In the waning moments of the Ohio State Buckeyes’ dramatic Cotton Bowl victory over the Texas Longhorns, a chorus began to build among the scarlet and gray faithful around an AT&T Stadium that was quickly draining of its burnt orange majority.
First, it started subtly behind the OSU bench. Then it grew louder and louder as more fans joined in from the lower bowl to the upper decks of the billion-dollar behemoth of a venue.
S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!
The chant was more than good-natured ribbing after the Buckeyes vanquished the conference from the College Football Playoff. It was equal parts taunting and enjoyably twisting the knife into the league that loudly likes to proclaim "it just means more."
In the 2024 season, that was far from the case.
The SEC went 2–3 in the inaugural 12-team playoff, advancing just one team—newcomer Texas, fresh out of the Big 12—into the semifinals. Its champion was outplayed and caught by surprise in the Sugar Bowl. The Tennessee Volunteers were completely blown out by Ohio State when they went North to The Horseshoe for the first round in mid-December. The No. 2-seeded Georgia Bulldogs lost in the quarterfinals to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
It came at the hands of those that reside above the Mason-Dixon line, part of a northern resurgence in a sport that has been largely dominated by those in or around the SEC for much of the past two decades.
This is the second consecutive national championship game without a team from the South for the first time since the 2004 and ’05 seasons. Plus, three-quarters of the semifinalists came from the northern reaches of the country.
Worse, bowl season saw several heavy favorites take some bruise-to-the-ego losses—from the Alabama Crimson Tide to a shorthanded Michigan Wolverines to the Texas A&M Aggies blowing a big lead to the USC Trojans.
It’s possible the Big Ten—the conference that has become the lone equal with the SEC in terms of governance over college athletics and, more importantly, money—could win back-to-back national titles in college football should Ohio State prevail Jan. 20 over Notre Dame.
That hasn’t happened since the 1960s, if you’re factoring in split titles, and since World War II, if you want consensus champions from the league. It’s been a while, to say the least, since we’ve seen this.
Should the Irish prevail for the first time since their 39-year-old coach was in diapers, they’ll at least make it back-to-back Midwestern champs and underscore how much the gap has closed with their program since they were run off the field by the Crimson Tide in the 2013 BCS national championship game.
“Obviously this place hasn’t won a national championship since 1988, and every year the aspirations are to win a national championship. That’s why all these players choose to come to Notre Dame,” coach Marcus Freeman said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into getting to that outcome, and that’s what we’ve got to focus on, but it would be special for this university and for these players that have poured so much work into getting the results that we have.”
Freeman has helped contribute in one key area that has helped close the gap for northern programs: coaching.
Though he’s taken his lumps against Group of 5 programs, Freeman is still an impressive first-time head coach who is 33–9 since taking over for the final game in 2021. This CFP run has given him more Top 25 wins than anybody in that time span, and he’s won three straight against top 10 teams in a six-week span. He’s on the verge of becoming the first Black head coach to win it all, too.
Ryan Day is about to play in his second title game at the equally ripe old age of 45 in the meantime. He’s an even nicer 69–10 overall as a head coach since taking the job at OSU and has consistently made the Buckeyes a perennial contender despite issues with a certain maize-and-blue rival.
Elsewhere up North, the Indiana Hoosiers plucked Curt Cignetti from relative obscurity last offseason and saw the serial winner resurrect one of the worst programs in the Power 4 conferences into a playoff team. James Franklin topped the century mark in career wins during the Penn State Nittany Lions’ CFP run, and Dan Lanning led the Oregon Ducks to an undefeated regular season while winning the Big Ten in their first season in the league.
Plus, there’s plenty of additional investment among other programs when looking at recent hires. Matt Rhule was a big name when he joined the Nebraska Cornhuskers a year ago and led the team to a bowl game for the first time in ages this past season. Bret Bielema delivered the Illinois Fighting Illini’s first 10-win campaign since 2001. Even the Purdue Boilermakers know when to admit a mistake and moved quickly to outbid several other bigger names in the coaching carousel to land Barry Odom last month.
Contrast that to the brain drain that has happened in the SEC and among the premier programs of the ACC.
Future College Football Hall of Famer Nick Saban took his seven national titles and swapped a headset at Alabama for a microphone on ESPN. Gus Malzahn made a BCS title game, had some success against his in-state rivals and even got a big contract. Still, he was run out of town and the Auburn Tigers haven’t come close to the level of consistency he had with their two most recent head coaches.
Jimbo Fisher won a national championship with the Florida State Seminoles, but saw the bottom fall out in Tallahassee before fleeing for the riches promised by Texas A&M. Aside from one pandemic-era great season, the results were middling before he was bought out and the reset button applied again for one of the sport’s narcoleptic giants.
The Florida Gators have been trapped in a hamster wheel of coaching turnover since Urban Meyer left the Swamp, where he eventually settled in Columbus, Ohio, to win a title with Ohio State. Tennessee has become more stable under Josh Heupel, but still hasn’t gotten back to how things were in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Then there are the LSU Tigers, where Brian Kelly took his family after saying all he wanted was a program that had the resources to compete for a national championship.
Well, about that …
Kelly’s surprise departure for Baton Rouge, which allowed the Irish to quickly elevate Freeman, underscores a point about resources: They just don’t matter like they used to.
That’s mostly because players are no longer wooed by the glittering waterfalls and new-age locker rooms that were part of much of the football facility work that went on for many schools.
Now, in the age of the transfer portal and NIL, it’s about the dueling nature of checks that come with playing time pathways.
Look no further than the two teams left standing for a lesson in how to construct a modern roster. Notre Dame kicker Mitch Jeter (South Carolina Gamecocks) has been clutch this postseason while fellow Palmetto State transfer Beaux Collins (Clemson Tigers) caught a touchdown in the Sugar Bowl. Starting quarterback Riley Leonard has been the heart and soul of the squad since arriving from the Duke Blue Devils along with defensive end RJ Oben. Jayden Harrison beat the Irish when he was with the Marshall Thundering Herd two years ago, but joined the team for this run as an incredible special teams spark.
“You see how they play. You see the toughness they play with. The linebackers are downhill, thumping. The backs are elite. They’re built like an SEC team,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said prior to the Sugar Bowl. “And I say that as a huge compliment, because I think those rosters are some of the most talented in the country. And Notre Dame is built that way, probably more on the side of physicality.”
Ohio State took advantage of Saban’s retirement to snag key contributors out of the portal like center Seth McLaughlin, safety Caleb Downs and even backup quarterback Julian Sayin, a former five-star freshman. Will Howard initially looked at USC after leaving the Kansas State Wildcats before detouring to Columbus. Quinshon Judkins was a big surprise as an All-SEC tailback who traded in his Ole Miss Rebels jersey for a scarlet-and-gray one.
That’s on top of the program spending upwards of $20 million on the entire roster this season, a hefty portion of which went to the retention of talent like Cotton Bowl defensive MVP Jack Sawyer, veteran wideout Emeka Egbuka and senior running back TreVeyon Henderson.
Meanwhile, the southern giants used to stacking rosters full of former four- and five-star talent is a thing of the past. Players are simply far more evenly distributed from coast to coast, hurting depth in traditional strongholds while boosting it in others.
That’s led to some growing pains as 85-man rosters are turned over each offseason. But it’s also allowed key avenues for a handful of teams to keep advancing over the course of a grueling campaign simply because they have better players in more spots than they used to.
Toss in an expanded CFP that doesn’t punish teams for shocking losses like in the past and it’s pretty clear to see the gap is no longer present like it once was.
“I do think the new [playoff] format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season, and as much as losses hurt, they really allow us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and get them addressed,” Day said. “I think it’s great for college football. Along the way, we looked at a lot of different things and metrics about playing this many games, playing our 16th game, what that was going to be like. We knew it was going to be a little bit of a battle of attrition at times.
“So depth was certainly a critical part of roster management and talent acquisition, but also how we practice, how we play. So we’ve taken all those things into consideration so that we’re still really, really fresh going into the end of the season.”
College football is a cyclical sport. There was a time when the wishbone ruled before others adapted and moved onto something else. The Air Raid took the country by storm for years. Running quarterbacks and pocket passers have alternated hoisting the Heisman Trophy.
The South still has a treasure trove of quality high school talent to fuel teams throughout the region. As some athletic directors will note, down cycles often have a way of opening up wallets to spend your way back to the top of the sport. Many throughout SEC county will be eyeing the 2025 season as a fresh opportunity with Alabama, LSU and others sure to stock the upper reaches of the preseason polls as usual.
Heck, even Dabo Swinney’s Clemson has a chance to get back on track next season, with Cade Klubnik and a host of others back from a team that won the ACC.
For now, they’re all at home to watch as the growing resurgence of the Midwest culminates in another national championship headed North.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as CFP Title Game Features Resurgence of Northern and Midwestern College Football.
