Booger McFarland owns up to belief that years of SEC dominance are 'over with'

Former LSU standout Booger McFarland joined the Pardon My Take podcast and answered a number of college football questions, not the least of which was whether the SEC’s run of dominance is over.

Well, not just that, but whether he was ready to make an apology for the conference.

The SEC has long touted its dominance over the rest of the sport, going back almost two decades based on its success at the top level. That reign at the top appears to be in question now.

There are no SEC teams in this year’s national championship game, and the league had some confounding results in the College Football Playoff. Tennessee lost, Georgia lost and then Texas lost. Worse, some of the SEC teams that decried the final rankings, claiming they should have been in the playoffs, lost in their bowl games.

“Yeah, I mean, listen. I’m not going to apologize for a conference that’s dominated college football,” Booger McFarland said. “What I will say is this: I think the years and the ages where the SEC and to a certain extent the ACC with Clemson dominate college football is over with.”

Booger McFarland provided a relatively simple explanation, too.l

“You look no further than the transfer portal and NIL, because no longer can these teams in the south stack their rosters,” McFarland said. “Because I’m not going to wait two years to play when I can go to Penn State or Oregon or Michigan and I can play right now, I can play right now, and they’ll pay me 250 grand. So that’s just never, ever going to end.”

Can the SEC recapture its dominance? That remains to be seen.

At least Booger McFarland figures that might be more difficult than most people expect at this point. It was a special period for a long time, but there were some unique circumstances that led to the dominance.

“And think about this. Look no further than the No. 1 recruit in America this year, Bryce Underwood,” Booger McFarland, an LSU alumnus, said. “Bryce Underwood was committed to LSU for 10 months. At the very end, here comes (Larry) Ellison, here comes (Dave) Portnoy, here comes (Tom) Brady, and all this money comes in and now he comes to Michigan.

“Five years ago that doesn’t happen, but now it happens. I just think we’ve reached a point where there’s going to be a lot more parity in college football.”