Steve Sarkisian said the quiet part out loud.
Going undefeated? That’s yesterday’s college football. The likelihood of an undefeated national champ took a massive hit when the Playoff expanded.
The Texas coach explained why that’s the case last month at the SEC Spring Meetings.
“The idea I think we’ve all gotta wrap our brain around — I don’t know if we’ll ever see an undefeated national champion again,” Sarkisian said at the SEC Spring Meetings (H/T CBS Sports). “If we do, that’s a really good team. Because it’s just so difficult. It’s difficult, yes, because of the quality of opponents you play. But it’s so difficult to stay healthy that long. I mean, you’re going to have teams in years like we had last year where you lose your starting quarterback. How do you respond to your quarterback being down? Or you lose both your left tackles. That happened to us last year.”
Texas' Steve Sarkisian: "I don't think we'll see an undefeated champion. It's so difficult to stay healthy for so long. This idea that someone is going to go 16-0 in college football? If so, put a statue up"
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 27, 2025Fair point. That might come off as a take with a hit of recency bias after Ohio State became the first 2-loss national champ since 2007 LSU, but it’s the correct take.
Steve Sarkisian lived it. He watched his team reach consecutive semifinals in 2 different conferences, albeit with different depth issues in both of those seasons down the stretch. Sarkisian led the only SEC team who went into conference championship weekend with 1 loss. Last year, the SEC beat up on itself in ways that we’re not used to seeing. It marked the first time in the Playoff era that it didn’t produce at least 1 team that entered the postseason with 0-1 losses. Actually, it was the first time that happened since … 2007 LSU.
While Sarkisian’s take was meant for all college football teams, the SEC proves his point. This is about expectations. In a conference that has 5 of the 10 national championship favorites, not a single team has an over/under of 10 regular-season wins (via FanDuel):
Texas: 9.5 wins Georgia: 9.5 wins Alabama: 9.5 wins LSU: 8.5 wins Ole Miss: 8.5 wins Tennessee: 8.5 wins Auburn: 7.5 wins Florida: 7.5 wins Mizzou: 7.5 wins South Carolina: 7.5 wins Texas A&M: 7.5 wins Oklahoma: 6.5 wins Arkansas: 5.5 wins Kentucky: 4.5 wins Vanderbilt: 4.5 wins Mississippi State: 3.5 winsTry to think of another year in recent memory besides 2020 in which the SEC failed to have 1 team with a regular-season over/under of at least 10 wins. You’d have to go back a decade ago to 2015 when Alabama was the SEC over/under leader at 9.5 wins. Entering that year, the SEC was coming off consecutive seasons without a national title. This year, the SEC is … coming off consecutive seasons without a national title.
Could this year’s trend just be a reflection of that? It’s possible, but Sarkisian brought up something that’s already being reflected. We’re in an era when it’s tougher than ever to retain legitimate depth because of the transfer portal, and yet, we’re in an era when depth has never been more valuable.
In the 4-team Playoff, teams would have at least 3 weeks off after their conference title games. They could then get another 2 weeks off to prepare for the national championship. There’s obviously less time now between conference championship weekend and the Playoff (2 weeks), in addition to having at least 1 extra Playoff game, the longest break will always be less than 2 weeks. That’ll be true even if the Playoff stays at 12 teams in 2026, which doesn’t appear likely.
So if Sarkisian is the one saying that at a place like Texas that stacks top-5 high school recruiting classes and elite transfers, one can only imagine that dynamic elsewhere.
Coaches don’t have to make decisions with a 12-0 goal in mind
Back up. You thought I was going to dig into why “the regular season is ruined” and “load management is coming to college football.”
That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that in a previous era of the sport, perhaps you’d see injury timelines expedited in ways that they won’t be now with 2-3 loss teams in the field. After all, it’s not just about getting to the Playoff; it’s about being healthy at the Playoff and making a run. To win 3-4 games in a row against top-12 teams is indeed a run, as we just saw with Ohio State.
At minimum, nobody is winning a national title without 4 wins vs. top-12 teams, 3 of which have to happen in December or later. Four is the number because even if you get a first-round bye, you’re not doing so without at least 1 win vs. a top-12 team in the regular season. Last year, Ohio State finished its championship run with 6 wins against AP top-12 teams en route to a title.
Also of note? The Buckeyes hit the “under” on 10.5 regular-season wins. Welcome to the new age of college football, wherein you can hit the “under” on your regular-season wins and still win a national title.
Somewhere, somebody just punched a hole in a wall in hopes that it would take them back to 2004. As in, the year in which Auburn went undefeated but didn’t get to play for a national championship. Ah yes, because that’s when the sport was perfect. Right.
But Sarkisian hit on something important. It’s not that a 16-0 season is impossible; it’s that we should celebrate it if it ever comes, perhaps in the form of a statue. We should also expect to have 1-2 moments every year in which an eventual-national champ has to get up off the mat. “Undefeated or bust” doesn’t exist anymore, and you could argue it did as recently as 2023 when 1-loss Georgia and 0-loss Florida State didn’t get to play for a national title, and instead were tasked with playing each other in a postseason scrimmage.
(Sorry, that was unkind to the sanctity of scrimmages. It was more like a late-night bar fight in which a 21-year-old told Mike Tyson that he could take one of his punches.)
It goes against the psyche of everything we’ve ever known about the sport to suggest that being great doesn’t mean being perfect. Since an official national championship was introduced to the sport in 1998, there have been 15 undefeated national champions. History says it’s more likely than not. The future says otherwise.
Like it or not, Sarkisian is right.
Why Steve Sarkisian and oddsmakers are exactly right about the new era of the SEC Saturday Down South.
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