Urban Meyer declares SEC dominance of college football 'is over'

As Florida‘s head football coach from 2005-2010, Urban Meyer played a pivotal part in the SEC’s rise to national prominence throughout the BCS era.

Now, the FOX Sports analyst and former Ohio State head coach is declaring the SEC’s reign atop the college football world “over” after Notre Dame dispatched league champion Georgia 23-10 in Thursday’s Sugar Bowl College Football Playoff national quarterfinal.

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“The question is, is the SEC’s dominance over? It is. It’s over,” Meyer said in Saturday’s The Triple Option podcast. “Now next year’s another year. But for (at least the last) two years, it’s over.”

It’s a bold statement from someone of Meyer’s pedigree and experience.

But given the disappointing results from the SEC this season, including an 8-6 postseason record that began with Ohio State‘s 42-17 drubbing of Tennessee in their first round College Football Playoff game Dec. 21, it’s difficult to argue Meyer is off-base. The Vols’ loss was soon followed by bowl wins from Illinois (defensive No. 15 South Carolina 21-17 in the Citrus Bowl), Michigan (defeated No. 11 Alabama 19-13 in the ReliaQuest Bowl), and USC (defeated Texas A&M 35-31 in the Las Vegas Bowl) out of the Big Ten, as well as Navy (defeated Oklahoma 21-20 in the Armed Forces Bowl) to further bury the SEC’s 2024 season.

“The reality is, let’s go back to the visual eye test to what happened (between Georgia and Notre Dame), and the (question is) ‘Is the SEC run over?’ It is. And you can simply watch it (in the game Thursday),” Meyer added. “Next year’s a different year, but … for 2023 and 2024, (SEC teams were) non-factors. You’ve got Texas in it right now, but are we really calling Texas a blueblood of the SEC in its first year? And they’re an underdog against Ohio State.”

Fifth-seeded Texas is the SEC’s lone remaining team still standing among three that made the 12-team College Football Playoff field, but is a 5.5-point underdog in Friday night’s Cotton Bowl national semifinal against eighth-seeded Ohio State (12-2) at 7:30 pm ET (ESPN) from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The SEC has accounted for 13 of the last 18 national championships since Meyer’s Gators won it in 2006, which began a streak of seven straight BCS national titles before Florida State upended the streak in 2013. Beginning with Meyer’s Ohio State winning it all in 2014, the first season of the College Football Playoff, the SEC won six of the next eight CFP championships, with only Clemson‘s 2016 and 2018 victories breaking up the league’s reign of dominance before Michigan claimed the CFP crown last season.

“I was part of the SEC bandwagon as well. I coached in that conference and top to bottom, it wasn’t even close when I got to the Big Ten in 2012. Even (my wife) Shelley, who watched the games, said, ‘What is this? … The speed on the field doesn’t even look the same.’ And it wasn’t,” Meyer said. “You can say what you want, in 2012, the Big Ten was not a good conference, relative to the SEC. Not even close.

“I think what’s happened is there’s been some additions – obviously Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC – but also people have really committed in the Big Ten. The upper echelon Big Ten Conference schools have really jumped on recruiting, you saw the Wolverines last year were one of the most dominant programs of the last decade,” Meyer concluded. “The Buckeyes have the best roster, I don’t think it’s close, in college football. Penn State that’s really put together a hell of a team. And then you have Illinois beating South Carolina, think about that. … There’s a good argument now (for the Big Ten).”