To some, college football’s conference championship games need to become a relic of the past, like single-bar facemasks or players being true amateurs.
Remember that version of college football?
The College Football Playoff is taking up more and more of the air in the room — at least the air not reserved for bombast over Lane Kiffin’s move from Ole Miss to LSU. The playoff went from four teams to 12 in 2024, may expand to 14 or 16 teams in January, and there are reports the Big Ten wants it to grow to 24 to 28 teams.
That said, when the first Saturday in December comes ‘round, it’s the SEC championship game — the original conference championship game started way back in 1992, the grandaddy of them all in that realm — that still takes center stage.
OK, maybe not quite center stage on this first Saturday in December. There is that little tussle up in Indianapolis on Saturday night when No. 1 Ohio State squares off with No. 2 Indiana (still can’t believe I’m typing that) for the Big Ten championship.
But this game in Atlanta between CFP No. 3 Georgia (11-1) and No. 9 Alabama (10-2) is still mighty important. Not just for the playoff implications but for the prize.
They’re playing for the S-E-C championship, and when it comes to conference titles, it is still the toughest one to win.
“You start the season — and this is the best conference in college football — and to be playing in this game, I tell our guys they earned this,” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said. “This is what our program's been built on, is winning championships. It starts with an SEC championship.”
No teams in SEC history have won more conference championships than these two schools: Alabama with 30, Georgia with 15. In fact, stack up their 45 trophies and it’s only a slightly smaller pile than the rest of the SEC combined with 51 (LSU ranks fourth with 12).
Yes, everyone wants to make it into the CFP, and that is the overriding goal. But if you don’t think Kiffin and Krewe at LSU aren’t making this game a goal as well, you don’t know Trinidad Chambliss from former Atlanta Braves hitter Chris Chambliss.
“It's been a great honor to play in” the SEC title game, Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I mean, to win SEC championships are one of the hardest things to do. You look how elusive they've been, how few programs have been able to win them across the SEC.”
Winning SEC titles hasn’t been that hard for Georgia under Smart; they’ve done it three times, including last year’s dramatic 22-19 overtime victory against a Texas team making its maiden conference voyage.
Winning against Alabama has been hard. For all of its success under Smart — 116 total victories, those three SEC titles and two national championships — beating Alabama has been exceedingly rare. Smart's Dawgs are only 1-7 against the Crimson Tide.
Yes, you can say he was 1-5 against Nick Saban’s Alabama teams. Join the club. But his teams are also 0-2 against DeBoer’s Bammers, including a 24-21 loss on Sept. 27 in Athens in which Georgia never led.
Georgia is also 0-4 against Alabama in this game. Three of the four have been decided by a touchdown or less, but that doesn’t make the stone wall the Bulldogs have been bashing themselves against any less hard.
Smart downplayed the advantages/disadvantages of a rematch from the regular season.
“Both teams have the same tape,” he said. “Both teams have a common thread that we played each other. I think sometimes coaches overdo it, overthink it. I just think it boils down to who blocks, who tackles, who prepares the best, who mentally prepares the best, who handles it the best.”
When the season began, Alabama looked like anything but a championship contender. The Crimson Tide was left crimson with embarrassment after getting run off the field 31-17 by a Florida State team that went 2-10 in 2024 — and would wind up 5-7 this season. DeBoer’s bunch looked soft, and his rail was being prepared for him to be run out of Tuscaloosa on.
But Bama bounced back. The Tide went 4-1 against ranked teams — losing somewhat inexplicably 23-21 to an Oklahoma team it outgained 406-212. Only a blowout loss to Georgia, which appears unlikely, is likely to keep Alabama out of the CFP.
“All of our experiences that have shaped what this team is, how we've come through, only make us believe even more, give us that much more confidence,” DeBoer said.
There was a distraction earlier in the week that DeBoer was being sized up for the Penn State job, though that search ended Friday with the announcement of Iowa State coach Matt Campbell to the Nittany Lions. DeBoer doesn't want to be the first Alabama coach to lose to Georgia in this particular game.
That’s because it’s for the SEC championship.
“I believe there still is validity” in this game, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said.
You’d better believe it.
