The Southeastern Conference is home to some of the most prestigious programs in college football history.

While each SEC football program has suffered its ups and downs, all 14 schools have at least one proud period of success that can be looked upon as its golden era.

Alabama – 1959-81

  • Head Coach: Bear Bryant
  • Record: 212-37-7 (.828)
  • Conference championships: 14
  • National championships: 6

It would be reasonable to consider the entire Bear Bryant era as the golden era of Alabama football, but it took one year for Bryant to revive the program, and the dynasty effectively came to an end prior to Bryant’s final season in Tuscaloosa. Of course, Bryant and the Tide compete for national championships on a nearly annual basis during the 23 years in between. Alabama was the class of the SEC, and won 14 conference titles. An unquestioned national power, the Crimson Tide was also crowned consensus national champs on six occasions.

Simply put, no program in SEC history was as good for as long as Alabama under Bear Bryant – though the program is currently making a push under Nick Saban, who has four national titles in the last seven seasons.

Honorable Mention: 2008-Current

  • Head Coach: Nick Saban
  • Record: 98-12 (.891)
  • Conference championships: 4
  • National championships: 4

Arkansas – 1959-65

  • Head Coach: Frank Broyles
  • Record: 60-16-1 (.779)
  • Conference championships: 4 (SWC)
  • National championships: 1

Three decades before the Razorbacks left the Southwest Conference for the SEC, the program put together its greatest stretch of success under is best coach. Over a seven-year period, Frank Broyles led the Hogs to six top 10 finishes, four SWC titles and a share of the 1964 national championship.

Honorable Mention: 1985-89

  • Head Coach: Ken Hatfield
  • Record: 48-13 (.787)
  • Conference championships: 2 (SWC)
  • National championships: 0

Auburn – 1982-89

  • Head Coach: Pat Dye
  • Record: 76-19-2 (.784)
  • Conference championships: 4
  • National championships: 0

The Auburn Tigers won national championships in both 1957 and 2010, but the program was at its most consistent under head coach Pat Dye in the 1980s. Freshman Bo Jackson helped Auburn snap a nine-game losing streak to archrival Alabama in 1982, and won the Heisman Trophy three years later. The 1983 Tigers remain one of the greatest teams never to win a national title, and Dye led Auburn to half of the program’s eight all-time SEC titles in just an eight-year period (including three in a row from 1987-89). The Tigers also made it to nine consecutive bowl games, which remains a school record.

Honorable Mention: 1957-72

  • Head Coach: Shug Jordan
  • Record: 135-45-3 (.738)
  • Conference championships: 1
  • National championships: 1

Florida – 1990-2001

  • Head Coach: Steve Spurrier
  • Record: 122-27-1 (.817)
  • Conference championships: 6
  • National championships: 1

Long a sleeping giant, the Florida football program had modest success in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, but became a national power in the 1990s when former Gators quarterback (and 1966 Heisman Trophy winner) Steve Spurrier returned to Gainesville as head coach. Utilizing the pass-heavy Fun ‘n’ Gun offense that turned the conference on its ear, Spurrier and Florida won six conference titles and brought home the first national championship in program history in 1996. Quarterback Danny Wuerffel also brought home the school’s second Heisman that same year.

Florida won nine or more games and finished ranked No. 13 or higher in the AP poll in each of Spurrier’s 12 seasons on the sidelines, and the Head Ball Coach also led the Gators to the first 10-, 11- and 12-win seasons in school history.

Honorable Mention: 2005-09

  • Head Coach: Urban Meyer
  • Record: 57-10 (.851)
  • Conference championships: 2
  • National championships: 2

Georgia – 1975-88

  • Head Coach: Vince Dooley
  • Record: 122-40-5(.731)
  • Conference championships: 4
  • National championships: 1

The greatest stretch in Georgia football history occurred when 1982 Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker led the Bulldogs to a 33-3 record and three SEC titles from 1980-82, including a perfect 12-0 national championship-winning campaign in 1980. But the entire final 14 seasons of Vince Dooley’s 25 years as head coach were very strong. The Bulldogs spent time ranked in the Top 20 each year over that period and finished ranked in the top 10 five times.

Honorable Mention: 2001-15

  • Head Coach: Mark Richt
  • Record: 145-51 (.740)
  • Conference championships: 2
  • National championships: 0

Kentucky – 1946-53

  • Head Coach: Bear Bryant
  • Record: 60-23-6 (.674)
  • Conference championships: 1
  • National championships: 0

The Kentucky Wildcats never have been a football powerhouse. The program has only won two conference championships, has finished ranked in the top 10 of the final AP poll only twice, and has one 10-win season and one 11-win campaign to its credit. However, Kentucky did employ one of the greatest coaches in college football history from 1946-53, and not surprisingly, enjoyed its greatest success during that time.

Bear Bryant led the Wildcats to the first four bowl games ever for the program, as well a string of five straight seasons in which the team finished ranked in the Top 20. Kentucky has finished ranked in back-to-back seasons only once more (1976-77). In 1950, Kentucky finished 11-1 and won its first SEC championship and beat Oklahoma 13-7 in the Sugar Bowl.

Honorable Mention: 2006-09

  • Head Coach: Rich Brooks
  • Record: 30-22 (.577)
  • Conference championships: 0
  • National championships: 0

LSU – 2001-13

  • Head Coach: Nick Saban (2001-04), Les Miles (2005-13)
  • Record: 162-44 (.786)
  • Conference championships: 3
  • National championships: 2

LSU hired Nick Saban away from Michigan State prior to the 2000 season in hopes that he could turn around a program that had recorded just three winning seasons in its last 12 years. It took three seasons for the move to pay off with a national championship, which was the first in Baton Rouge since 1958. Saban left for the NFL following the 2004 season, but Les Miles helped bring both stability and high-level success the program had been missing since the days of Paul Dietzel and Charlie McClendon.

Under Miles, the Tigers won the 2007 BCS national championship and played for it all again in 2011, but lost to Saban and Alabama. LSU won 10 or more games in seven of Miles’ first nine seasons with the program and earned a top 10 final ranking six times from 2005-11.

Honorable Mention: 1958-73

  • Head Coach: Paul Dietzel (1958-61), Charlie McClendon (1962-73)
  • Record: 124-39-6 (.734)
  • Conference championships: 3
  • National championships: 1

Mississippi State – 2010-Present

  • Head Coach: Dan Mullen
  • Record: 50-28 (.641)
  • Conference championships: 0
  • National championships: 0

Mississippi State made a home run hire prior to the 2009 season when it lured Florida offensive coordinator Dan Mullen to Starkville to become the new head coach of the Bulldogs. MSU had put together just one winning season since 2000, but Mullen quickly turned the Bulldogs into a dangerous squad that notched a school-record six (and counting) consecutive bowl game appearances.

In 2014, State climbed up to the No. 1 spot in the AP poll and the College Football Playoff rankings, and won 10 games for just the third time in school history. A nine-win season in 2015, Dak Prescott’s final season, has kept Mississippi State’s golden era going, and there’s plenty of time for Mullen to lead the Bulldogs to even greater accomplishments in the future.

Honorable Mention: 1940-46

  • Head Coach: Allyn McKeen
  • Record: 46-10-2 (.793)
  • Conference championships: 1
  • National championships: 0

Missouri – 1960-69

  • Head Coach: Dan Devine
  • Record: 78-23-6 (.729)
  • Conference championships: 2 (Big 8)
  • National championships: 0

Missouri has never consistently competed for national championships in football. The program was at its most competitive in the 1960s when head coach Dan Devine led the Tigers to four top 10 finishes and two Big 8 titles, which are the last two conference titles in program history.

Prior to Devine’s arrival in Columbia, Mizzou had finished in the top 10 of the AP poll only twice (1939 and 1941), and had never been ranked No. 1. The 1960 squad was the first in school history to climb to the top of the poll following a 9-0 start, and might have been crowned national champions if not for a 23-7 loss to Kansas in the season finale that was later reversed due to the Jayhawks using an ineligible player. Devine also led the Tigers to the first four bowl victories in school history following losses in each of the program’s first seven postseason appearances. The Tigers were 4-1 in bowl games from 1960-69.

Honorable Mention: 2007-14

  • Head Coach: Gary Pinkel
  • Record: 76-31 (.710)
  • Conference championships: 0
  • National championships: 0

Ole Miss – 1952-63

  • Head Coach: Johnny Vaught
  • Record: 153-40-10 (.754)
  • Conference championships: 5
  • National championships: 3

Few SEC programs have been as consistently great as the Ole Miss Rebels were from under head coach Johnny Vaught. For more than three full decades, Vaught kept Ole Miss in the national spotlight. From 1952-63, the Rebels were an annual national championship contender, won 10 games four times, captured five SEC titles and earned a share of three national championships. Ole Miss was also a top 10 team nine times over that period, including a finish in the top seven of the AP poll each year from 1959-63.

Honorable Mention: 1965-71

  • Head Coach: Johnny Vaught (1965-70), Billy Kinnard (1972)
  • Record: 53-23-2 (.679)
  • Conference championships: 0
  • National championships: 0

South Carolina – 2005-14

  • Head Coach: Steve Spurrier
  • Record: 84-45 (.651)
  • Conference championships: 0
  • National championships: 0

The best of the best era in South Carolina football history came during the 2010-13 seasons in which the Gamecocks posted a 42-11 record, won 11 games three times and finished in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 each year from 2011-13. But the first 10 seasons of the 10.5-year Steve Spurrier era are worth mentioning.

The second coach to oversee the golden era of two SEC football programs, Spurrier returned to college football following a two-year stint in the NFL, and took the Gamecocks to heights previously unseen in Columbia. Frankly, it’s not even close. Though the Gamecocks won the 1969 ACC championship, won 10 games in 1984 and finished ranked in the AP Top 25 in back-to-back seasons under Lou Holtz in 2000-01, you have to go back to 1928-33 to find a stretch in which the Gamecocks posted six winning seasons in a row.

Honorable Mention: 1928-33

  • Head Coach: Billy Laval
  • Record: 39-26-6 (.592)
  • Conference championships: 1
  • National championships: 0

Tennessee – 1926-40

  • Head Coach: Robert Neyland (1926-34, ’36-40), W.H. Britton (1935)
  • Record: 123-17-8 (.831)
  • Conference championships: 5
  • National championships: 2

Tennessee was a dominant 61-2-5 as a member of the Southern Conference from 1926-32 (winning a share of two league titles and building a school record 33-game unbeaten streak during that span), and then rose to national prominence in the late 1930s in the early years of the SEC. From 1938-40, General Robert Neyland led the Vols to a 31-2 record, three straight SEC championships, and a share of the ’38 and ’40 national titles.

Honorable Mention: 1995-2004

  • Head Coach: Phillip Fulmer
  • Record: 101-25 (.802)
  • Conference championships: 2
  • National championships: 1

Texas A&M – 1917-27

  • Head Coach: Dana Bible (1917, ’19-27), Tubby Graves (1918)
  • Record: 73-16-8 (.753)
  • Conference championships: 7 (SWC)
  • National championships: 2

Texas A&M didn’t win a consensus national championship in football until 1939, but the Aggies earned national title consideration for their performances in 1919 and 1927 under head coach Dana Bible. In Bible’s first season in College Station in 1917, A&M was undefeated, untied, and didn’t allow a single point, and helped the program capture the first of five Southwest Conference championships under his direction.

Honorable Mention: 1991-98

  • Head Coach: R.C. Slocum
  • Record: 77-21-1 (.778)
  • Conference championships: 4 (3 SWC, 1 Big 12)
  • National championships: 0

Vanderbilt – 1921-34

  • Head Coach: Dan McGugin
  • Record: 93-27-8 (.727)
  • Conference championships: 2 (Southern)
  • National championships: 0

It’s easy for many of today’s fans to overlook the fact that Vanderbilt was one of the first southern powers in college football. Former Michigan player and assistant coach Dan McGugin oversaw the most successful era ever for the Commodores, and compiled a 197-55-19 record across 29 seasons (only one of which was a losing campaign). He led Vanderbilt to two Southern Conference championships (1922-23) in two stints at the school, and led the Commodores into the SEC.

Honorable Mention: 1904-16

  • Head Coach: Dan McGugin
  • Record: 90-21-5 (.776)
  • Conference championships: 0 (Though Vandy was technically an independent, the Commodores claim 8 SIAA titles)
  • National championships: 0