By Chris Marler
November means a lot of things every year. The leaves start changing in every state but Louisiana, apparently. Thanksgiving is just weeks away, and this is when college football narratives really start to take shape, building the cases for and against teams making the postseason.
Some narratives are new, some are recycled, but objectively, most of the anti-SEC talking points remain off base, and I still don’t understand why.
Tomorrow night will reveal the third College Football Playoff rankings of the season. Afterwards a firestorm on social media will certainly be set off when the SEC, once again, has five teams in the CFP Top Ten.
THE UPDATED CFP TOP 25 RANKINGS‼️
We have NEW arrivals to the list this week 👀 pic.twitter.com/oxBo99bmOu
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 12, 2025
Maybe I should have started with this, but I’ll say it now: I cover the SEC. I’ve lived in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana. Indiana and Ohio State are still the two best teams in the country right now.
Do you see how simple that was? Objective thinking. It can be for everyone!
I thought the summer discourse was bad enough when we wasted months arguing about eight vs. nine conference games. I figured all the nonsense about which league was “best” would fade once real football started. Instead, that assumption proved, ironically, absurd.
Instead, three months into the season, we’ve reached the stage of grief where conspiracy theories and tinfoil-hat takes are flying around, claims so wild they’d make Alex Jones or someone insisting Tupac killed JFK sound almost reasonable by comparison.
Top 40 Sagarin Wins
7 – Texas A&M
6 – Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss
5 – Oklahoma
4 – Indiana, Miami, Ohio State, Texas, Vanderbilt
3 – Notre Dame, USC
2 – Michigan, Oregon, Texas Tech
1 – BYU, Georgia Tech
0 – Utah— Chris Fallica (@chrisfallica) November 17, 2025
“The rankings are all biased,” Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC fans have said.
Let’s talk about that.
As it stands, five SEC teams sit inside the top 10 of both the Coaches Poll and AP Top 25. There were five in the initial CFP rankings, and there will almost certainly be five again on Tuesday night.
To quote my favorite Halloween movie, Scream: “But wait, there’s more!”
If those rankings are all biased towards the SEC, then how about these:
- CBS Top 136 Rankings – 5 SEC teams in the top 10
- CBS Power Rankings – 5 SEC teams in the top 9
- Pro Football Network– 5 SEC teams in the top 10
- Joel Klatt’s Rankings – 5 SEC teams in the top 10
Thoughts on @joelklatt‘s Top 15? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/GysV6jYn22
— The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football on FOX Pod (@JoelKlattShow) November 17, 2025
If Joel Klatt is saying it, then what are we even talking about anymore? And that’s not just for power rankings, the same goes for SEC teams in strength of schedule rankings, too.
- ESPN – 8 of the top 10 toughest schedules
- Team Rankings – 7 of the Top 10 toughest schedules
- Pro Football Network – 6 of the Top 10 toughest schedules
I’m not sure what more evidence is needed for the “overrated” narrative to finally fade. At this point, I’m not convinced anything would help. What I keep coming back to is this: why can’t we talk about it objectively?
Why are we incapable of having a formula and system in place that allows everyone to be on the same page?
You know what college football fans want over conference pride? Logic, reason and, most importantly, the best teams getting into the College Football Playoff. If that happens to be from the SEC (again) then maybe it’s not a conspiracy. Maybe it’s just a really good year.
Like usual.
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