The Southeastern Conference has produced nine of the past 12 Football Bowl Subdivision national champions. On Monday, of course, the league will give the nation its 10th king of the mountain in 13 years when Georgia and Alabama meet in Atlanta in the College Football Playoff final.

No doubt, the SEC is where it’s at — in recruiting rankings, in having its own highly profitable network, and in postseason dominance.

And its path to getting here is fascinating.

Northeastern schools (mostly Ivy League) gave birth to the sport in the late 1800s, and graduates from those schools spread the new passion far and wide. Since then, schools from the East, Midwest, Southwest and West have all taken turns at the top. It’s hard to believe now, but Southern football was not taken seriously in the days when the great-grandfathers of today’s blue-chippers might have played.

Still, it’s worth noting that SEC schools are on the very, very long list of national champions as far back as 1908. The National Championship Foundation retroactively chose LSU as the top team for that season (it’s also worth noting that even LSU doesn’t recognize this title). That was also 25 years before the SEC even formed.

With that in mind, this trip through history will reveal 10 games (well, technically 11) that made the SEC the juggernaut that it is today. The first one is from the pre-SEC days but carries historic importance:

Alabama 20, Washington 19, Jan. 1, 1926

The Crimson Tide won in their first attempt at the Rose Bowl when The Granddaddy of Them All was simply East vs. West rather than Big Ten vs. Pac-12 (or a CFP semifinal, such as this year). But for the Deep South as a whole … well, as the saying goes, it just meant more. Quite simply, this game put southern football on the map for good, seven years before the SEC formed.

According to the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, Alabama was the fourth choice as the eastern representative and was selected only after Dartmouth, Yale and Colgate turned down bids to go to Pasadena, Calif. Alabama, in its third season under coach Wallace Wade, shocked the Huskies as Johnny Mack Brown caught a pass for a touchdown and ran for another. Brown went on to gain even more fame in southern California as a movie star with more than 160 film credits.

Tennessee 7, Auburn 0, Dec. 9, 1939

Little is certain in college football, but this is a pretty safe bet: The 1939 Tennessee Volunteers will stand forever as the last team not to allow a point in the regular season. Through 10 games, coach Robert Neyland’s Vols allowed the same number of points per game as Bluto Blutarsky’s grade-point average: Zero. Point. Zero. Tennessee scored 214 points on its way to a share of the SEC title (the Vols and Georgia Tech were 6-0 in the league and fifth-ranked Tulane was 5-0).

The shutout against the Tigers was the 15th in a row for the Vols dating to the 1938 season. But the Vols fell 14-0 to USC in the Rose Bowl. Here’s the weird part: Though the 1938 and 1940 UT teams claimed national championships in multiple services, the 1939 bunch did not — in an era when titles were decided before bowl games. Zero points allowed, but zero services crowned these Vols.

Georgia 9, UCLA 0, Jan. 1, 1943

Georgia’s only appearance in the Rose Bowl until last week. The Bulldogs were denied the national championship in the Associated Press poll — that honor went to Ohio State after Auburn upset Georgia on Nov. 21, knocking the Bulldogs out of the top spot — but some other national services at the time named Georgia as national champions.

More important, this game was the victory lap for Frank Sinkwich, who weeks earlier was voted the first Heisman Trophy winner from an SEC school. The only SEC schools to have won the Rose Bowl are Alabama (four times) and Georgia (twice).

Tennessee 35, Vanderbilt 27, Dec. 1, 1951

Voters in the AP poll spent most of 1951 toggling back and forth between Tennessee and Michigan State as the No. 1 team. The Vols took over for good after their 46-21 victory at Ole Miss on Nov. 17, then cemented their spot by defeating No. 9 Kentucky 28-0. But the title nearly slipped away in the finale against the Commodores.

As the Knoxville News Sentinel recounted, Tennessee took a 21-0 lead in Nashville but Vandy came roaring back to make it 21-20 and only trailed because of a missed extra point. The teams traded touchdowns but Andy Kozar’s score as the clock wound down clinched it for UT. After league teams had racked up five second-place finishes, the AP crowned an SEC team as national champion for the first time.

LSU 7, Mississippi 3, Oct. 31, 1959

The Tigers came into this game ranked atop the AP poll and the Rebels were third. Both defenses were stifling: LSU had allowed six total points in six games coming in and Ole Miss, also 6-0, had surrendered seven points all season. So it was fitting that the Rebels led 3-0 in the fourth quarter when they punted. It was a fine punt … which became perhaps the most iconic play in Tigers history:

The nation took notice of this SEC showdown and Billy Cannon became the runaway Heisman Trophy winner. But LSU lost to Tennessee the following week and unbeaten Syracuse went on to be crowned consensus national champions. Ole Miss and LSU played a rematch in the Sugar Bowl. Round 2 was a bit of a dud as the Rebels won 21-0 (a regular-season rematch resulting in a 21-0 postseason loss … sound familiar, LSU fans?). Ole Miss finished No. 2 in both the AP and coaches’ polls, with LSU third. Still, that Halloween meeting became one of the most famous games in college football lore.

Mississippi 28, Kentucky 13, Sept. 30, 1967

Neither team was headed for much glory in 1967, especially not a Kentucky team that wound up 2-8. But the Wildcats made a critical piece of history in this game as Nate Northington became the first African-American to play a football game for an SEC school. The sophomore defensive back joined Greg Page (who died from a neck injury in preseason practice), Wilbur Hackett and Houston Hogg as the first four black football players at the school. Today, a statue of the four stands at UK’s Commonwealth Stadium.

Change came slowly in the conference, and for the first few years its schools signed a small percentage of black players, but by the late 1970s all programs were integrated and the SEC’s days of losing some of the most talented players in its backyard, usually to northern schools, had ended. It’s no coincidence that the league ended a 14-year drought without a consensus national title in 1979 when Alabama topped the AP and UPI polls (Bama had three split national titles between 1965 and 1978).

Alabama 28, Florida 21, Dec. 5, 1992

The SEC became the first league to put on a conference title game. All the conference did on this day was show every conference in the country how to generate more revenue, how to give more meaning to the regular season by having two division winners, and how to earn undivided attention. It didn’t hurt that this game matched the SEC’s biggest brand name, Alabama, against an ascending Florida program that went on to give the Crimson Tide — and the nation — a run for its money for the next two decades. Antonio Langham sealed a place in Alabama legend with the winning interception return for a touchdown.

The Tide went on to knock off No. 1 Miami, the defending AP national champion, with a rousing 34-13 victory in the Sugar Bowl to earn the national championship. More to the point, this was the year the SEC grabbed its spot atop college football for the next quarter of a century. From the first AP poll in 1936 to 1991, SEC schools earned a national title in one of the two major polls in 10 seasons. Beginning in 1992 — an era in which the BCS then the CFP rendered other polls moot — the league has earned 12 titles and is already assured of making it 13 this season.

Florida 34, Arkansas 3, Dec. 2, 1995

This is the least competitive game on this list, and even rabid Gators fans might not remember that much about it. But Arkansas made a statement by even getting to this game. The Razorbacks left their longtime home, the Southwest Conference, for admission to the SEC starting with the 1992 season, joining as a new member along with South Carolina.

After three shaky seasons, Arkansas won the SEC West in 1995 behind Madre Hill, who set a school record (since broken) with 1,387 rushing yards. And in retrospect, Arkansas’ departure helped set the wheels in motion for the eventual collapse of the SWC, which at one time was a true power in college football. Arkansas had been in the SWC since World War I, but this, combined with the basketball team’s 1994 national title, showed that the Razorbacks very much made the right move. So did the SEC.

Florida 20, Texas A&M 17; Georgia 41, Missouri 20; Sept. 8, 2012

An oddity of the SEC is that none of the four most recent programs brought aboard — Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas A&M — has won a conference title in football. But those schools have combined for six appearances in the league title game while expanding the SEC’s footprint and its recruiting base. The two newest members, A&M and Mizzou, played their first games against their new conference opponents on the same day in 2012. Both newcomers lost, but the details of these games matter little now.

What matters is that from Dallas to St. Louis and from Little Rock to Myrtle Beach, it’s all wide-open for television and for recruiting. Other leagues expanded as well, but the SEC has best taken advantage of its larger base — just witness what’s happening in Texas. There is no question that a large number of recruits who might not have even considered SEC schools 25 years ago are now flocking to those 14 programs.

Georgia vs. Alabama, Jan. 8, 2018

Yes, the LSU-Alabama rematch in the BCS national title game to cap the 2011 season was significant. It marked the first time rivals from the same conference met in the championship game. But Monday’s game is even bigger. Why? Because both participants had to slog their way through CFP semifinals to get there. And they knocked off the top two teams in the final CFP rankings — Georgia over No. 2 Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl and Alabama over No. 1 Clemson in the Sugar Bowl.

Make no mistake, the SEC earned its way here and earned its way to another national title. Some folks might argue this point, but few of them live outside of Orlando. And there is no argument that the SEC has had some of college football’s most influential moments, with another on tap Monday night.