Nick Saban, Alberto Mendoza, and the SEC’s weakened grip on college football
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In 2021, Georgia and Alabama played each other for a national championship on the very field the Big Ten settles its conference — Lucas Oil Stadium. The Bulldogs won that day, launching the start of what would be a 2-ish-year dynastic run atop the sport. The Bulldogs repeated in 2022, thrashing TCU in one of the most lopsided bowl games ever to win the SEC its fourth consecutive national championship and its 13th overall title in 17 seasons.
Because Nick Saban was still at Alabama, and Kirby Smart was now at Georgia, and all the best talent in the sport still came from the Southeastern Conference footprint, many — including those outside the SEC — assumed the run was less a trend and more a new world order.
In 2023, the final year of the 4-team College Football Playoff, Alabama and Texas secured spots ahead of an unbeaten Florida State team. “SEC dominance-fueled SEC exceptionalism,” they cried. Of course, the Crimson Tide’s reputation helped them grab the fourth and final seed, though that doesn’t mean the reputation wasn’t earned.
But then Michigan beat Saban’s Crimson Tide in overtime at the Rose Bowl. And Washington outmaneuvered Texas in the Sugar Bowl. Michigan won the championship game in a rout, and the Big Ten claimed its first title since 2014.
A year later, Ohio State blitzed the inaugural 12-team field to win another championship for the conference.
A year later, hell froze over and the fighting Indiana Hoosiers won a national championship on the gridiron.
Three straight for the Big Ten.
Three straight title fights without a representative from the SEC.
It’s easy to point to the talent level as a reason why the SEC has lost its grip almost entirely on the sport. Anyone can pay anyone now. Players can go anywhere. They can transfer here for one year and transfer there the next. But the SEC was talented enough to produce a semifinalist in 2024 and another one in 2025. If Jack Sawyer doesn’t scoop and score a fumble late, might Texas have played Notre Dame for the title in 2024? Is the margin created by the transfer portal that slim? If Carson Beck doesn’t run in a touchdown to beat Ole Miss, the Rebels absolutely would have played Indiana for a title in 2025. Is the margin created by NIL that slim?
The smoothing of talent across the sport is a symptom behind Greg Sankey’s headache, not the disease that has neutered Sankey’s conference. At least, that’s what I’d argue. I think there are more interesting things at play that are fueling the symptom.
And those issues are more readily solvable by Sankey, his league, and his coaches. How can the SEC catch up to the Big Ten? I think 2 things have to be acknowledged. One: Brain drain across the league is very real. Two: The schedule is the problem.
The Big Ten is 10-7 against the SEC over the last 2 seasons. That includes an 8-2 mark in postseason games, when the leagues have clashed like-for-like. (Three of the 5 regular-season wins for the SEC have come over Wisconsin and UCLA, which aren’t exactly tentpole victories.)
Some of those results have been super high-visibility games. Ohio State beat Texas to open the 2025 season. USC beat LSU to open the 2024 season. Illinois beat South Carolina in a hot Citrus Bowl. Iowa beat Vanderbilt in a slug-it-out ReliaQuest Bowl.
Coaching tends to stand out.
Simply, the Big Ten has better coaches. And those coaches have better assistant staffs around them.
The bottom of the Big Ten isn’t beating the bottom of the SEC anytime soon. In 2025, that would have pit Purdue against Arkansas; SP+ would have favored Arkansas by 11.2 points on a neutral field. But the tops of the conferences are what they are and the middle of the Big Ten seems to have caught up.
Ryan Day, Dan Lanning, and Curt Cignetti are 3 of the top 5 coaches in the sport at the moment. Michigan had Jim Harbaugh several seasons ago and now employs Kyle Whittingham. Iowa has employed Kirk Ferentz since before the age of the automobile. Penn State had James Franklin; now it has Matt Campbell, who won nearly 60% of his games at Iowa State. Brett Bielema has won 19 games at Illinois in the last 2 years.
Kirby Smart is obviously a top-5 coach. Who else cracks the top 10? Steve Sarkisian? One could argue he’s comparable to Lincoln Riley. Kalen DeBoer? His star has been diminished in recent seasons. Lane Kiffin? Mike Elko? There’s an argument there, for certain.
The SEC has been hurt by some of its biggest brands whiffing on coaches. Florida, Auburn, and, yes, LSU, were all being managed by coaches who were outside their depth until recently. A proclivity for solving the coach problem with the largest wad of cash has been a bugaboo within the league, and that can’t be overlooked either. Oregon sought SEC lunacy (in the nicest possible way) when it hired Lanning. Cignetti was coaching at friggin’ James Madison. Texas A&M threw a bag at Jimbo Fisher, then LSU did the same with Brian Kelly, then Alabama did the same with Kalen DeBoer. Fit was or still is questionable for all 3.
I’d argue that, next to “culture fit,” the assistant staff is 1B for determining whether a head coach will be successful. Look at some of Saban’s Alabama staff when the Tide won their last title in 2020:
- Offensive coordinator: Steve Sarkisian, now the Texas HC
- Defensive coordinator: Pete Golding, now the Ole Miss HC
- Running backs coach: Charles Huff, now the Memphis HC
- Safeties coach: Charles Kelly, now the Jacksonville State HC
- Wide receivers coach: Holmon Wiggins, now the Texas A&M OC
- Offensive line coach: Kyle Flood, now the Texas OC
- Defensive backs coach: Karl Scott, now with the Seattle Seahawks
- Special teams coordinator: Jeff Banks, now the Texas AHC
Day is hiring former NFL head coaches to coordinate his offenses and defenses. Lanning has helped 2 offensive coordinators and 1 defensive coordinator land Power 4 head coaching jobs in his 4 years at Oregon. Harbaugh’s offensive coordinator became Michigan’s next head coach (we don’t need to discuss what happened after), and his defensive coordinator is now the Ravens’ head coach. (Another of Harbaugh’s former Michigan defensive coordinators, Mike Macdonald, just won the Super Bowl as the Seahawks’ head coach.) Penn State had a steady stream of former head coaches serve as DC under Franklin.
Outside of Georgia, no one is stacking blue-chippers on staff like the Big Ten in the SEC. After Alabama hired the Seahawks’ recently-dismissed offensive coordinator, Seattle immediately won a Super Bowl and Alabama produced one of its worst rushing seasons ever.
Now, to the second point.
The schedule.
The league claims its schedule is a gauntlet. Few can deny that claim. But what if that’s the problem? What if the 9-game slate and the weekly churn of powerhouse-versus-powerhouse games offer diminishing returns?
Let’s assume that the SEC does, in fact, play tougher games than other leagues every week. (I think this to be true, but just consider it objective fact for a moment, regardless.) A tougher game means more wear and tear on the first-team units that see the field. A tougher game means less opportunity for backups to get in the game. A tougher game means a longer grind. And playing that kind of game week after week after week puts your guys at a greater injury risk while simultaneously limiting your ability to cultivate depth behind them.
Backup Indiana quarterback Alberto Mendoza took regular-season snaps against 5 Big Ten teams. He played enough to score touchdowns in 3 of those games. Indiana was putting the second unit into a ton of games, even in league play. Part of that was quality. Part of that was scheduling.
Indiana missed Ohio State and Michigan during the regular season. Georgia played Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas, and Tennessee.
The SEC’s semifinalist in 2025 (Ole Miss) took a lead of more than 10 points into a fourth quarter against an SEC opponent only once. The SEC’s semifinalist in 2024 (Texas) did so in 3 of its 8 conference games. The SEC’s champion over the last 2 seasons (Georgia) did so in just 3 of its 17 total conference games.
With SEC teams unable to stack 5-star prospects throughout a 2-deep the way they used to when Saban was at the peak of his power, those top-line guys need to be fresh late in the season. That will become even more important if the sport’s powerbrokers continue to expand the CFP.
ESPN pays the SEC well for its inventory. The network wants elite games. While that model clearly serves the SEC’s athletic departments when it comes to year-end accounting, I’m not entirely sure it benefits their football programs on the actual field.
As Sankey gets more data points to inform how the 12-team field is going to be constructed, I imagine this will be one of the first topics of conversation within the league office. It’s also one of the lesser-discussed reasons why we’re seeing SEC teams cancel future games against out-of-conference teams.
SEC teams beat each other up for 2 months. The Big Ten doesn’t. And the Big Ten has won both 12-team playoffs we’ve had thus far. It’s not a stretch to connect those 2 dots.
So how does the SEC catch the Big Ten? Absent wholesale changes to the way the portal operates or the way NIL/rev-share money is legislated, acknowledging the misteps of recent years is a good place to start.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
