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Obviously I'm bummed that ND is out of the playoffs. We are clearly one of the best teams in the country and would beat most of the playoff teams handily if we played them today. But putting that aside, I'm curious as to what people think about the future of SEC bias?

Ohio State won last year (against us, another midwestern but national team). Michigan won the year before that. This year, my money is on Ohio State or Indiana as the SEC teams that are in - with Georgia maybe being the exception - are not very good. If an SEC team doesn't win it all this year, that would be three consecutive years where their conference came up short. With NIL and the ability to legally pay players, SEC dominance in the sport is coming to an end. We all know that the SEC had been paying players under the table - as a whole conference - for decades but now teams like ND, Ohio State, Michigan, and even Indiana can begin putting together competitive rosters utilizing their own funds. So the way I see it, we may start to see seasons where SEC teams just don't win. Alabama isn't the old Saban Alabama anymore.

I have to wonder how long it is going to take for the sport to shift enough so that the mythos surrounding the SEC - and Bama specifically - fades. It's clear that Bama got in to this playoff because of who they are - not because they are one o the twelve best teams - but would that happen next year? Three years from now? Five? I don't know. Bama is not going to win the championship this year and how many failed non-championship winning seasons will it take before future committees stop giving them the automatic nod? Same is true for a pretty bad Oklahoma team and a mediocre Ole Miss team.

Or is this not going to come into play because we eventually will have a 24 team playoff? Thoughts?

Go Irish!