1. There will be a two-loss SEC Champion
Out of the 27 Power Five conference championship games in the six-year College Football Playoff era – the Big 12 didn’t have a title game in the first three years – Oregon beating Utah in last year’s Pac-12 Championship and Ohio State beating Wisconsin in the 2017 Big Ten Championship were the only two times a multi-loss team effectively knocked a one-loss or unbeaten team out of the College Football Playoff.
Even then, neither of those two were shockers.
The SEC championships haven’t exactly gone chalk, but 2007 was the last time a team with more than one loss won the conference title, and LSU went on to win the national title.
2005 Georgia, 2001 LSU, 2000 Florida, 1999 Alabama, and 1993 Florida are the only other teams with multiple regular season losses to win the SEC Championship in the 28-year title game era, and 2014 Alabama was the only conference champ in the last eight years to not play for the national title.
Long opening short, there hasn’t been anything all that stunning in the SEC Championship for a long, long time, and we’re way overdue for a major upset or a team with two regular season losses to win the thing.
Just assume that one of the two teams in the SEC title game will have one loss or be unbeaten.
[lawrence-related id=506815]
Unless something stunning happens, it’ll almost certainly be Florida or Georgia representing the East. However, Florida has to play LSU and Georgia, and Georgia has to go to Alabama and deal with Auburn and the Gators.
Throw in any sort of wrench into the mix – like last year’s South Carolina win over Georgia, or 2018’s Missouri win over Florida – and the East champ could certainly end up with two losses. And if it doesn’t …
Alabama starts out with USC and gets Georgia, at LSU, and dates with tough Texas A&M and Auburn teams. Auburn has to go on the road to Georgia and Bama. LSU deals with Texas, at Florida, Alabama, at Auburn, at Texas A&M. The Aggies go to Auburn and Alabama, and …
There are a whole lot of opportunities for whatever team that comes out of the West to have two losses.
It’s been 14 years for a multi-loss SEC champion. We’re way overdue, and then the College Football Playoff committee will have a blast of a call to make.
[protected-iframe id=”361699434b6d70baf15f631ed2408ac1-97672683-92922408″ info=”https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js” ]