What Everyone Is Missing In Their Attempts To Dunk On The SEC
The SEC has had a banner week.
The self-proclaimed "greatest football league of all-time" was attacked from pretty much all angles.
Ari Wasserman of On3 had some takes.
Reddit and X had some takes.
Hell, even some of my co-workers had some takes.
The counterpoints that were laid out ranged from "that's flawed but intriguing" to "do you even watch college football," but I noticed a lot of people making these arguments failed to address the elephant (or bulldog, or tiger, or… volunteer?) in the room.
One word: talent.
When arguing about the superiority (or lack thereof) of the SEC, I notice most of its detractors conveniently leave out one of the most important factors in determining wins and losses: the players.
It's hard to quantify talent and football isn't played "on paper," as some of you cheeky bastards love to remind me, but I will try and break down why the SEC, on the whole, has a talent advantage over the vast majority of the country, then use that fact to refute some of my "favorite" arguments.
Jimmy's and Joe's
Throw out all the analytics, the advanced metrics, the schedule-strength arguments, and anything else of the kind, and you will only need to remember one thing:
The SEC, by and large, has the best players in the country.
Let's start with recruiting.
If we take a look at the 247Sports composite rankings, the most balanced and comprehensive of the recruiting services that equally weighs rankings from every site, we will see that in the 2025 recruiting cycle (the most recent full cycle), the SEC signed 7 of the top 10 classes in the country, including the top 3. (Texas, Georgia, Bama).
If we zoom out even further, we get a better picture.
- 2024: 6 of the top 10
- 2023: 4 of the top 10 (double the next highest [Big XII])
- 2022: 3 of the top 10 (1st, 2nd, and 3rd)
- 2021: 4 of the top 10
Not only is the SEC holding serve at the top, they are starting to stockpile more talent and creating an even wider gulf in an era that is supposedly becoming more competitive and balanced (we will get to that later).
And if you think the SEC is just a top-heavy recruiting conference, consider this: even with Vanderbilt's abysmal 2025 class (77th) weighing it down, the SEC's average recruiting class ranking was 18th this past year.
The next best conference, the Big Ten, was nearly double that ranking (34.1).
"But recruiting rankings are arbitrary, it's all made up," I hear you say.
Doubtful. But just to appease you, let's check the NFL draft selections by conference.
According to Sports Illustrated, the 2025 NFL Draft saw 79 players from the SEC get selected, followed by 71 from the Big Ten, then a steep drop-off at number three with 42 from the ACC.
It's not just 2025, the SEC has held the crown for most players drafted the past 18 consecutive years as well.
Are NFL teams and coaches and executives participating in media bias too?
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I wanted to address some of the arguments I've seen making the rounds on the internet.
Using the knowledge we have from above along with other empirical truths, let's see if we can fight back against some of the narratives being bandied about.
"The SEC Hasn't Won A Championship In Two Years, Their Reign Of Terror Is Over"
A whole two seasons without winning a national championship, eh?
Sound the alarms, we're really in deep this time!
When you consider the fact that since 2005 (a 20-year sample size) the SEC has won 13 national championships (a 65% rate, more than a 4:1 ratio over the Big Ten and ACC, who each have three in that timespan), two seasons is a rather small sample size to start pounding your chest about the SEC's lack of hardware.
The NIL argument is also a funny one in this instance for two specific reasons.
First, NIL was introduced in the summer of 2021, right before Georgia went on a nearly historic two-year run of 24 straight regular-season wins, winning 29 of 30 overall, en route to back-to-back natty's.
Second, saying that NIL leveled the playing field so a plucky, down-on-its-luck underdog can have a shot at the belt while *checks notes* Michigan and Ohio State were the most recent non-SEC winners is hilarious.
Surely those two paragons of fair play weren't paying players before it was legal to do so.
Michigan and Ohio State, folks.
Three cheers for the little guy!
‘Bama Lost To Vandy and Oklahoma, They Were Trash Last Year’
I see a lot of people arguing that a team like Alabama should've gotten in over a team like Indiana.
While I still believe Indiana was a deserving team, if we are making the argument that Bama is somehow less deserving of a playoff spot because they went 9-3 and lost to a team like Oklahoma at the end of the year while IU went 11-1, then I have to push back a little.
It's such a tired argument that all schedules are created equal, so let's discuss both the Vandy and Oklahoma losses on their own.
Losing to Vanderbilt in a vacuum is certainly not a good look.
As we discussed above, Vanderbilt is the worst team in the SEC by talent metrics, but there's more to that than meets the eye.
Vanderbilt checked in at 50th last year on the 247Sports talent composite, a tool that takes into account recruiting and transfer ratings to rank a team's roster for a given year.
Any guesses where Indiana ranked?
Fifty-seventh.
A team like Vanderbilt or Indiana can spring a trap on occasion and trip teams like Bama up, but to make a gym analogy, it's much easier to squat 225lbs when you've been warming up with the bar than it is when you've been maxing out for the last six sets.
As for Oklahoma, they ranked 7th in the 247Sports talent composite, highlighting just how much of a gauntlet it can be to play in the SEC.
It puts into perspective how losing to a "trash team" like Oklahoma isn't as much of an embarrassment as some in the media would lead you to believe.
Are the Sooners trash, or a talented, albeit flawed, football team having a down year?
Alabama has quality wins over Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, and LSU.
Indiana's best win is who? Washington? Michigan?
These schedules aren't created equally, so it's not fair to treat them as such.
Getting a C+ in differential equations is more impressive than getting an A- in remedial algebra.
‘The SEC Was Terrible In The Postseason; Bama and South Carolina Lost Their Bowl Games’
Hey look, everyone, it's the guy who couldn't win more than 8 games at Arkansas before winning 10 games at a Big Ten school.
In all seriousness, Illinois had a nice season last year, culminating in a bowl win over a South Carolina team many thought should've been in the Playoffs.
Does this make the Gamecocks' claims to a CFP berth any less legitimate?
No. And you're being disingenuous by citing a bowl game as your primary reason.
You really think these teams care about the Citrus Bowl or the ReliaQuest Bowl when a week earlier those same teams had an outside shot at a playoff berth?
Going back to my previous post, it's easy to get up for a game when you're playing Bama or another SEC team to try and prove a point, but when your heart has been ripped out seven days earlier, it's hard to have that same pep in your step as a 6-6 Michigan team that's been out of the conversation for a month and a half.
It's human nature.
Let's also take into account that since the advent of both the CFP and NIL, bowl games have become virtually meaningless.
Players have started entering the transfer portal before playoff games, it's insane to think they're all 100% in it for a December bowl game.
Hell, Florida State forgot they even had to play a bowl game two years ago after their 2023 undefeated campaign.
South Carolina losing to Illinois in a meaningless bowl game is way less of an important data point than beating the ACC Champion Clemson Tigers in a game that actually mattered just a game prior.
These are just a few of the claims I've seen online that have stuck in my craw, but I am sure there are and will be plenty of others that I will need to address going forward.
I am not even saying the SEC is far and away the best league in the country with no one else close; the Big Ten is clearly making ground, but I believe the SEC is still the top dog and there are plenty of examples to back this up.
Regardless, college football season can't come soon enough, because I am tired of all these arguments happening without any meaningful games being on to distract us.