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Paul Finebaum: SEC has a lot going for it entering 2025 despite being overtaken by Big Ten

Matt Connollyby:Matt Connolly•about 16 hours•

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Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

It’s safe to say that the SEC is no longer at the top of the college football world. For the second consecutive year, there wasn’t an SEC team in the national championship game. And for the second straight year, a Big Ten team won the national title.

ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum reacted to Ohio State winning another national title for the Big Ten Tuesday morning on Get Up. Finebaum acknowledges that the Big Ten has overtaken the SEC, but he does feel like the SEC still has a lot going for it.

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“You have to say the Big Ten owns the sport right now,” Paul Finebaum said. “There’s no scraping that away, no matter how much you wanna try to qualify or stipulate about where the SEC is when it doesn’t appear in the national championship game two consecutive years. There’s no other way to look at it.”

The SEC did get Texas, Tennessee and Georgia into the College Football Playoff and had multiple teams on the bubble who came up just short. But those three schools who made the playoff went just 2-3 in CFP games.

Tennessee lost to Ohio State in the first round, with Georgia falling to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals after receiving a bye. Texas advanced all the way to the semifinals of the CFP, before losing to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl to eliminate the SEC from national title contention.

Finebaum is interested to see how the SEC bounces back in 2025 and believes that there are some teams capable of making some noise. He mentioned Texas in particular, with Arch Manning at quarterback, as a team that is capable of making some noise.

“It’s not like the SEC wasn’t viable,” he said. “Ohio State beat Tennessee at home. They beat Texas in Texas. Notre Dame beat Georgia, the team that began the season as No. 1. So the SEC has a lot going for it.

“It has Arch Manning coming back for Texas. Don’t forget, Texas opens the season at Ohio State. We may very well have a 1 vs. 2 matchup on the first weekend of the sport.”