Paul Finebaum Declares the SEC’s Demise: ‘It’s Been Terrible’

It would not be an exaggeration to say that ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum owes much of his ascendency as a national sports media figure to the Southeastern Conference’s (SEC) rise to dominance and prominence in the world of college football.

But now, even Finebaum can see that it has come to an end.

Following the SEC’s pathetic 2-7 record against non-SEC opponents so far in this year’s bowl season, Finebaum made the (for him) painful admission that there was no way to defend his beloved SEC’s performance.

“Amina, I’m under contract to disagree with you,” Finebaum said on Tuesday’s edition of First Take. “Yes. I have been on that hill, Stephen A., and I am getting destroyed. There’s no way to defend the SEC. It’s been terrible. I’m sure somebody at the SEC offices is whispering ‘don’t forget Ole Miss can win it all.’ And that would salve some of the wounds. But this has been a long year for the SEC.”

The SEC, in particular, and the college football rankings system in general operate like a Ponzi scheme, inflating the rankings of mid-level SEC teams, such as Missouri and Tennessee, to make teams like Georgia and Alabama look better when they beat them. This “gauntlet” theory convinces voters that teams like Bama and UGA should get into the playoffs over teams like Notre Dame and others because they survived the dreaded SEC gauntlet.

However, as Finebaum said on Tuesday, the flaws in that practice were revealed during the 2025 bowl season.

“I kept wrapping my arms around Alabama and saying, ‘Stephen A., remember what they did, they went through that gauntlet in the middle of the year,” Finebaum said. “Well, a lot of those teams they beat really weren’t very good after all. They lost in bowl games, and they looked terrible. So it’s a rough year for the SEC. Ole Miss is it, regardless of the Lane Kiffin story, which I know we’re going to talk about. But if Ole Miss loses Thursday night and I’m sitting around having to defend this league to you, Stephen A., saying ‘no big deal that it’s three years without an SEC team in the national championship game,’ there’s no defense. It’s been rough.”

The SEC still has powerful partners, namely ESPN, who will use the ratings generated by SEC broadcasts and their unmatched ability to flood the television and digital field of play with a relentless stream of propaganda to convince decision-makers that the SEC is still the premier brand in college football. However, unlike previous years, when the voters vote in the AP and College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings next year, they will have irrefutable evidence that the SEC just isn’t all that good anymore.