Four.

That’s how many current SEC head coaches held their respective titles at this time three years ago. Just four coaches (Nick Saban, Derek Mason, Mark Stoops and Gus Malzahn) have been able to ride out the storm that tore threw the SEC the last few years.

Perhaps the eye of the storm was the last month, during which five SEC programs made new hires. To say that the conference has a new identity would be an understatement. Malzahn, who is wrapping up his fifth year at Auburn, is the second-longest tenured SEC coach behind Saban.

We’re now over a year removed from elder statesmen such as Les Miles, Mark Richt and Steve Spurrier leaving the SEC. Watching once-promising, up-and-coming coaches Jim McElwain, Bret Bielema, Butch Jones and Kevin Sumlin get fired within a month of each other probably led some to ask a pressing question:

Is the SEC just spinning its wheels with these coaches? Or, after all the curbside Christmas tree photos and spray-painted rocks, did the conference really get better with the new blood it brought in?

It’s an interesting discussion that doesn’t have a definitive answer today. We can break down fits and résumés all we want, but until we see each coach at his respective school, all we can do is project.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

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The SEC has been a punching bag for some, like new Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos, who claim that the conference “eats their young” when it comes to head coaching. Given the aforementioned turnover in recent weeks and recent years, that’s not a crazy statement.

But for SEC programs to do something as drastic as “eating their young” (his words, not mine), they have to have a reason. As in, they see what a new hire can do for their program.

The current example of that is Georgia, which fired Mark Richt after he recorded double-digit wins in the majority of his 15 seasons in Athens. The Dawgs rolled the dice and went all in with Kirby Smart. In Year 2, Smart is already adding national coach of the year and SEC Championship trophies to his office. He’s two wins away from leading Georgia to its first national title in nearly four decades.

So yeah, coaching can change a lot of things in a hurry.

Speaking of Smart, he’s in position to become the fourth SEC coach to play for a national championship. He would join Saban, Malzahn and the newly-hired Jimbo Fisher in that club.

How many other conferences would be able to claim four head coaches with national championship experience? Well, none. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Pac-12: 1 (Chip Kelly)
  • B1G: 1 (Urban Meyer)
  • ACC: 1 (Dabo Swinney)
  • Big 12: 0

Adding someone like Fisher immediately adds to the SEC’s pedigree of coaches, without question. The SEC West now has three coaches with title-game experience, which is as much as the rest of the Power 5 conferences combined. That’s crazy.

Fisher and Malzahn are making at least $7 million per season, which certainly adds to the credibility and even the longevity of SEC coaches. Mullen’s $6 million per year at Florida certainly puts him in that conversation, as well. Having an established coach at one of the premier programs in the country only supports the argument that the conference improved.

The bigger question is whether Chad Morris, Joe Moorhead and Jeremy Pruitt can elevate the bars their predecessors set. None of them were what would be considered “splashy” hires. As I’ve said many times, that really doesn’t matter. What does matter is if they can be more than spin-the-wheel coaches.

Interestingly, all three will make less than their predecessors. They are, of course, not as experienced. That won’t change the high expectations they’ll face.

Will Morris’s offensive-minded teams be able to consistently win 7-8 games per season, unlike Bielema? Will Moorhead make himself at home in a region he has no ties to and at least live up to the Mullen standard? Will Pruitt lead Tennessee to wins against top-10 teams and get the Vols a division title or two?

Those are all legitimate questions.

There are, however, two things that the SEC as a whole has working in its favor in terms of coaches.

Credit: Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports

For starters, nobody made a Herm Edwards hire.

With all due respect to Edwards, who will have plenty of chances to prove us all wrong, Arizona State’s hiring of him is bizarre. Few people outside of the program looked at that as a legitimate upgrade. We were too busy scratching our heads and explaining to Edwards that jerseys are made differently than they were 20 years ago.

Not a single SEC hire was a head-scratcher. We tend to fall in love with new hires — newer is always better — but there really wasn’t that one dumbfounding decision made by an athletic director. That’s a win.

The other win for the SEC is that there are no more lame-duck coaches.

With the most recent SEC coaching purge, it feels like all of the lame-duck coaches are out of town. Are there long-term questions about Barry Odom, Mason and Stoops? Of course. But I wouldn’t expect to see them on any hot seat list to start the season. They probably fall into the “barring an epic disaster” category of coaches entering 2018.

But then again, it’s the SEC. Every coach always feels like they’re one disastrous season away from getting canned. Shoot, Ed Orgeron felt like he was one more loss away from getting canned early in his first season without the interim tag. Ask any current SEC coach about the pressure-cooker nature of the conference, and they’ll tell you it just comes with the territory.

Whether you agree with it or not, the desire for so many SEC programs to make head coaching changes all goes back to one common belief. The stadiums are too big and the money to gain is too great to accept failed expectations. That all goes back to coaching.

Were any titles won with the new wave of SEC coaches? Contrary to what some of their introductory press conferences felt like, no national championships were won yet. There’s still a mountain to climb. But are multiple SEC programs in better shape to climb that mountain than they were a month ago? Absolutely.

They just had to kick their coaches to the curb like Fisher’s Christmas tree.