Paul Finebaum expresses concern in SEC for poor finish to season, College Football Playoff

Even the Mouth of the South himself had to acknowledge how the Southeastern Conference ended this season.

While on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning’ on Monday, Paul Finebaum was candid about the results this year in the SEC. He said you just have to be honest with yourself when realizing those finishes for the teams in the league as a collective.

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“The one thing I think you can accurately say is what we’ve just witnessed,” said Finebaum. “I mean, I cringe every time I see a pundit say, ‘Well, the SEC’s not dead.'”

“Let me give you the overall numbers for the year. I don’t care about what happened in September and October. What I care about right now is the way the SEC has finished the season and it has finished the season badly,” Finebaum stated. “I think we have to be honest and admit it.”

That starts with only three teams from the SEC making it into the College Football Playoff when as many as nine, but realistically around seven, had their chances to be in the field over the final month of the fall. Then, once in the playoff, two were eliminated immediately with one falling in the first round, one in the quarterfinals, and their final berth losing in the semifinals.

“Ohio State beat two SEC schools. I mean, let’s just use what we’ve seen with our own eyes to tell the story. Notre Dame beat Georgia, which was a lot of people’s pick, including mine, at the beginning of the season, with Ohio State, to get to Atlanta,” Finebaum noted.

With that, Ohio State and Notre Dame, two of the biggest brands in the north, will play for the national title. Had it not been the Fighting Irish, it would have then been even worse for the SEC with a championship featuring two teams from their conference rival in the Big Ten

“I think the next week will be a very long one for the SEC,” said Finebaum. “It could have been worse. If Penn State had pulled that out, it would have been – the pain would have metastasized.”

This is after a run where one team in the league at the time played in the title game, whether in the CFP or BCS, in 17 of the last 22 years going back to 2003. That span included three matchups of only teams in the SEC and included appearances as well as 14 combined championships for Alabama (6), Auburn (1), Florida (2), Georgia (2), and LSU (3).

Now, the Southeastern Conference won’t even play for it all for the second consecutive year.

“Right now, accept it. The SEC is at home for the first time in nearly 20 years on a back-to-back national championship basis,” said Finebaum. “That doesn’t mean that we aren’t any good and I think we get hung up on that. I think everybody listening to us this morning, in Alabama and around the country, know how good the SEC is but what you do in the playoff defines you…Just ask anybody who has never won the title and that’s what we’re going through right now.”

The SEC is not going anywhere as a conference with multiple programs that can continue to contend or could start to in the near future. For now, though, it’ll be another rough offseason for those in the league considering what they didn’t accomplish again in 2024.

“I think you just have to, sometimes, when it doesn’t go your way? This sounds like I’m teaching a high school class here – just accept it and move on,” Finebaum said. “Quit tilting at windmills and just accept that fact that the ending was bad for the SEC.”