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. The game is regularly 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.
Ten of the sixteen current SEC members have played in the SEC Championship Game, with Kentucky, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt being the exceptions. Oklahoma and Texas will play their first SEC seasons in 2024. During the divisional era, the overall series was led 19–13 by the West Division.
While ten SEC members have played in the game, only six have won: Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee of the East Division, and Alabama, Auburn, and LSU of the West Division. Each of these teams has won the championship multiple times.
History
The SEC was the first NCAA conference in any division to hold a football championship game that was exempt from NCAA regular-season game limits. This was made possible in 1987, when the NCAA membership approved a proposal sponsored by the Division IIPennsylvania State Athletic Conference and Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association allowing any conference with at least 12 football members to split into divisions and stage a championship game between the divisional winners. The SEC took advantage of this rule by adding the University of Arkansas and the University of South Carolina in 1992, bringing the conference membership to 12, and splitting into two football divisions.[1] The format has since been adopted by other conferences to decide their football champion (the first being the Big 12 in 1996).
The first two SEC Championship Games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. From 1994 until 2016, the game was played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.[2] Following the closure and subsequent demolition of the Georgia Dome in 2017, the SEC Championship Game remained in Atlanta, moving to the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium under a ten-year contract. In November 2023, the SEC signed a five-year extension with Mercedes-Benz Stadium with an additional five-year option which will get the game at the stadium until 2032.[3]
The SEC Championship Game has been played on the first Saturday of December with two exceptions. The 2001 edition was moved to the second Saturday in December so games cancelled during the week of the September 11 attacks could be rescheduled on the first Saturday. The 2020 edition was pushed back to the third week of December as part of the adjustments in the 2020 season for the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the SEC expanding to 16 teams with the 2024 arrival of Oklahoma and Texas, it announced on June 1, 2023, that it would eliminate its football divisions at that time. Championship games from 2024 forward will feature the top two teams in the conference standings.[4]
During the championship's divisional era, the team designated as the "home" team alternated between division champions. The designation went to the East champion in even-numbered years and the West champion in odd-numbered years.
After the 2020 contest, the designated "home" team is 16–13 overall in SEC championship games.
In 2009, the West champion, Alabama, was the home team, ending a streak where the SEC West team had worn white jerseys in nine consecutive SEC Championship Games (2000–2008). This was because LSU had represented the West in the previous four seasons that the West Division champion was the "home" team, and LSU traditionally chooses to wear white jerseys for home games. Additionally, for the next three years (2010–2012), the East Division representative wore their home jerseys because in 2011, LSU again represented the West;[5] this happened again from 2018 to 2020 since LSU represented the West in 2019.
Rematches
While SEC schools played every other member of their own division during the conference's divisional era, they did not play every member of the opposite division. With the end of divisional play, each SEC member will play only eight of the 15 other teams in the conference. Thus, the SEC Championship Game is not guaranteed to be a rematch of a regular-season game. The SEC Championship game has featured a rematch of a regular-season game a total of seven times (1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2017). The team which won the regular-season game is 5–2 in the rematches, the exceptions being 2001 and 2017.
Division standings were based on each team's overall conference record. The SEC Commissioner's Regulations requires each football team play all eight conference games in a season in order to be eligible to compete for a divisional title and play in the SEC Championship Game. When two or more teams tie for the best record in their division, each team is recognized as a divisional co-champion. Tiebreakers are used to determine who will represent the division in the championship game.[9]
Two-team tie-breaker procedure
Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.
Records of the tied teams within the division.
Records against the team within the division with the best overall (divisional and non-divisional) conference record and proceeding through the division. Multiple ties within the division will be broken from first to last.
Complete record vs. all non-divisional opponents.
Complete record vs. all common non-divisional teams if there be any.
Record vs. common non-divisional opponent (if there be any) with the best overall conference (divisional and non-divisional) record and proceeding through other common non-divisional teams based on their order of finish within their division.
Best cumulative conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents
Coin flip of the tied teams
NOTE: Although all division rivals meet during the season and NCAA overtime is played, the SEC has provisions in case a game ends in a tie, which is possible under NCAA Rule 3–3–3 (c.2) and (d), Suspending the Game, and Commissioner's Regulations (including a tie game after the end of three periods, at the point the game is suspended in the fourth period, or end of regulation (3-3-3-d) or if one team had played their overtime period but the opponent had not played, when the game reaches the conference curfew of 1:30 a.m. local time), or if the two tied teams did not play an official game because of weather (including a game that ends before the end of three periods), which is possible because numerous conference teams have had games affected by hurricanes but also lightning. As such, SEC rules, written before overtime was implemented in regular season play, still contain the remaining procedures if those circumstances were to happen.[9]
Three or more-team procedure
(Once the tie has been reduced to two teams, go to the two-team tie-breaker format.)
Combined head-to-head record among the tied teams.
Record of the tied teams within the division.
Records against the team within the division with the best overall (divisional and non-divisional) Conference record and proceeding through the division. Multiple ties within the division will be broken from first to last.
Complete record vs. non-division teams.
Complete record vs. all common non-divisional teams.
Record vs. common non-divisional team with the best overall Conference (divisional and non-divisional) record and proceeding through other common non-divisional teams based on their order of finish within their division.
Best cumulative Conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents (Note: If two teams' non-divisional opponents have the same cumulative record, then the two-team tiebreaker procedures apply. If four teams are tied, and three teams' non-divisional opponents have the same cumulative record, the three-team tiebreaker procedures will be used beginning with #1
Coin flip of the tied teams with the team with the odd result being the representative (Example: If there are two teams with tails and one team with heads, the team with heads is the representative)
Winner's bowl performance
Currently the SEC champion plays in the Sugar Bowl unless it has been selected to play in a College Football Playoff semi-final bowl, or if the Sugar Bowl is hosting a CFP semi-final and the SEC champion either does not qualify for the CFP or has a seeding that prevents it from appearing in the Sugar Bowl.[10] In the SEC Championship Game era, eleven winners of the game have gone on to win the national title (outright or shared), with thirteen SEC teams winning national titles overall, including seven consecutive titles from the 2006–2012 seasons.
There are three occasions when the SEC champion advanced to the BCS or CFP but lost to another SEC team which won the national championship:
In 2017, Georgia won the SEC Championship Game and advanced to the College Football Playoff, defeating Oklahoma in the semifinal and advancing to the CFP final game, which they lost 26–23 in overtime to SEC member Alabama.
In 2021, Alabama won the SEC Championship game and advanced to the College Football Playoff, defeating Cincinnati in the semifinal and advancing to the CFP final game, which they lost 33–18 to Georgia in a rematch of the SEC title game. It was the 1st time that the loser of the conference championship won the national championship game in the same season.
Rankings are from the AP Poll at the time the game was played.
Last by Christian Harris & Will Anderson Jr. (Alabama vs. Florida)
2020
Interceptions
2, Michael Gilmore (Florida vs. Alabama) 2, Tommy Johnson (Alabama vs. Florida) 2, Marcus Spencer (Alabama vs. Florida) 2, Lito Sheppard (Florida vs. Auburn) 2, Derek Stingley Jr. (LSU vs. Georgia)
1993 1993 1999 2000 2019
Punts
10, Bryne Diehl (Alabama vs. Florida) 10, Jaret Holmes (Auburn vs. Tennessee)
↑ Alabama took the spot of ACC champion Florida State in the Orange Bowl, as the Seminoles were selected to play in the BCS national championship game in the Sugar Bowl.
↑ Southern California won the BCS Championship but the title was vacated following an investigation into improper payments to various players. USC retained its AP National Championship.
↑ Alabama was ranked #4 in the final CFP Poll ahead of AP #4 Florida State.
Notes
↑ From 2002-2023, the SEC Championship Game was broadcast on CBS.
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 16 members include the flagship public universities of 12 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. In football, it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.
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