longhorns are only member in the final four of CFP.
There's no tarnish on the SEC brand.

You’ve heard it loud and clear.

The narrative of college football these last few days is unmistakable.

The mighty SEC is dead and gone. Finished. Kaput.

Put a fork in ‘em. Read ’em the last rites. It’s 6 feet under, if not farther.

Greg Sankey might as well call it quits and see if he can get his old job back as Southland Conference commissioner.

The best conference in college football officially was dethroned when Notre Dame, without much of an offense, ousted the SEC champion in the Sugar Bowl.

Sayonara, SEC. It’s crumbling. The emperor not only is naked. He’s invisible.

Never mind that Texas still represents the SEC banner in a Final Four cluttered with teams from up north including two Big Ten teams who didn’t even win their conference. That’s a deep conference.

For those who haven’t followed the script that closely, let’s recap.

Georgia’s out of the playoffs.

Ole Miss probably should have, but lost in the regular season to a pick-up squad from Kentucky. (At least Lane Kiffin won his bowl game.) Remember super-hot South Carolina? Lost its bowl game to Illinois.

Oklahoma? Lost to Navy? That’s right, Navy. Seriously, Sooners? (Actually Navy’s pretty damn good. OU isn’t.) Since Halloween, Texas A&M beat, uh, New Mexico State. Yeah, that’s it as the Aggies fell apart and lost four of their last five.

Kirby Smart, who has genius actually written on his driver’s license, hasn’t made a Final Four in two straight years. TWO. Hope he doesn’t have a For Sale yard in his front yard.

LSU? The Tigers still haven’t figured out how to defend a mobile quarterback.

Kalen DeBoer? He hasn’t been in Tuscaloosa 12 months, and he’s already firing assistants. I’m sure the Crimson Tide is looking at the fine print of his contract for a loophole.

Nick Saban, pleeeeeeeeze come back. The SEC needs you. Surely you’re sick of Pat McAfee by now.

OK, that’s enough silliness. Let’s get real.

To the many detractors who have lined up to pile on the down-and-out SEC, I say stop all this nonsense. That take is garbage.

It says here the SEC is still — yes, STILL — the premier league in college football. Trust me.

Yes, an argument can be validly made that the Big Ten is the best because it has two teams left in the Final Four. It’s earned its bragging rights, especially with four SEC losses to Big Ten teams in bowl games.

Of course, did Oregon look much like a championship-caliber team, falling behind 34-0 before the bands played? Penn State beat ill-equipped SMU at its absolute worst at its frigid home and then an overmatched, one-dimensional Boise State. Notre Dame, as good as it’s looked and it’s looked fabulous, beat an Indiana team that had legions of critics all season and a Georgia team missing its veteran starting quarterback. Would the Irish have won if Riley Leonard wasn’t available? I doubt it.

Naturally, some are practically dismissing Texas and not even giving ‘em a chance against Ohio State. Didn’t you lose at home to Michigan, Buckeyes? If I recall, the Longhorns played the Wolverines in Ann Arbor in September and did OK.

Steve Sarkisian played the disrespect card and said “nobody is giving us a shot” and added that Texas is a “massive underdog.” Massive, at 6½ points? Not so much.

Sure, the Buckeyes might come out smoking hot as they’ve been against the Volunteers and Ducks and blow Texas’ doors off. It could happen. I’ll be surprised if that happens, but Oregon’s still in shock right now, isn’t it?

The playoffs have pretty much gone chalk, just not according to the seedings. But the best teams have won. The top four seeds all fell in their first playoff game, yet more evidence the highest-rated conference champions shouldn’t necessarily be the four highest seeds. That needs to be fixed.

The playoffs, as we should know by now, are about who gets hot (see TCU two years ago before it got crushed by Georgia) and who’s injured (Carson Beck) and who’s not and who gets a good call. (Right, Arizona State?) That said, for those who think Michael Taaffe’s blow was the most egregious targeting non-call ever, they must not have watched much football the last few years. It wasn’t in the top 30.

Winning is all about big plays in crunch time. Texas has made a ton, thanks to Quinn Ewers and Andrew Mukuba and Silas Bolden. Notre Dame got a 98-yard kickoff return and a fumble inside the Georgia 10. SMU put the game on a platter when Kevin Jennings imploded with two pick sixes. Or was it three?

Listen, we acknowledge the SEC wasn’t what it’s been after two decades of total dominance. That’s a given. It was slightly down.

The SEC had no elite team without flaws. Georgia led the world in dropped passes, and Beck was awful at times. Texas can’t run the ball consistently and has suspect special teams. Alabama was harder to explain, but was breaking in a new coach. OU was pathetic. A&M faltered with shaky pass defense. LSU couldn’t tackle a mobile quarterback to save its life.

But it had a lot of very good teams. Aside from Mississippi State and Kentucky, it really had no bad ones. Hey, the Big Ten had seven of its 18 teams with losing records. Four more won only seven games.

The SEC’s second-tier was damn strong. Vanderbilt was not to be messed with. Florida showed it has a ton of promise when D.J. Lagway is healthy. Arkansas wasn’t great but it beat Tennessee. Oklahoma was pretty much a punchline until it punched out Alabama. Texas A&M couldn’t beat anyone once the calendar turned to November, but it gave Notre Dame all it wanted in the season opener.

Bowl games have long mistakenly been the standard for judging one conference against another, but I’d put much more stock in regular-season intersectional matchups when teams are whole and more motivated. The opt-outs and transfers before bowl games make a mockery of those postseason results.

I’d put the SEC’s bottom half against any other Power 4 conference’s second tier.

The problem, from a public perception standpoint, was Georgia wasn’t Georgia and Nick Saban ain’t on a sideline any more.

But Texas is legit. It’s back in national prominence and has gone 25-4 the last two years with two losses to Georgia, a last-second loss to OU and a loss to Washington in last year’s semifinals when Ewers was throwing in the end zone.

The Longhorns ain’t perfect. We know that.

But I’d defy anybody who’s claiming that Arizona State is a bad team. If you’re still a Sun Devils critic, I’ll be glad to send Cam Skattebo to your house to debate the point. Texas nearly got Cam Skattebo-ed but survived, which is more than Georgia and Tennessee can say. And that’s more than the ACC, Big 12 and Mountain West champions can say.

Just imagine how good the Longhorns can be if they had a kicker and a running game.

As I’ve written before, if the SEC is so weak, the other 100 or so teams ought to be scrambling to schedule those teams in the future.

The SEC isn’t going anywhere. Texas is still playing. A year ago, Alabama lost to Michigan in the semis, and Texas fell to the Huskies. The ACC would love to have such down times. You can bet the 2025 preseason poll will have seven to nine SEC teams in the Top 25.

But we wouldn’t mind St. Nick coming back either.

This post was edited on 1/5/25 at 10:13 am