Here is a bad and extremely telling stat about the SEC early in 2023: The SEC is 3-6 against other Power 5 conferences.
If that sounds unusually bad, it’s because it is. In 2022, the SEC was 10-5 in regular-season games against other power conference teams. In 2021, it was 9-6. In both of those years, one of the non-conference losses didn’t come until the end of the season (South Carolina to Clemson in 2021, Florida to Florida State in 2022.)
But there are three additional points that make this really bad. For one thing, of the six losses thus far, three came in rematches of a game that the SEC won last year: Alabama lost a rematch to Texas, Florida lost a rematch to Utah, and Texas A&M lost to Miami.