The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ten states, three additional public land-grant universities, and one private research university. The conference is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The SEC participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I in sports competitions; for football it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.
The Georgia Bulldogs football program represents the University of Georgia in the sport of American football. The Bulldogs compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). They play their home games at historic Sanford Stadium on the university's Athens, Georgia, campus. Georgia claims four consensus national championships ; while the AP and Coaches Polls have each voted the Bulldogs the national champion three times. Georgia has also been named the National Champion by at least one polling authority in four other seasons.
The SEC Championship Game is an annual American football game that has determined the Southeastern Conference's season champion since 1992. For its first 32 seasons, the championship game pitted the SEC East Division regular season champion against the West Division regular season champion. With the SEC eliminating football divisions after the 2023 season, future games will feature the top two teams in the conference standings. Since 2007, the game has typically been played on the first Saturday of December, and the game has been held in Atlanta since 1994, first at the Georgia Dome, and at Mercedes-Benz Stadium since 2017.
The SEC men's basketball tournament is the conference tournament in basketball for the Southeastern Conference (SEC). It is a single-elimination tournament that involves all league schools. Its seeding is based on regular season records. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament; however, the official conference championship is awarded to the team or teams with the best regular season record.
The Aflac Kickoff Game is an annual series of college football games played on the opening weekend of the NCAA Division I FBS season in Atlanta, Georgia. Organized by the Peach Bowl, the event coincides with Labor Day weekend in the United States. From its inception in 2008 until 2016, it was held at the Georgia Dome. The Georgia Dome's replacement, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, began hosting the games starting in 2017. Since 2012, there have been occasional doubleheaders in the series.
The 2015 Georgia Bulldogs football team represented the University of Georgia in the 2015 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Bulldogs played their home games at Sanford Stadium. They were members of the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference. This was head coach Mark Richt's 15th and final season leading the program. Richt was relieved of his duties at the end of the regular season. Richt was originally slated to remain head coach for the team's bowl game, but he was replaced after he reached an agreement to become head coach of the Miami Hurricanes football team. Wide receivers coach Bryan McClendon was named interim head coach for the TaxSlayer Bowl against Penn State.
The 2015 SEC Championship Game was played on Saturday, December 5, 2015 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, and determined the 2015 football champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The game was played between the East Division champion Florida Gators and West Division champion Alabama Crimson Tide. Alabama was the designated home team. CBS televised the game for the fifteenth consecutive year.
The 2016 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida in the sport of American football during the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Gators played their home games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida, and competed in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). They were led by second-year head coach Jim McElwain. They finished the season 9–4, 6–2 in SEC regular season play to represent the Eastern Division in the SEC Championship Game where they lost to Alabama. They were invited to the Outback Bowl where they defeated Iowa.
The 2016 Southeastern Conference football season was the 84th season of SEC football and took place during the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The season began on September 1 with Tennessee defeating Appalachian State on the SEC Network. This is the fifth season for the SEC under realignment that took place in 2012 adding Texas A&M and Missouri from the Big 12 Conference. The SEC is a Power Five conference under the College Football Playoff format along with the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Big Ten Conference, and the Pac-12 Conference.
The 2017 Southeastern Conference football season was the 85th season of SEC football and took place during the 2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The season began on August 31 and will end with the 2017 SEC Championship Game on December 2. The SEC is a Power Five conference under the College Football Playoff format along with the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Big Ten Conference, and the Pac–12 Conference. For the 2017 season, the SEC has 14 teams divided into two divisions of seven each, named East and West.
The 2017 SEC Championship Game was played on December 2, 2017, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, and determined the 2017 football champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). This was the first SEC Conference football championship at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The game featured the Eastern Division Champion, Georgia Bulldogs against the Western Division Co-Champion, the Auburn Tigers. This championship game marked the first time Auburn and Georgia had rematched each other in the same year, with the previous iteration having been played on November 11, 2017. In the earlier game, Auburn beat Georgia by a score of 40–17. In this rematch, Georgia won the SEC Championship by beating Auburn 28–7. This was also the first SEC Championship Game with new SEC on CBS announcer Brad Nessler replacing Verne Lundquist, who retired in 2016. The game was televised nationally by CBS.
The 2018 Southeastern Conference football season represents the 86th season of SEC football taking place during the 2018 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The season began on August 30 and will end with the SEC Championship Game, between Alabama and Georgia, on December 1. The SEC is a Power Five conference under the College Football Playoff format along with the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Big Ten Conference, and the Pac-12 Conference. For the 2018 season, the SEC has 14 teams divided into two divisions of seven each, named East and West.
The 2018 SEC Championship Game was played on Saturday, December 1, 2018, in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, to determine the 2018 football champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The game featured the East Division champion Georgia against the West Division champion Alabama. Georgia, the East Division Champion, was the designated home team. The game was televised by CBS for the eighteenth straight year. Alabama came back from a 28–14 deficit in the third quarter to defeat Georgia, 35–28.
The Alabama–Georgia football rivalry is a college football rivalry game between the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama and the Bulldogs of the University of Georgia. The two bordering state schools were charter members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in 1933 and played every season from 1944 to 1965. Despite no longer playing annually, Alabama and Georgia have met in several nationally important matchups in the twenty-first century, including four Southeastern Conference championship games and two College Football Playoff national championship games since 2010, bringing the rivalry back into national prominence.
The 2019 Southeastern Conference football season represented the 87th season of SEC football taking place during the 2019 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The season began on August 29, 2019 and ended with the 2019 SEC Championship Game on December 7, 2019. The SEC is a Power Five conference under the College Football Playoff format along with the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Big Ten Conference and the Pac-12 Conference. For the 2019 season the SEC has 14 teams divided into two divisions of seven each, named East and West.
The 2019 SEC Championship Game was a college football game played on Saturday, December 7, 2019, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The game determined the 2019 champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The game featured the East division champions the University of Georgia Bulldogs (Georgia) and the West division champions the Louisiana State University Tigers (LSU). Beginning in 1992, this served as the conference's 28th annual championship game. After a dominating performance by transfer quarterback Joe Burrow, LSU became the 2019 SEC champions winning the game by a final score of 37–10. The strong performance not only earned LSU the 2019 SEC Championship trophy but it contributed to earning the No.1 seed in the 2019 College Football Playoffs. After their loss, Georgia moved to the fifth spot in the rankings and earned a bid to play in their second consecutive Allstate Sugar Bowl.
The 2021 SEC Championship Game was a college football game that was played on December 4, 2021, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the 30th edition of the SEC Championship Game and determined the champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for the 2021 season. The game began at 4:00 p.m. EST and was aired on CBS. The contest featured the Georgia Bulldogs, the East Division champions, and the Alabama Crimson Tide, the West Division champions.
The 2022 SEC Championship Game was a college football game played on December 3, 2022, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the 31st edition of the SEC Championship Game and determined the champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for the 2022 season. The game began at 4:00 p.m. EST on CBS. The contest featured the LSU Tigers, the West Division champions and the Georgia Bulldogs of the East Division.
The 2023 SEC Championship Game was a college football game that was played on December 2, 2023, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the 32nd edition of the SEC Championship Game. The contest featured the Alabama Crimson Tide, the West Division champions and the Georgia Bulldogs the East Division Champions. The game began at 4:00 p.m. EST and was televised on CBS for the twenty-third consecutive year, and also the final SEC Championship game to be televised on the network. Alabama won the game by a score of 27–24 and, therefore, became champions of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) for the 2023 season, while ending Georgia’s 29-game winning streak that began in the 2021 Orange Bowl CFP Semifinal.
The 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 154th season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The regular season began on August 26 and ended on December 9. The postseason began on December 15, and, aside from any all-star games that are scheduled, ended on January 8, 2024, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The Michigan Wolverines defeated the Washington Huskies by a score of 34–13 to claim the program's first national championship in the College Football Playoff (CFP) era, and their 12th overall. This was the tenth and final season of using the four team College Football Playoff (CFP) system, with the bracket being expanded to 12 teams for the 2024 season.
