The 2023 season will be the last of divisional play for Southeastern Conference football. Starting in 2024 when Texas and Oklahoma join the league, it will be one non-divided league and the top two finishers in the standings will head to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game.
This move was made to make sure the actual top two teams in the league play for the title, something that has not always been the case with the divisions.
Today, we will look back at the SEC East.
Under Steve Spurrier, Florida won the first five division titles. The Gators and Spurrier still hold the record for the most consecutive trips to Atlanta (or Birmingham the first two years) and east titles. That said, since 2002, the season after Spurrier departed Gainesville for the Washington Redskins, it’s been Georgia that has dominated the division, thanks in no small part to its recent run under Kirby Smart, who has won the division five times in his seven years as the head coach of the Dawgs and five out of the last six.
Coming off of back-to-back National Championships, UGA is again the overwhelming favorite in the division for 2023. Most will highlight Georgia’s national and SEC titles and three trips to the College Football Playoff Championship Game, but Smart started by establishing divisional dominance. Mark Richt got things started in that department with three division titles in 2002, 2003 and 2005 (Georgia’s first was in 2002) and then again in 2011 and 2012. Smart has as many as Richt did right now.
OVERALL DIVISION WINNERS (SEC East)
Florida – 13 (most recent, 2020)
Georgia – 10 (2022)
Tennessee – 5 (2007)
Missouri- 2 (2014)
South Carolina- 1 (2010)
Kentucky- 0
Vanderbilt- 0
SEC EAST WINNERS SINCE 2002 (post-Spurrier at UF)
Georgia- 10
Florida- 5
Tennessee – 2
Missouri- 2
South Carolina- 1
Smart is currently tied with former Tennessee head coach Philip Fulmer (5) and Richt (5) with the most SEC East titles. Nobody will catch Spurrier as he has 8, including one at South Carolina in 2010. But by winning the final SEC East title, Smart can stand alone above everyone except Spurrier when the history of the SEC East (for now) concludes after this season.
