Fox Sports' Urban Meyer: 'SEC Dominance of College Football is Over'

Meyer believes other conferences are beginning to emerge as threats, SEC declining over last two seasons.

Jan 1, 2025; Pasadena, CA, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes former head coach Urban Meyer looks on in the second half between the Oregon Ducks and the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2025 Rose Bowl college football quarterfinal game at Rose Bowl Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

During Urban Meyer's run in the Southeastern Conference as the head coach of the Florida Gators, he reignited the program in Gainesville over a five-year stretch.

Now, the Fox Sports analyst believes the conference's run of dominance has reached its end as the new era of college football takes over.

Meyer spent time as the Ohio State Buckeyes' head coach during his coaching career, and with other conference's making noise, he's selling stock in the SEC.

“The question is, is the SEC’s dominance over? It is. It’s over,” Meyer said in Saturday’s The Triple Option podcast. “Now next year’s another year. But for (at least the last) two years, it’s over.”

The Southeastern Conference is 8-6 in bowl game matchups this year with Ohio State crushing the Tennessee Volunteers in the College Football Playoff.

Other SEC losses include the Alabama Crimson Tide losing to Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl, Navy defeating the Oklahoma Sooners and so on.

“The reality is, let’s go back to the visual eye test to what happened (between Georgia and Notre Dame), and the (question is) ‘Is the SEC run over?’ It is. And you can simply watch it (in the game Thursday),” Meyer added. “Next year’s a different year, but … for 2023 and 2024, (SEC teams were) non-factors. You’ve got Texas in it right now, but are we really calling Texas a blueblood of the SEC in its first year? And they’re an underdog against Ohio State.”

No. 5 seeded Texas is the lone SEC program remaining in the College Football Playoff where the Longhorns enter the semifinal showdown against Ohio State aa 5.5-point underdogs.

But it's clear the SEC has dominated the college football landscape across the last two decades with the conference winning 13 of the last 18 National Championships.

“I was part of the SEC bandwagon as well. I coached in that conference and top to bottom, it wasn’t even close when I got to the Big Ten in 2012. Even (my wife) Shelley, who watched the games, said, ‘What is this? … The speed on the field doesn’t even look the same.’ And it wasn’t,” Meyer said. “You can say what you want, in 2012, the Big Ten was not a good conference, relative to the SEC. Not even close.

“I think what’s happened is there’s been some additions – obviously Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC – but also people have really committed in the Big Ten. The upper echelon Big Ten Conference schools have really jumped on recruiting, you saw the Wolverines last year were one of the most dominant programs of the last decade,” Meyer concluded. “The Buckeyes have the best roster, I don’t think it’s close, in college football.  Penn State that’s really put together a hell of a team. And then you have Illinois beating South Carolina, think about that. … There’s a good argument now (for the Big Ten).”

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