Third year in a row with no SEC team in the national championship game.

Ole Miss the only SEC team to win a game in the playoffs against a non-SEC team.

Ole Miss beat Tulane in a rout in the first round of the college football playoffs. It was all downhill for the SEC after that. Alabama lost by about a hundred to Indiana (no shame there) and then Miami beat Ole Miss in a bank and forth thriller. The only other games involving the SEC were Alabama beating Oklahoma and Ole Miss beating Georgia, both SEC against SEC. To add insult to injury, the SEC went 2-8 in bowl games against non-SEC teams. Were they overrated this year?

On the flip side, this will be the third year in a row that a Big Ten team has played in the big game. Indiana will also be heavily favored to make it three championships in a row for the Big Ten. The Big Ten also won their first six bowl games and currently sits at 9-4. Hard to say the Big Ten was underrated with three teams (Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon) in the top five, but I doubt all of the Bowl wins were expected.

Moving forward, does this change anything? Perhaps. If Indiana keeps everything in place from a coaching standpoint, they may legitimately be an annual top ten team competing with the big boys for Big Ten glory. Big ten has been largely the big three or four and then the rest. Teams like my own Golden Gophers will likely never win a Big Ten championship in my lifetime. Northwestern, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, Purdue, etc... etc... are all in that same boat. If these teams win eight or nine games and win a bowl game, it has had a successful season. Of course, that just means that their best players will enter the portal and move on to Ohio State or some other team capable of winning it all. The rich get richer as they say, and the after thoughts remain just that. For that reason, I find the Indiana story to be a possible game changer. If they can do it, perhaps....