Alabama and SEC Fans, Enjoy This Championship Like It's Your Last

Many SEC diehards have pointed to the conference’s stellar three-straight national titles as proof of dominance.

The SEC has also had bowl dominance over weaker conferences, better athletes, and better coaches to brag about for some time now.

Whether it was Tim Tebow, JaMarcus Russell, or Mark Ingram leading the chorus, the song was always the same.  

I have been trumpeting the demise of the current stretch of SEC dominance all season long. Not because I want to see it happen. Quite the contrary. I am one of those diehard SEC guys, albeit a sensible one.

I’m not the rah-rah guy who says, “Put USC in the SEC, and they’ll lose four games.” Or my personal favorite, “If they played an SEC schedule, Texas wouldn’t even be bowl-eligible.”

I laugh at those people. I call them crazy.

I have never understood why SEC fans pull for all the SEC teams in bowl games every year either. The bowl games are nothing but meaningless exhibitions and defeating a Big Ten or ACC team really doesn’t carry the same weight that it used to.

However, when it comes to the national title game, even I have to pull for my conference.

Which is what makes this national title game bittersweet.

I see this one as being the last in a decade of dominance.

In ’03 Nick Saban led LSU to the BCS Promised Land. Florida won it all in '06. In ’07, it was LSU again, this time under Les Miles. In ’08, it was Florida yet again. Finally, in ’09, it will be Alabama.

Not to say that Texas does not stand a chance; it’s simply my prediction for Alabama to win it all as I have maintained since August.

That means the SEC would finish with five BCS national titles from 2000-2009. The next closest conference this decade is the Big 12, with Oklahoma in ’00 and Texas in ’05.

That’s conference dominance, folks. 

Of course, if you want to count runners-up, the SEC has not been to a championship game this decade and lost. This marks the seventh championship game the Big 12 has been involved in. They have won two.

The Big Ten won a national title with Ohio State in ’02 and played for two more in ’06 and ’07, also with Ohio State losing to SEC schools.

Another title was won by then-Big East participant Miami in ‘01, who also lost the one in ’02 to Ohio State.

The Pac-10 and USC had a couple of national championships this decade, but only one BCS title.

The ACC was represented in the ’00 season when Oklahoma defeated Florida State for its lone title shot of the decade.

Oklahoma has played in the BCS title game the most, however, winning it once in four tries.

OK, thanks for the history lesson. Now what does it have to do with SEC dominance going the way of the dinosaur?

Let's look back at the 1990s for a minute.

The Big 8/Big 12 owned the decade of the 90s. Mostly in the form of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, national champions in '94, '95, and '97. The Big 8/Big 12 earned four titles. Colorado won the other title in 1990.

I know championships were different in those days with split national titles, but there were consensus champions in those days, and Nebraska and Colorado happened to take the cake.

Florida State won two titles in '93 and '99. Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee won the title in '92, '96, and '98, respectively.

Michigan split the title with Nebraska in '97. Miami won it in '91, and Georgia Tech shared it with Colorado in '90.

The point is, college football is cyclical. No conference, whether they have the greatest athletes, coaches, or big wins, can sustain overwhelming success for more than a decade at a time.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but no team in organized sports has dominated the entire landscape for longer than a decade (other than UCLA basketball from the mid-'60s thru mid-'70s).

Just ask Nebraska.

After dominating the college football landscape with the blackshirts on defense and option football on offense in the '90s, the 'Huskers seemingly fell off the map after appearing in the '01 BCS National Championship game.

After playing for four titles and winning three in the '90s, Nebraska played in one national title game from 2000-2009.

Success is fleeting.

What are some other indicators?

For starters, the SEC's top team of the last 20 years, Florida, is undergoing a stark, drastic change for 2010. Tim Tebow is no longer running the show in Gainesville. Urban Meyer apparently does not know what he wants. 

Georgia, another recently successful program, had what they consider a terrible year in '09 and will be grooming a brand new quarterback in 2010. 

Tennessee is a question mark at best.  

Everyone points to South Carolina as being the most talented team, but I will not believe it can win the East until I see it happen.

Kentucky and Vanderbilt will stay right where they are for the foreseeable future.

Alabama is easily the SEC's best shot at continuing any sort of championship streak. But even that is not likely as the defense that has carried the Tide to Pasadena loses all but two starters in 2010.

LSU is on the verge of becoming irrelevant, in my opinion. As long as "The Hat" continues his boneheaded ways, I can't see LSU being the standard-bearer for the SEC.

Ole Miss has Houston Nutt.

Mississippi State will never be better than middle-tier in the SEC West.

Arkansas has a nice nucleus coming back, but long-term success is not in the bloodline for the Razorbacks.

Auburn is a question mark at best.

Not to mention the SEC has been a top-heavy conference for most of this stretch. The middle of the SEC has been a jumbled mess for the last two seasons and was muddied even more this season.

All of this paints a clear picture to me. That we SEC fans had better enjoy this Alabama championship, because we are not going to see an SEC National Championship winner for at least three or four more years.

Could the SEC have a team play for the title? Absolutely.

But the days of winning it all five times in five tries are over for now.

Which conference will benefit?

My prediction is the Big Ten.

As great as the SEC has been over the past half-decade, the Big Ten has been almost equally as bad.

Given the cyclical nature of things, the Big Ten stands just as ready as any conference to reap the benefits of conference dominance for the next few years.

I know the most diehard of SEC fans do not want to hear, see, or recognize this. I didn't want to admit it myself. But the law of averages has to take over at some point.

It might as well be now.