The SEC East has served as a volatile division within the last few seasons.

Since 2013, universities within the division have fired Joker Phillips, Derek Dooley and Will Muschamp.

James Franklin, arguably the most successful coach in Vanderbilt history, leveraged his rising stock to secure a job at Penn State. Steve Spurrier should soon retire. Mark Richt better win something significant soon or face a mutiny. Gary Pinkel and new kid on the block Mizzou went from “yikes” to “better than all of you” sometime between 2012 and 2013.

The traditional powers of Georgia, Florida and Tennessee won the division every year from its construction in 1992 until 2010. In the last five years, the Gators and Vols haven’t participated in a single SEC championship game, while the Bulldogs have made it just twice.

What does the intermediate future look like in the division? One can expect continued drama.

Here are five questions that should shape the next five years in the SEC East.

1. Will Tennessee win an SEC championship under Butch Jones?

The Volunteers have squirmed from embarrassing to hopeful to a program on the rise entering Jones’ third season. The talent level on the roster and the overall team culture have improved tremendously.

But there are still depth concerns and the team needs to prove it is capable of doing a good job developing all that young talent.

The next few seasons will be very interesting to watch in Knoxville. How patient will fans be in 2015? How long will the Jones/Tennessee train continue to rise before it levels off? Will the team win an SEC East title within the next three years? A conference or national title within the next five?

It’s possible that UT claims a College Football Playoff crown sometime in the intermediate future. It’s also possible that the fan base turns on Jones if the next two or three seasons don’t go as planned — as it is at every major traditional powerhouse. It should be a fun drama to monitor.

2. Can Jim McElwain return Florida to the pantheon of national contenders?

Florida’s roster has too many holes, either due to inexperience or lack of depth, to contend in 2015. That may already be true for 2016 as well.

The early returns on Jim McElwain’s first full recruiting cycle are perplexing, as it seems he’s offering just about every three-star player in the state of Florida. It’s not as if we know for sure he can’t attract big-time players, but how many scholarships will be available?

I still think McElwain will turn out to be a good coach at Florida, but you need the players. I think he’ll better than Will Muschamp and Ron Zook, but not as strong as Urban Meyer or Steve Spurrier.

If he can start to collect talent, the Gators’ offense finally should return to competency, and then get good. Florida fans have heard that myth for a while now, but this time it’s true. But will the team’s overall improvement in the next three or four years be enough to make the team a national powerhouse, or just the fourth- or fifth-best team in the SEC?

3. Does Mizzou have staying power?

Gary Pinkel’s Tigers didn’t win anything in his first six seasons in Columbia, Mo. Since ’07, though, Mizzou has claimed five conference division titles and will attempt to claim the SEC’s second-ever divisional three-peat this fall.

Missouri should be able to stay ahead of Kentucky and Vanderbilt for the duration. But, assuming Tennessee and Florida return to something approximating full strength, will the Tigers still be able to contend for division titles each season? Or will the team eventually settle for 8-4 regular seasons on an annual basis?

Upgrading the facilities, as Pinkel has pushed the administration to do, would be a big help. The longer the current team sustains this level of success, the bigger the imprint of the brand nationally and in other SEC states. Which in term makes it easier to achieve staying power.

No matter how optimistic you are, even Mizzou fans will have to admit that back-to-back SEC East titles may not happen again for a long time. Those expecting the program to struggle within its new conference long since have been proven wrong. What will an average season look like for this team in the next five years?

4. Will South Carolina remain relevant when Steve Spurrier retires?

If sports betting were legal in the United States (which it should be within a few years), an interesting prop bet would be “when will Steve Spurrier retire?” I think it happens by the end of the 2016 season.

At any rate, Spurrier — despite his bare-chested machismo — will not coach the Gamecocks forever. The tradition at South Carolina is better than it is at Vanderbilt, so don’t expect a post-James Franklin cliff dive in Columbia, S.C. But we’ve already seen the team’s recruiting face challenges with the length of Spurrier’s future in question.

Say what you will about the man for never winning an SEC championship with South Carolina or the team’s face-plant last season, but he’s an SEC legend, one of the best coaches ever to come through the conference, much less helm the Gamecocks’ football team.

The next coach will have a very difficult job. It’s hard to imagine a veteran retread with anything close to Spurrier’s resume, so perhaps the team will try to attract a hot young coordinator. The timing could be bad as well if Tennessee and Florida are cracking (a lot within the division hinges on those two programs).

5. Will the SEC East ever be better than the SEC West?

The SEC East hasn’t won the conference championship game in Atlanta since ’08, when Florida coach Urban Meyer and quarterback Tim Tebow beat coach Nick Saban’s still-incubating Alabama team.

Since the Tide dethroned the Gators with a resounding 32-13 SEC championship game thumping in ’09, the SEC West has more or less dominated the East. Win the SEC in 2015 and the SEC West will tie the Big 12 South (2004-10) for the longest such streak in FBS history.

Alabama, Auburn or LSU have won seven of the last eight SEC titles. the SEC West achieved an 11-4 record against the SEC East during the ’14 regular season. The last-place team in the SEC West this year likely will be ranked in at least one preseason Top 25 poll.