Ad Disclosure
O’Gara: The SEC guide to watching a College Football Playoff National Championship without the SEC
It’s weird. I know.
Watching a national championship without the SEC is like jumping into a pool without a bathing suit. It’s extremely noteworthy when it happens, but above all else, it’s just weird.
If you’re of a certain age, you might remember plenty of national championships without an SEC team. Shoot, from 1999-2005, we only had 1 SEC Championship participant. Then, of course, we had 7 consecutive years of SEC teams winning it all and from 2006-23 we had more title games with multiple SEC teams (3) than we had with 0 SEC teams (2).
Chances are, you’re still going to want an SEC perspective heading into Monday night’s SEC-less matchup between Michigan and Washington. Maybe it’s a note about a player that’ll impress your buddies, or perhaps it’s unnecessary commentary that’ll reinforce to your significant other that you consume an absurd amount of college football content.
Whatever the case, I’ve got you.
Just promise me that when you see something from this SEC guide to watching the national championship, you’ll do the Leonard DiCaprio GIF from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” where you get out of your chair and point at the TV.
Good? Cool. Here’s your SEC guide for Monday night:
Michael Penix Jr. had his Tennessee scholarship pulled from Tennessee at the 11th hour
This is well-documented. I’m not breaking any news by saying that Jeremy Pruitt pulled Penix’s scholarship offer just ahead of the Early Signing Period after he took over in 2018. Pruitt watched Adrian Martinez flip to Nebraska while he signed … JT Shrout. No disrespect to Shrout, but he’ll have a comfortable seat to watch Penix battle for college football immortality.
Same for Pruitt.
How old is Penix? He got his Tennessee offer in the summer of 2016, and he eventually committed to Tennessee at a time when Butch Jones was coming off a successful 2016 season. But after Pruitt took over, an offer 1 1/2 years old was no good. Penix was forced to pivot at the last minute instead of playing in the state where his dad was a running back at Tennessee Tech. Fortunately for him, Indiana coach Tom Allen and his Tampa ties prevented the undersized Penix from being left without a Power 5 home.
The rest is history. Well, there was also the 3 season-ending injuries at Indiana, the debate over whether he’d quit football before transferring to Washington to reunite with former Indiana OC Kalen DeBoer with 2 years of eligibility remaining, winning the starting job in 2022 and becoming the Heisman Trophy runner-up with his team 1 win from a national title in 2023.
There’s no doubt that Penix dodged a massive bullet by having Pruitt turn him down.
If you think the Penix-Tennessee sliding doors are interesting, what about Ryan Grubb turning down Nick Saban?
It can’t be easy to say “no” to Saban. That’s what Grubb did in the offseason when he was pursued to become Alabama’s next offensive coordinator. That decision could have wildly changed the outcome of the 2023 season. We don’t necessarily know that Grubb would’ve gelled with Jalen Milroe in the same way that he did with a pure passer like Penix, who blossomed in that offense in 2022. For all we know, maybe Ty Simpson would’ve won the starting job.
We do know that eventual Alabama OC Tommy Rees had early struggles with the quarterback room. It couldn’t have been worse in that first part of the season. What if Alabama hadn’t lost to Texas? Would that have opened the door for Georgia or Florida State to make the Playoff? And would the Tide have been able to unlock that passing game in a Playoff scenario? Heck, what about Washington in 2023?
Grubb’s decision to turn down Alabama played a major role in Washington getting to this place. It’ll go down as the most pivotal non-move of an assistant in 2023.
If you thought Dillon Johnson had an awkward exit from the Sugar Bowl, it was nothing compared to his exit from Mississippi State last year
Johnson has become a star for the Huskies, which was why his injury late in the Sugar Bowl was a devastating blow both in the short- and long term. In the short term, it meant the clock stopped and Texas got extra time to put together that last drive that nearly led to a game-winning touchdown. In the long term, it appeared that Johnson would be out for significant time, but the coaching staff said that the tailback is expected to play.
Thirteen months ago, Johnson had an even more awkward exit. The Mississippi State running back entered the transfer portal and delivered a parting shot at Mike Leach.
“With that being said, since I am not very tough, and Leach is glad I am leaving, I will be entering my name into the transfer portal with the hopes of finding a more fit playing environment for me.”
Five days later, Leach died of a massive heart attack. Eeek.
To be fair, Johnson did release a statement after Leach’s death wherein he acknowledged their different opinions and that he loved the late Mississippi State coach:
I know we had our different opinions on things, and I know we didn’t see eye to eye on things but we are family and sometimes familys have disagreements it’s apart life, I’m Sorry this happened to you Coach Leach I love you bro keep swinging that sword my guy ❤️?
— Dillon Johnson (@Dill_7k) December 13, 2022
That was the preamble to what turned out to be a fantastic junior season. Johnson has 14 rushing scores and has become the unquestioned feature back of that Washington offense, which runs the ball with a higher rate of success than some might realize (4.4 yards/carry, 28 rushing TDs this year).
His status could have a major say in Monday night’s result.
Rome Odunze was in a Florida uniform … sort of
OK, so Odunze obviously never committed to the Gators. If he did, you would’ve had plenty of reminders of that throughout the season.
He did, however, go on an unofficial visit 5 years ago and take all of those recruiting photos:
Blessed to receive an offer from The University of Florida!! ?? pic.twitter.com/kJRyBVjf7i
— Rome Odunze (@RomeOdunze) April 21, 2019
Odunze had a national recruitment as a star at Bishop Gorman (Nev.), and he signed with Washington as a 4-star recruit in the 2020 class. Would he have saved Dan Mullen’s job at the end of the 2021 season when the Gators failed to replace major pieces in the passing game? Probably not. Odunze didn’t really break out until he played in Washington’s high-volume passing offense that we saw once DeBoer and Grubb took over in 2022. He’s the rare modern case of a guy who stuck with a commitment and stayed at the same school after a coaching change.
It worked out just fine for the All-American wideout.
It’s weird to think that the next QB to start a game for this Washington offense will (probably) be Will Rogers
If it worked for the aforementioned Johnson, who’s to say that another Leach skill-player can’t find success at Washington? The hope for Washington is that Rogers can step into a high-volume passing offense and look like the guy who was climbing up the all-time SEC record books instead of the guy who struggled in his transition to a more pro-style offense in the post-Leach era under OC Kevin Barbay.
Longtime backup/former UW starter Dylan Morris is in the transfer portal, yet he’s still Penix’s backup. In other words, the expectation is that he’ll use his final year of eligibility elsewhere while Rogers will have a clear path to be QB1 in his final year of eligibility at Washington. Top 2023 signee Austin Mack will be a redshirt freshman, and he’ll have an extra year in the system. But Mack reclassified to 2023, so technically, he should be a senior in high school. Washington’s quarterback of the future will get to learn behind another veteran in Rogers.
Win or lose on Monday night, the way-too-early Top 25 rankings will likely have Washington as a top-10 team with Rogers tabbed as the guy to keep the Huskies’ ship afloat in a post-Penix world.
Welcome to college football in the portal era.
Michigan’s elite defense is led by a former Clark Lea assistant at Vanderbilt
If you can believe it, Jesse Minter was the defensive coordinator for Vandy in 2021. Like, when the Dores ranked No. 119 in FBS in scoring and No. 120 in yards/play allowed.
Yeah, that doesn’t exactly scream “about to become one of the best assistants in America.” So how did Jim Harbaugh know that Minter was primed for success? He spent 4 years with his brother on the defensive staff of the Baltimore Ravens. That’s where 2021 Michigan DC Mike Macdonald went. Obviously. Minter was hired in February 2022, and to say that the move was smart would be an understatement.
Michigan was No. 7 in scoring last year, and it improved by nearly a touchdown per game in 2023. The Minter-led Wolverines defense ranks in the top 10 in FBS in all of these categories:
- No. 1 in scoring
- No. 1 in yards/game allowed
- No. 1 in opposing red-zone TDs allowed
- No. 2 in passing yards/game allowed
- No. 2 in opposing red-zone scoring percentage
- No. 2 in opposing scrimmage plays of 20 yards allowed
- No. 3 in opposing QB rating
- No. 4 in yards/play allowed
- No. 5 in yards/pass allowed
- No. 7 in yards/rush allowed
- No. 9 in rushing yards/game allowed
You get it. Michigan’s defense is elite, and not just because it has talent and experience. Minter’s scheme gave Alabama problems for the majority of that Rose Bowl. To think that a defensive coordinator from Lea’s Year 1 staff is the most important assistant in a national championship game is hard to process.
Oh, and Georgia fans, please don’t ____________.
“Assume that UGA would’ve dominated both of these teams.”
Look. I’ll be the first to admit that the Dawgs got incredibly unlucky for losing the 1 game they couldn’t afford to lose in the 1 year that they couldn’t afford to lose it and keep national championship hopes alive. I hear that.
What I don’t want to hear on Monday night is Georgia fans assuming that they would’ve had the upper hand at every turn of this matchup, regardless of how it plays out. As much as I respect the unbiased opinions of UGA fans, the reality is that nothing about that loss to Alabama was flukey. Seeing the Tide be the inferior team against Michigan should quiet the notion that Georgia would’ve dominated the Wolverines as they did 2 years ago in the Orange Bowl. Both teams are significantly different.
I love UGA fans and have plenty in my life. I’ll probably be texting with several of them on Monday night.
But if at any point those conversations turn into “we would’ve destroyed both of these teams,” it’ll be an automatic eye-roll emoji from me. Watch this game and treat it for what it is.
That is, a pair of 14-0 teams that did everything they had to to get on this stage.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.