ALTOONA, Pa. -- Granted, my mapping and artwork skills aren't the greatest. But you'll get the idea.
This rudimentary graphic shows all the places that have won a college football national championship since 2006.
Thanks to poster Jk52 for mentioning in my Live Qs feature last week about how you can draw a small circle in the Southeast to show almost all of the champions. So, I drew a small circle, albeit a bad one! LOL.
Anyway, as you can see, the small circle thing is correct, because the only place outside of it is Ohio State, which won the title in 2014.
Here's a list of all the schools to win a national championship in the past 17 seasons:
2022: Georgia
2021: Georgia
2020: Alabama
2019: LSU
2018: Clemson
2017: Alabama
2016: Clemson
2015: Alabama
2014: Ohio State
2013: Florida State
2012: Alabama
2011: Alabama
2010: Auburn
2009: Alabama
2008: Florida
2007: LSU
2006: Florida
There will be a lot of talk over the next couple of years about Penn State contending for a national title. The Nittany Lions will be ranked in the preseason top 10 next year and likely should be again in 2024, as long as everything goes as planned.
But there's a big difference between contending for a title and winning one. Because ultimately, winning a championship would mean bucking the major trend of Southeastern dominance.
All of which begs the question, as Jk52 asked last week: What do we attribute this all to, the fact that all but one of the past 17 national champions have been from within that small circle?
Here are five reasons.
1. It just means more
Yeah, yeah, the SEC slogan can be offputting to the point of nauseating. But that doesn't mean it's not true.
Of the past 17 champs, 13 have been from the SEC, including the last four. This is not a coincidence.
The very best programs down there have all the resources they need to compete at the highest level. As James Franklin talks about so frequently, it takes a 365-day-a-year commitment from everyone at the school to be on the same page in making sure that the football program has every single thing it needs to be in position to win a title.
Yeah, I'm talking about money here. The kind of money necessary to upgrade facilities whenever needed, to pay the coaches, to pay the NIL deals, and everything in between.
I've mentioned several times that I cannot imagine there are trustees at those other schools that would vote against upgrades for football facilities. Not only did some Penn State trustees do that, but even the likes of Jay Paterno did so, which makes you wonder what the agenda truly is of someone like him on the board.
It absolutely means just as much at Ohio State as it does any of these other places in the Southeast. That's one big reason why the Buckeyes are always in contention for a title.
But outside of Ohio State, can we truly say that it means just as much anywhere else as it does to those Southeastern schools? Can we truly say that about Penn State?
No.
Which is exactly why Franklin beats that drum each and every chance he gets.
2. Recruiting
This one is easy, and doesn't take much explanation.
There are more good players in the South. This has been true for a long time now, in places such as Florida and Georgia and Louisiana.
It's easier for schools down there to keep those kids at home than it is for Northern schools to convince them to come up and play in the cold and/or snow.
3. Quarterback play
The weather is better, and the offenses are more dynamic. Those things go hand in hand.
Sure, Ohio State's C.J. Stroud is just as good as any quarterback that plays in the South. And there are other outstanding QBs across the country, including Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams at USC. All of which is why it's hard to make generalized statements on something like this.
But the bottom line is that quarterbacks in the SEC have a lot of advantages when it comes to speed and skill position players around them, and that kind of talent can make the quarterbacks look very, very good.
Take, for instance, Georgia's Stetson Bennett. Do you think he could do what he did playing for, I don't know, Michigan State or even Penn State? But you give him All-America candidates all over the offense, and Bennett can look like a star.
4. Speed
This gets talked about an awful lot. Yes, there is speed on other teams across the country. Yes, Penn State has a lot of speed, and so does Ohio State.
This isn't something like the Southern teams are all fast and the Northern teams are all slow. It's just not as simple as that.
We're talking in general here. Every good program in the SEC has tremendous overall team speed. Can Penn State beat some of them on occasion? Absolutely. But can Penn State hold up from a speed standpoint -- as well as a power standpoint -- week in and week out against the likes of Alabama, Georgia and others? That's the issue.
5. Momentum
Hey, they've got a ton of it right now in the SEC. And it's going to be hard to break that momentum -- for anybody, including Ohio State and Penn State.
When you've dominated a sport for as long as the SEC has, then young players see it and want to be part of it. The best coaches want to be part of it. The best administrators. And so on, and so on.
The SEC had 65 players drafted last year, far and away more than any other league. The Big Ten was second with a solid 48, but that's still a big dropoff from the SEC. No other league had more than 25.
Point is, more top recruits live in the South. And they want to stay home because they know it gives them a better chance to get to the NFL.
When we have these kinds of discussions, it can come across as saying that the Big Ten can't compete with the SEC. That's not really the case, though, because Big Ten teams often fare very well in bowl games or regular-season games against SEC teams.
But that's not what we're talking about here. At all.
We're talking about beating the very best teams in the SEC. Georgia and Alabama. Or LSU. Those are the teams, and perhaps others in any given year, that will stand in the way of Penn State or anybody else winning a national title.
The Lions can do everything right to put themselves in position to win one. And as we keep pointing out, things are looking very promising for Penn State over the next couple of years.
But no matter how well the Lions do against everybody else, at the end of the day, trying to break through against all the teams inside that circle will always be a huge challenge.
