With Clemson's win over Alabama in last season's national championship game, with playoff contenders emerging in the Pac-12 and with all the coaching talent the Big Ten has compiled, it's arguable the idea of the SEC as the nation's premiere conference is a thing of the past.
Case in point: The conference struggled to put a decent team in the Sugar Bowl a season ago, settling for an Auburn squad that mustered little resistance to Oklahoma and wound up 8-5. The Tigers were second in the SEC West.
The Eastern division continued to be down as Florida—with its putrid offense—again represented that side of the field in the SEC Championship Game, getting dominated by Alabama.