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Despite the same two teams winning the SEC Championship in 10 of the past 12 years, Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin believes a new era is upon us. Earlier this week, he told ESPN’s Mark Schlabach that SEC dynasties are dead.
While Kiffin may be right in his assertion, the data isn’t there quite yet to back up his claim as either Georgia of Alabama have won the SEC every season dating back to 2012 aside from 2019 (LSU) and 2013 (Auburn). But things are about to change!
Lane Kiffin: ‘SEC Dynasties Are Over”
Kiffin has proven himself to be one of the best coaches in the SEC. The Ole Miss Rebels rank 3rd in yards/game this season, they were 1st last year, and 3rd in both 2023 and 2022. He has molded the Ole Miss Football program into one of the most high octane offenses in recent SEC history.
Lane Kiffin has done that despite Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) opportunities and transfer portal freedom upending the traditional ways of College Football. Now the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is set to add a 9th conference game to team’s schedules beginning in 2026.
It is that latter reason why Kiffin believes dynasties are dead for the foreseeable future.
Speaking with ESPN’s Mark Schlabach earlier this week, he said “in my opinion, the dynasties are over. Alabama with Coach Saban and then Kirby at Georgia, where they had those rosters year in, year out and there would be a bunch of wins by 30 points in the conference, those days are done.”
Lane Kiffin went on to add “when I was at Alabama, they’d be like, ‘Go watch the outside linebackers,’ and there’s six of them over there that are first-round picks.” He continued “that’s not going to happen anymore because if they don’t play, then they’re going to leave. They can’t keep them all anymore.”
The 9th SEC conference game is being added to juice revenue among the programs. This will, of course, be good for their finances but it will likely hurt their College Football Playoffs chances.
‘The Conference Has Never Been This Balanced’
With the current state of the SEC, Kiffin believes more losses are inevitable with another conference game. He told ESPN “you’re going to have really good teams going 8-4 because we’re going to play nine conference teams, including five on the road. The conference has never been this balanced, and it never used to have Texas and Oklahoma, two top-10 teams and two of the hardest places in the country to play.”
Lane kept going. He said “my concern for the programs and for the coaches is that fans aren’t going to be able to get used to the numbers being different, the wins and losses. If you’re a program that’s used to being a nine- or 10-win team and you go 7-5, your fans are going to think the team is terrible and the coach is terrible. But you might have lost four road games at Georgia, Florida, LSU and Alabama.”
His point is valid. Going undefeated in the SEC is arguably tougher than winning a National Championship in any given year. Add in another game and the days of programs losing 1 game in 3 seasons might be gone forever.
His proposed solution to the potential higher loss rates in the SEC is proposing that the College Football Playoffs Selection Committee place more weight on the quality of opponents and quality of wins. That will 100% happen. There will be no scenario where the SEC is treated harshly by the Selection Committee.
What do you think, are SEC dynasties dead with a 9th conference game beginning in 2026? Let us know in the Facebook comments!