Sigh. We all knew this was coming.
Well, has college football has sold its soul for $1.7 billion?
I remember semi-hate-watching the the inaugural SECCG. “Semi” because I was pulling for my #2 team, the Tide. Hate for two reasons: 1) Florida was in it (duh), and 2) we were not because of Florida (and a tough loss to Tennessee at home).
Little did I know it would be 10 more years before I’d see our Dawgs in one, when we put it on Arkansas in Mark Richt ‘s second campaign, followed by another win in 2005 over LSU. Man,it was heady times…it looked like we were taking our rightful place amongst the elite.
The 2007 squad was the best team in the country at the end of the season but toting two losses, which was simply not allowed back then.
2011 brought a defeat at the hands of LSU. The next year, another SECCG appearance in the de facto national semifinal against Alabama for a pretty much sure-fire guaranteed natty chance against a grossly overrated Notre Dame…let’s not talk about that.
Then Kirby arrives:
Coach Smart has always emphasized the importance of winning the SEC, and has a pretty good shot at attempting a three-peat this season. While there is great debate whether playing in a conference championship game hinders the CFP natty run (it sure doesn’t seem to help), not having a clear-cut conference champion some years hearkens back to the bad old days of split championships determined off-the-field (1976 Georgia and Kentucky were co-champs even though we beat ’em, blecch).
Will you miss it, not miss it, or is it another nail in the coffin corner of your fandom?
I am honestly sad to see this go. But in the current format of CFB, with the 90 billion team playoff, it sadly doesn’t make sense any more. 🙁
-Muckbeast
You forgot to tell us how much Mike Bobo sucks muckbeast
Dammit Bobo.
I’ll really miss it. I’ve been to almost all of the ones Georgia was in. Damn that tennis tourney that made me miss the 2021 one. It certainly is a nail. As the true reason leaked out yesterday per Sankey it made me even sicker. All the coaches looking for job security and trying to satisfy fans by saying “we got in the dance” makes me want to throw up.
I will miss it, I’ve enjoyed going over the years, especially when winning it meant more. I will say that I’ve never liked how it was played one week after the season. I feel like two weeks would have given the team and fans more time to prepare. With the playoffs, I really don’t see the point that much, and although winning it has gotten (us) a first round bye, overall it just doesn’t seem like the reward is worth the injury risk. I’ll remember it fondly, but I’d say it’s time for it to go. May it R.I.P, with UGA as the final victor!
These last two years, that reward of a bye kinda bit us in the ass. I can’t say for certain it was the cause, but 7 out of 8 teams with byes lost these last two years.
I will miss it for sure. Hands down the best conference championship game there is. I even attended twice when Georgia wasn’t even playing in it. The best of which was 2001 when LSU upset Tennessee and I was in the LSU section which was a blast. I had attended the Big XII Championship in Dallas the weekend before to see my Buffaloes take down Chris Sims and the Shorthorns.( Katrina had the season all jacked up dues games being rescheduled.) I thought the LSU victory would mean Colorado would get a shot at Miami in the BCS Title game, but they chose Nebraska instead who CU crushed earlier in the season 62-36.
Anyway, the SECCG will be missed by me even though it is likely a detriment to winning the CFP. I hope Georgia wins the the last one that will ever be played and I hope it is over Tennessee.
I’ll definitely miss it. I was 5 when it was implemented so I don’t remember a world without that game. Will never forget that 1st one in 2002. This is just another nail in the coffin for me. The season is already too long and just keeps getting longer. IMO if this is the route they want to go they need to drop the reg season back to 11 games or even 10 but they won’t bc $$$. Player health be damned. RIP regular season. Lose to your 2-3 biggest rivals? Who cares! You’re still invited to Mickeys dance!
All of this destruction to the sport for the never ending pursuit of money. The sad thing is that there will NEVER be enough money. There will just be new ways to further fuck up the sport to keep up the chase. I’m not going to argue people shouldn’t get paid what they can get, but it’s not coming from me.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7769173/2026/11/10/sec-championship-game-ending-college-football-playoff/?unlocked_article_code=1.PVE.ZiSf.Q0tzWrzXQ5YC&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta
We gave out SEC football championship trophies before the seccg. We’ll settle them after its gone. Let’s just keep bringing them to Athens.
Gonna be a lot of co-champs moving forward IMO – just too many teams and a lot less interconnectedness, so the odds of no head-to-head between two teams, or no clear/meaningfully distinguishing tiebreaker between multiple teams, are a lot greater….
I just don’t remember worrying too much about that back in 1981. The perceived need for “objective” champions is what has led us down this road to hell. Now we have a series of qualifying exhibitions followed by a tournament. Why? Because once in a blue moon there was a dispute.
I thought it was TV money?
Horrible decision, has been *an event* every year, was gutted it took us so long to get there, but the feeling of relief when we finally got there and dominated in 2002 was a giant weight off the shoulders… Watched the 2005 at the Caesar’s sportsbook and us Georgia fans almost burned the place down…. 2012 was still the best game I think I have ever watched… The run of the past decade has been incredible, we really need to win the last 3!!!
Losing one of the gems of the college football world just so the 24th best? team can play the 9th best doesn’t sit well with me. Money has killed the sport and morphed it into something I honestly don’t like. I’m thankful to be alive during Georgia’s good ole days and be able to witness the Dawgs climb.
Losing The Event game at the end of the season sucks. What makes it worse for me are the reasons why. Just so overpaid coaches and their AD’s can get job security by saying we made the playoffs. Of course let’s not forget the ego boosters who have driven a lot of this by pumping 100’s of millions into getting their team in the expanded playoffs. I’ve read tv wasn’t driving the 24 over 16. It was all a protection racket for insiders.
Most fans were against it as it appears are most of the media covering the sport. The negatives greatly outweighed the positives for me.
FOX, NBC and CBS should have threatened to cut their fees for regular season games. Maybe a lawsuit is coming. Won’t matter as Bezos will buy any available inventory. Heard the spokesperson for the CFP said “We heard the fans but decided to go ahead anyway.” That’s all we need to know. Games will have to overlap the first two rounds…that can’t help viewership. What’s the ballpark cost for a fan to attend the entire playoff run…$10k minimum? I pray Boise State makes a run every year to the NC and gets drummed by 50. Every f*cking year. 3-way co-SEC champs or coin flips make that designation meaningless. I hope teams sit out top players on “Rivalry Weekend”. Hell, I’ll enjoy our 2s and 3s beating tech. Did you all catch round 3 is at designated bowl sites? Memphis and the Bahamas get a playoff game!
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7769173/2026/11/10/sec-championship-game-ending-college-football-playoff/?unlocked_article_code=1.PVE.raMC.VyyQZrjfqeLh&source=user_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share
Check this out
I’ll miss it because it was always a must watch game, I have no data to support this, but I feel like it was a sellout every year. If the Dawgs weren’t playing, there was someone to root against, usually Florida. I’ll also miss it because I never got to attend one, which is like never seeing Eddie Van Halen while he was alive.
I hear he is still bending strings in Hell but I really don’t think it is worth the trip.
Yeah he wasn’t the greatest guy in the world, but damn.
Will no one shed a tear for the Hartman Fund, which will no longer be able to dangle the lure of SEC Championship Game tickets to donors to increase their standing???
Also, are they going to allot visitors tickets for the first and second round games next year? Seems pretty ridiculous for them not to make the regular visitors allotment available if we have another week to plan for the first and second round games….
Very much miss the SEC Championship game. It was almost always must see! Yes I remember the Dooley days before the game when the conference champion was declared based on record, but the creation of the Championship game was a punctuation to a season that was something special. We just witness a matchup of the supposed 10th best team in the country get waxed, and we are creating a tournament to allow 12 more team to join the dance, to most likely get some of the same results of noncompetitive football. I understand it is all about Mickey’s bagging benjamins, but don’t see the math that getting 1-2 more SEC teams in the playoff offset the money the SEC championship game generated.
While I’ll miss it, it hurt us enough times that it being gone because of Playoff seedings instead might make for some satisfying post seasons. Sadly, now Kirby can’t wreck programs. Dan Mullin and Hugh Freeze coulda limped along setting our adversaries back even more a few years because of an #18 playoff loss might keep them around.
I’m paraphrasing the Senator here: college football is essentially regional and incidentally national. This is one big step closer to making it essentially national and incidentally regional.
NASCAR says hello.
So does Brooks Brothers. If you neglect the faithful in an effort to attract the faithless, you might lose both.
I will miss it. Just another victim in the pursuit of fucking up CFB for more $. Once the bowls didn’t matter, we still had the championship game.
The SEC was basically a playoff game before playoffs became part of the texture of CFB. I’ll miss it in context with the 2 team BCS or 4 -team , but sadly it’s outlived its utility in a world of 12+ teams. Our hard-luck ’92 team coulda, woulda, shoulda been in the first SECCG and it seemed forever before we’d ever play in one. Great memories and some heartbreak. I lament that the demise of the bowls and eliminating the conference title games means the professionalization of the game is almost complete; only one team gets to celebrate and get a ring. Sign ‘o the times.
If not for out SEC Championship last season, our team wouldn’t have anything show for it. And that sucks. Are we gonna start hanging banners that say CFP quarter finalist? This all just sucks.
We have SEC champions honored from before 1992. It’s just going to be different, but we wouldn’t have won it in either 24 or 25. I hope we don’t hang CFP banners. Yuck.
You know, if the prettiest little cesspool on the plains ever sniffs the cfp, only to git eliminated, they’ll claim a 1/24th championship banner be raised…#AUBURN SUCKS!!
First round champions!
Well for us old guys who remember that there was a time when there was only one college game per week on TV, I guess it’s gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Next year a 24 team playoff, Must see TV BS. It least the players are getting paid. I would hate to think the physical beating they will take if they are in the round of 24. Additionally, would the sure fire 1st round guys want to risk NFL money for the greater glory of old BSU.
I do wonder when we’ll see the first players opt out of a play-in game in the 24 team format because they know their team doesn’t have a chance and they don’t want to risk their draft status.
I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more already. It will stop once NFL scouts publicly say ‘So-and-So quit on his team so we dropped him from 3rd round to 7th round grade.’
That’s got the smell of litigation now, later, those contracts will have that stipulation in the fine print or a hamstring pull, that’ll last till the season is finished….GO DAWGS!!
I will miss it. Being the best team in the best conference, and winning the toughest game to prove it, means a lot. An extended playoff carries a lot of pitfalls that might stop the best team from winning it all. The SEC championship seems different to me. The two best teams settle it in one game, and its usually one of the best games all year.
I’ll miss it. Though with the current number of games being played it needs to be eliminated. It was always fun to go, and fun to watch. Sign of the times – college football continues to whore itself out to the highest bidder. Maybe I’ll get some really nice golf clubs instead of making that ticket donation one year in the near future.
A forgotten silver lining:
Before the inaugural seccg, the gators had exactly 1 SEC Championship. Maybe the old system worked!
Nope. That one was forfeited because Charley Pell cheated.
Hold on now, charley pell never cheated….he was a liar, a lifetime member of the FU ass wipe club, a self-made sumbitch, a really bad hc while at FU and…….o.k., you got me, he cheated….#FTMF!!
In today’s landscape it can’t go away fast enough as far as I’m concerned. I respect all of y’alls arguments for it though so don’t @ me.
All I know is that at 1.7 billion, all of our streaming/cable bills are about to go way up in price just to watch ESPN.
Another nail. Especially when I read that the committee, in response to questions about lost revenue, responded that that the goal isn’t increased revenue but increased participation. We are already at 12 teams. There has never been a year in the history of college football where 12 teams deserved a shot at the national championship. So now we’re going to include the top 25. You can tell these are the kids who grew up playing in leagues where everyone gets a trophy at the end. Guess what? Real life STILL isn’t like that. I worked in higher education for 20+ years. In the past 10 or 12 years we’ve seen an epidemic of young adults who have never been allowed to fail. When they inevitably do, we have a mental health issue. Parents call to cuss out teacher. In college. Talk to employers about how difficult it is to find candidates who even pay lip service to having a work ethic. So, I’ll cut this off before I go any further down this rabbit hole. Grumpy old white dude rant now over.
Let’s win this last one and move into a second-place tie with the Gators for our 7th(!) win in the game.
Soooo…
(A) If UGA goes 11-1, they play in the SEC championship game with a bye in the playoffs already guaranteed, which means the game is meaningless.
(B) They lose the SECG they lose the bye, which makes the game a punishment, against a 2-3 loss team they likely have already beaten.
Am I understanding this correctly?
If either of these are the case it needs to go, tradition aside. Fucking ridiculous.
In 1992 I hated the idea of divisions (adding Arkansas and the cocks)and a conference championship game. Then every conference wanted one so the realignment race was on. Now every P4 is WAY too big and so many traditional rivalries were sacrificed in the process. The 16 team SEC does not work well for scheduling anything except basketball. For football there is zero need for conferences other than negotiations with ESPN. I’d prefer to play the 1980s traditional rivals schedule with 2 random national teams added. No more cup cakes and only play 11 games with a max of 1 cupcake.
As far as the Hartman fund. In 1985 the donation and ticket sales was majority of the athletic dept’s revenue. Now that’s flipped to TV$ from the conference. So the average ticket holder matters less and less to the butt smear building. This will get worse. They know if you quit giving someone else will step in to your seats. If not ESPN checks always cash.
The Ivy League got it right 60 years ago when they pulled back and put in true “student athlete” policies to stop the money grab.