There’s never been a College Football Playoff without a representative from the Southeastern Conference and college football expert Phil Steele doesn’t see that changing in 2020.

In fact, Steele has his eyes on as many as four to five SEC teams contending for the national title in the coming college football season.

During a recent appearance on Birmingham-based WJOX 94.5 FM radio show “The Roundtable,” Steele was asked to share the league teams he views as national title contenders. While he wasn’t quite ready to put LSU in that group, Steele did rate the Tigers as just on the outside looking in when it comes to the national title conversation in 2020.

“My four would be, I’m going out on a limb here guys, I’m going to say Alabama’s a national title contender,” Steele said on the show. “Is that going on a limb too far? The other three I’m looking at, Georgia and Florida. I believe the winner of Georgia, Florida gets themselves in the SEC Championship Game. If you’re in the SEC Championship Game and you win that thing, you’re going to be in the Playoff, therefore Georgia and Florida are both national title contenders.

“And then I’m going to go out of the box a little bit and go Texas A&M. I think, you know, you look at last year’s A&M squad, they were a young team under Jimbo Fisher, they played a brutal schedule. They ended up facing three number one teams in the country last year. This year they’ve got 17 returning starters, typically head coaches hit their stride in the third year when they’ve got three recruiting classes under their belt, three years to get their systems in place.

“This is Texas A&M’s year and if you’re looking for, you know, a situation, much like LSU last year — remember LSU had a go in Alabama come out with a win to win the SEC like they did. A&M’s got to do the same thing, they’ve got to go into Alabama November 21 and come out with the win, but this A&M team clearly far superior to last year’s and a much better schedule. I rate their schedule number 66 in the country.

“So my four teams in the SEC I consider national title contenders: Bama and A&M out of the West and then Georgia and Florida out of the East.”

There you have it, according to Steele, the SEC’s best shot at another national championship comes from Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Texas A&M in 2020.