SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has gone on in the past about how his conference should be able to separate from the pack. Obviously, that hasn’t happened, and the SEC hasn’t exactly enjoyed a dominant run in the recent College Football Playoffs either.
Now, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith masterfully used SEC coaching legend Nick Saban’s own comments against him and Sankey to point out why the conference is slipping.
Stephen A. Smith Evokes Nick Saban Quote to Show SEC’s Downturn
The former Alabama head coach recently stated that just because Indiana, a Big Ten team, won the College Football Playoff, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they played in the best conference.
Smith, appearing on ESPN’s “First Take,” agreed. But then Smith went into a rant, using Saban’s own words against him to help start his argument.
“Saban: College football winner doesn’t define who has the best conference,” Smith said. “He’s right about that, but it’s disappointing to hear him say that… Because, in the end, Nick Saban, what does he say? ‘Mediocre people don’t like being around those who are excellent, and excellent folks don’t like being around those who are mediocre.’
“This is something that Saban has said on many occasions to many people. ‘You don’t stop, you keep going, you keep trying to ascend, you keep striving for excellence and supremacy.’ All of these things are things that he lived by, and he personified over the course of 17 years at Alabama.”
Smith is just starting to cook. Next, he points out that the SEC has a problem in that a team from their conference hasn’t been able to win a championship in any of the past three years.
“The SEC has fallen off, it hasn’t gotten the job done.”
—@stephenasmith on the SEC failing to win a CFB title in the last three years 👀 pic.twitter.com/SexsoBnM7p
— First Take (@FirstTake) July 23, 2026
“Obviously, the SEC improved when he arrived, even though he was the crème de la crème,” Smith added. “The Georgias, the LSUs of the world, Ole Miss coming up on the back end, along with others- we understand that, but the flip side to it is this: you are measured by where you stand.
“For the last three years, it’s not that the Big Ten has won back-to-back-to-back championships. It’s that three different schools have done it. If those three championships came from Ohio State or came from Michigan, that would be one thing. But when three different schools win the last three championships from the same conference, that’s not the SEC, and the SEC has gotten their (expletive) kicked along the way; that’s problematic.”
Then, Smith said that Saban was right again. But his positivity didn’t last long.
“Nick Saban is right, in terms of that one statement, but we don’t want to hear that from him about the SEC at this particular moment in time because the SEC has fallen off; it hasn’t gotten the job done,” Smith argued. “It’s really illuminated when you hear Sankey talking about separating the SEC from everybody else, as if you’re this paragon of elitism and virtue upon which everybody should want to stand.
“No, you’re not that conference anymore. You’ve got something to prove. Why aren’t you concentrating on trying to be a champion again before you talk about separating yourself from the pack? As far as I’m concerned, you haven’t even earned the right to be atop the pack, let alone separate yourself from it.”
Smith clearly wants to see the SEC return to competing for championships before hearing anything further about elite play. But he doesn’t mind serving as that public reminder every now and then.
“These are the kinds of things that we need to make sure we are reminding the SEC of, and I don’t think Saban did that, and that is where I disagree with him,” Smith added. “He should be talking about how the SEC needs to step its game up and improve upon itself because they haven’t made a good showing for themselves in years.”
The last time an SEC team won the College Football Playoff’s National Championship came in 2022, when Georgia successfully repeated as champions. But every year, when the season fires up again, SEC teams are ranked right back at the front of the pack. Can they stay there this time?
