The SEC is now playing catchup in college football

• The rise of programs like Indiana and Texas Tech suggests a shift in college football's traditional hierarchy.
• Strong financial backing for Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals is now crucial for a program's success.
• Modern recruiting success depends more on NIL opportunities and coaching than on tradition or facilities.

Welcome to SEC Unfiltered, the USA TODAY NETWORK’S newsletter on SEC sports. Today, Knoxville News Sentinel columnist John Adams takes over.

College football fans finally have accepted the possibility that Indiana might win a national championship. The unbeaten Hoosiers didn’t leave them much choice.

They beat defending national champion Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. They embarrassed Alabama in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. And they treated Oregon even worse in the CFP semifinals.

Indiana red is now as dominant as Nebraska red was in the 1990s. You can’t ignore the reality of it, not after the oddsmakers installed the Hoosiers as a 7.5-point favorite over Miami in the national championship game.

That doesn’t make them a sure thing against the Hurricanes. But it does force the college football establishment to accept how quickly and dramatically the hierarchy has changed.

That change is most jarring in the SEC, which won seven consecutive national championships from 2006 through 2012 and four more consecutive titles from 2019 through 2022. The SEC is playing catchup now.

Indiana’s rapid ascent from football irrelevance to prominence must be just as jolting to the Big Ten’s traditional powers, who once perceived a Saturday afternoon with the Hoosiers as a respite before or after more serious conference business. But what was once a welcome break in the schedule has become a probable pitfall.

Indiana is more than a potential national champion. It’s a symbol of what college football has become. If you have the right coach – and does anybody doubt that Curt Cignetti is the right coach? – you can win big. And if you have the necessary financial backing to fund your NIL business, you can win bigger. Indiana apparently has that, too.

It’s not the only one.

Texas Tech’s football history is hardly as wretched as Indiana’s. The Red Raiders have had big-time players like Patrick Mahomes, had a successful and colorful run under the late Mike Leach, and occasionally knocked off a program with as much cachet as Texas’. Nonetheless, you didn’t think of them as a championship contender.

But they have become the Big 12’s marquee program almost as quickly as Indiana rose to the top of the Big Ten. Their status won’t change if billionaire alumnus Cody Campbell keeps calling the shots for the Red Raiders’ well-oiled machine (pun intended).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Texas Tech becomes a playoff regular. So might Indiana. And Miami’s NIL spending indicates it could at least revive memories of its dynasty days.

Attaining long-term success in today’s era isn’t impossible. But it requires a different blueprint.

Don’t bother trying to dazzle a recruit with your state-of-the-art facilities or stadium size. Your tradition doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Recruits are much more interested in their future than your past.

So, hire the right coach, support him with an NFL-like personnel department, and keep your NIL fund full. With a little luck, you might become the next Indiana.  

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or [email protected].