Depending on when you’re reading this, the SEC might already be on the midst of its best opening weekend ever.

Like, if you’re reading this on Friday morning, my guess is that Tennessee didn’t fall as a 5-touchdown favorite to a Bowling Green team that hasn’t beaten a Power 5 team since 2015. If that happens, no, the SEC cannot claim it had the best opening weekend ever.

What would be the best opening weekend ever for the SEC? Well, I’m glad you asked.

It certainly wasn’t 2019 when Tennessee was stunned by Georgia State, though the Vols weren’t the only SEC team to lay an egg in Week 1. Mizzou lost at Wyoming, Ole Miss lost to Memphis and South Carolina lost to UNC in Mack Brown’s first game back in Chapel Hill. Excluding the Georgia-Vanderbilt game, the SEC went 8-4. Only one of those wins (Auburn vs. Oregon) came against a preseason Top 25 team, too.

You’d have to go back further to find the SEC’s best opening weekend ever. Fortunately for you, I did just that.

You had to go all the way back to … 2018. Yep. That’s it.

Don’t get it twisted. I’ll explain later why I went back to 1992, but for now, let’s look closer at the opening weekend the SEC had 3 short years ago.

In Week 1 of 2018, the SEC:

  • Was 13-1
  • Won 2 games vs. top-10 teams
  • Had 0 losses to non-Power 5 teams

Don’t underestimate the impact of those non-Power 5 losses. Nobody pats the SEC on the back when Tennessee loses to Georgia State. Dodging those early bullets is key.

In 2018, those 2 top-10 wins were the Auburn-Washington matchup in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game on Saturday afternoon, and the LSU beatdown of Miami that Sunday night in Jerry World. Non-Alabama teams did the damage, too. Speaking of the Tide, Tua Tagovailoa got his first career start and dazzled in a blowout win against Louisville in Orlando.

Also key to the 2018 argument? You didn’t have any embarrassing losses, either. The SEC didn’t have a single game vs. a non-Power 5 team decided by single digits. The SEC’s lone loss was Tennessee in its first game of the Jeremy Pruitt era, and it came via a preseason Top 25 West Virginia squad that had Will Grier. The Vols were double-digit dogs in Charlotte, so nobody should’ve really counted that as a significant demerit against the SEC.

I say that because to find an answer to this question about the SEC’s best opening weekend ever, you need to go back to when Arkansas and South Carolina joined the league in 1992 (14 teams compared to 10 is a different argument). And honestly, you might not even need to go back that far.

Why? Big opening weekend matchups weren’t really a thing in the SEC during the 1990s.

The 1997 season was the only time that the league had an undefeated opening weekend since it expanded to 12 teams in 1992. So why isn’t 1997 the SEC’s best opening weekend ever? Well, of those 12 wins, only 2 came against what would be considered Power 5 teams at the time (Louisville was in Conference-USA so that negates Kentucky’s win). Shoutout to Peyton Manning’s 1997 Tennessee squad, which pummeled Texas Tech. Also, shoutout to Takeo Spikes’ 1997 Auburn squad, which took care of Virginia in the opener.

Going 12-0 didn’t really put the college football world on notice. At least it shouldn’t have. The SEC didn’t face a single Top 25 team to kick off the 1997 season.

After it expanded to 12 teams, the SEC didn’t win a single game vs. a top-10 team on opening weekend until Tennessee beat Marshawn Lynch’s No. 9 Cal squad in 2006. The league also didn’t have a single opening weekend with multiple Top 25 wins until 2014.

(The SEC’s record for Top 25 wins in opening weekend was 3 in 2016, but that was also a 6-6 opening weekend with 3 losses to non-Power 5 teams. Definitely not in the running for “best opening weekend ever.”)

So yeah, on the surface, it might come off as recency bias. But in 2018, the SEC had 5 matchups against Power 5 competition on opening weekend. In 2021, that number will only be 4, but 2 of those matchups are against preseason top-15 teams. The best-case scenario for the SEC could absolutely still threaten 2018.

Here’s what that hypothetical would look like if the SEC, who is favored in all but 1 matchup, were to sweep the field this weekend:

SEC opening weekends
2018
2021 (best-case scenario)
Record
13-1
14-0
Wins vs. Power 5
4
4
Wins vs. AP Top 25
2
2
Wins vs. AP Top 10
2
1

It probably hurts the case for 2021 that Alabama would be one of the SEC teams beating a Top 25 foe in that best-case scenario.

Maybe the ultimate trump card for 2021 would be a 14-0 opening weekend with Georgia beating Clemson by multiple scores. You could make the case that beating Clemson at all would be more impressive than LSU’s blowout against No. 8 Miami or Auburn’s nail-biter win against No. 6 Washington.

Or rather, 14-0 might do enough of the SEC’s flexing. There’d be no shortage of that in the event that the SEC does indeed run the table.

The odds are against that, though this should still be one of the league’s best opening weekends ever. Checking all 3 of these boxes would at least put 2021 in the running:

  • 1 or 0 losses
  • At least 1 Top 25 win
  • 0 non-Power 5 losses

Only 3 times (1998, 2009 and 2018) did the SEC accomplish all of those things on the same opening weekend. In 2009, Georgia’s loss in a true road game against No. 9 Oklahoma State was the lone blemish. And in 1998, the SEC’s only loss was No. 19 Virginia shutting out Auburn 19-0 in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Both of those years only had 1 Top 25 win apiece, though.

Hence, why 2018 is in a class of its own. Perhaps 2021 can join the discussion.

If it does, the anti-SEC crowd might want to stay off the internet for a few days.