According to a Sports Business Journal study in 2009, six Southern football programs-Alabama, LSU, Florida, Georgia, Auburn, and South Carolina-were among the top 11 producers in football revenue in the nation. This year, SEC stadiums have been jammed to nearly 95 percent capacity, tops in the country. Auburn is the lifeblood of SEC football, a manifestation of Whitman's "barbaric yawp" that has survived into the 21st century. To the veteran college football writer Dan Jenkins, those are "words that belong almost exclusively to the vernacular of college football." The enthusiasm generated by match-ups like Georgia vs. Southern teams are inspired by two of college football's key intangibles-tradition and rivalry. "Pudge" Heffelfinger, Walter Camp's first ever All-America selection back in the 1890s, wrote, "Southern football players play with a reckless abandon, a wild fanaticism that's rarely found in players from other parts of the nation." That's a generalization, of course. In his 1954 memoir, This Was Football, my favorite football historian, W.W. The reasons for this unequalled dominance aren't clear. In three of those seasons, two SEC teams were voted No. 1, and SEC teams were picked for the top spot in at least one poll for 34 years out of 65. Before the BCS was established in 1998, numerous different polls voted for their own No. What most don't know is that this isn't a recent phenomenon. Rivalries are the lifeblood of the SEC, and unlike in other parts of the country, college football in the South has little competition from other sports.Įvery college football fan is aware of the SEC's dominance. Should the SEC champ take down the Irish, the conference will have won the national crown for the seventh straight year and eight of the last 10.
The winner will then meet Notre Dame on January 7 for the national title. With Alabama's 49-0 victory over Auburn last Saturday and Georgia's 42-10 devastation of Georgia Tech, the stage is set for the two 11-1 powerhouses to play for the Southeastern Conference championship tomorrow in Atlanta. But the story of the decade-in fact, the story of the last decade and every decade dating back to its first season in 1933-is the supremacy of the Southeastern Conference. Without question, Notre Dame's return to the spotlight is the story of the year in college football.
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