Yesterday marked the final SEC championship game…
Between East and West division winners. Don’t worry, there’s too much money at stake for Greg Sankey to terminate the big game in Atlanta. But starting in 2024, when the SEC morphs into a 16-team super conference with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas, the SEC championship game will match the two teams with the best conference records. I can’t wait to see how tiebreakers are worked out in the inevitable season that four to five teams finish tied for first or second place. But that’s in the future. Today we celebrate the end of an era in the SEC: East vs West.
Let’s look at the first 32 years of the SEC championship game pitting East and West division winners by highlighting dramatic division races, historic division winners, and records that encapsulate the battle between East vs West.
1992: Florida wins East tiebreaker over Georgia and plays undefeated West champion Alabama
There’s no other way to start than with the inaugural SEC football championship game played, not in Atlanta, but in Birmingham, Alabama. Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer’s risky idea to take advantage of an NCAA rule created for Division III football (a conference needs at least 12 teams to play a conference championship game) was the most sport-altering move made in college football until NIL a few years ago. Florida started 1-2 in SEC play. Tennessee and Mississippi State destroyed the Gators by a combined 61-20. Steve Spurrier’s team stopped the bleeding and won 5-straight conference games, including a 2-point victory over No. 7 Georgia. The Gators and Bulldogs both finished 6-2, tied for first in the East, but Florida represented the division in the first SEC championship because of its head-to-head win over Georgia. Alabama needed a late interception to hold off the Gators and win the SEC Championship. The Tide went on to beat Miami and win the National Championship.
1992 – 1996: Florida wins East five straight years; Alabama wins four of five West titles
Florida, led by the legendary Steve Spurrier, dominated the SEC East for most of the 90s. The Gators won the East division in the first five years of division play and played Alabama in four out of five games, winning four in a row from 1993 to 1996. Florida’s East dominance didn’t end until Tennessee signed a QB with a famous last name (Peyton Manning) and won the SEC East in 1997 and 1998 (Tee Martin quarterbacked the 98 Vols).
2001: Tennessee beats No. 2 Florida in regular-season finale to win East
The Florida-Tennessee game is usually played in mid-September. However, when tragedy struck our nation on 9/11/2001, all college football games scheduled the following weekend were postponed, meaning this key SEC rivalry would become a regular season finale for one year. It was a Top 5 matchup in the swamp that did not disappoint. Tennessee squeaked out a 34-32 win over the No. 2 Gators when Florida’s two-point attempt to tie the game with a little over a minute left fell short. The Vols took the mantle as the new No. 2 heading into the SEC championship against three-loss LSU, a team it had already beaten in the regular season. But LSU was also coached by future GOAT, Nick Saban. Saban had his team prepared for revenge and the Tigers upset Tennessee 31-20, ending the SEC’s national championship hopes. This was the first SEC championship game where the winner knocked the loser out of the national championship picture
2003: Georgia wins three-way East tiebreaker; LSU survives Ole Miss to win West
The 2003 season was a significant college football season because of how it ended. Nick Saban won his first national championship (LSU’s first since 1958), but he shared it with AP No. 1 USC. The results of 2003 were the first to give playoff pushers real ammo. As for the SEC championship race, Georgia, having played in its first SEC Championship in 2002, needed a Florida State win over Florida in the swamp to secure a second-straight trip to Atlanta. Wait, Florida State isn’t in the SEC (yet?). The Gators, Bulldogs, and Vols finished tied atop the division at 6-2. Georgia beat Tennessee; Tennessee beat Florida; Florida beat Georgia. The next tiebreaker to decide the division winner was the BCS standings. No. 11 Florida losing to the No. 9 Seminoles guaranteed that Georgia wouldn’t be passed by the Gators in the BCS standings leading up to the SEC Championship. LSU beat Eli Manning and Ole Miss 17-14 to secure the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Rebels to represent the West in Atlanta. This is the closest the Rebels got to winning the SEC West. No. 3 LSU went on to beat No. 5 Georgia in dominating fashion, and for the second time that season, on its way to a BCS National Championship.
2009: First SEC championship game between 8-0 division winners
Hard to believe it took 18 years for the SEC championship game to match up with undefeated East and West division winners. No. 1 Florida, led by Urban Myer and Tim Tebow, played No. 2 Alabama in Atlanta. Both 12-0 and 8-0 in conference play. It was the second straight year that the two teams would play in a de facto playoff game where the winner would go on to play for the BCS championship. The Crimson Tide made Tim Tebow cry by crushing his Gators 32-13 and advancing to play Texas for a national championship, which it won. This year marked the second 8-0 vs 8-0 SEC championship game. Alabama made Georgia fans cry by crushing the Bulldogs’ dreams of winning a third-straight national championship and ending its SEC-record 29-game win streak.
2013: Auburn Wins West on Kick-Six
Auburn epitomized a “team of destiny” in 2013. The only thing it missed was winning the final BCS national championship over Florida State. But it was a team of destiny in the SEC, no less. A week after beating Georgia in the “Prayer at Jordan-Hare,” the Tigers defeated their hated in-state rivals, No. 1 Alabama, on a kick return for a touchdown off a missed 57-yard field goal as time expired. The win sent Auburn to Atlanta and ended two-time defending national champion Alabama’s quest for a three-peat.
2022: LSU knocks Alabama out of playoff race to win the West
There was less division drama from 2014 – 2021. Mississippi State and Alabama played in a winner-takes-the-West game in 2014. In 2017, Auburn dominated No. 1 Alabama at home to earn a rematch with Georgia in Atlanta, but the Tide got the last laugh by making the playoff and winning the national championship. Kentucky had a shot to win its first East crown if it beat Georgia at home in 2018. It didn’t. Last year’s West race was more shocking than dramatic. Alabama was a heavy preseason favorite to win the SEC and national championship after falling short to Georgia in 2021. Heisman-winner Bryce Young was still leading the loaded Tide offense. Alabama had only missed the college football playoff once in its nine-year existence. LSU was in a two-year slump after winning it all with Joe Burrow in 2019 and had Brian Kelly as its new head coach. Alabama traveled to LSU in 2022 and lost a 32-31 thriller in OT when Kelly opted to go for two instead of forcing double OT, and QB Jayden Daniels (future Heisman winner?) completed a two-point pass to tight tend Mason Taylor for the win. LSU’s upset win was a flash in the pan as it lost to a seven-loss Texas A&M before losing 50-30 to eventual national champion Georgia in the SEC championship. But the Tigers won the West and kept one of Saban’s most talented Alabama teams out of the CFP.
10: Alabama and Florida played in 10 SEC championship games
Alabama vs Florida holds the record for the most common matchup in SEC championship history. The Tide hold a 6-4 advantage over the Gators. The second most common matchup is Georgia vs LSU at five.
7: The SEC championship game was a regular season rematch seven times
Rematches in conference championship games are inevitable, even when conferences are bloated with 14 or more schools. Regular season rematches in the SEC championship occurred in 1999 (Alabama-Florida), 2000 (Auburn-Florida), 2001 (LSU-Tennessee), 2003 (Georgia-LSU), 2004 (Auburn-Tennessee), 2010 (Auburn-South Carolina), and 2017 (Auburn-Georgia). They say it’s hard to beat a team twice. Not in this case. The regular season winner in SEC championship rematches is 5-2. The 2017 rematch between Auburn and Georgia in Atlanta is the first and only SEC championship rematch between East-West crossover rivals.
19-13: The West division has won the most SEC championship games
The SEC championship swinging towards the West occurred around the time Nick Saban began his Alabama dynasty. The East was 11-6 in SEC championship games before 2009 – Alabama’s first SEC championship under Saban. The East has only won two SEC championships since then, both by Georgia (2017 and 2022).
10 of 14: 10 of the current 14 SEC teams have played in the SEC championship game
Kentucky, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt will go down as the only teams to never win an SEC division title. Ole Miss is the only of the four to tie for a division crown but lose out on Atlanta due to tiebreakers. Alabama played in the most SEC championship games at 15, followed by Florida (13) and Georgia (11).
