The Southeast’s 8-year college football championship streak is done

The SEC won seven BCS championships in a row. Perhaps you heard about it. Florida State ended that run last year, beating Auburn to win the final BCS game.

That ended the conference’s run, but it continued the region’s. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and their neighboring states just pumped too much talent onto the field for everybody else to contend with. But things change.

The first-ever College Football Playoff championship will start more than just one era, at least for a season. No. 2 Oregon and No. 4 Ohio State are set to meet, boasting rosters built largely of players from outside the Southeast’s fertile recruiting grounds:

And they got there by knocking off the Southeast’s last two championship teams, with the Ducks obliterating the defending champion Florida State Seminoles and the Buckeyes outlasting Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide. How do you feel about that, OSU QB Cardale Jones?

Via ESPN

One also can’t help but note that the SEC has had a horrid bowl season. The conference that looked to include the best division since divisions became a college football thing, the mighty SEC West, fell flat on its face. Bama fell, Auburn lost to Wisconsin, Mississippi State and Ole Miss saw their dream seasons end in blowouts, and LSU lost to Notre Dame.