50 Fun Facts About SEC Football

In which Tennessee city was the SEC established in December 1932?

Thirteen Southern Conference schools met at the Farragut Hotel; ten of them are still in the league today.

How many charter members did the SEC have when it broke away from the Southern Conference?

Three of them - Sewanee, Georgia Tech and Tulane - were gone by the late 1960s.

In which Alabama city is the SEC headquartered?

The same city's Legion Field hosted the first two SEC Championship Games and, for decades, the Iron Bowl.

In 1935 the SEC became the first conference to legalize what?

Thirty years later a fight over how those scholarships were handed out drove Georgia Tech out of the league.

Which charter member left the SEC after the 1940 season having gone 0-36 in conference play?

Its 1899 'Iron Tigers' had been one of the most dominant teams in the country, but the tiny private school could not keep up with the big state universities.

Georgia Tech quit the SEC in 1964 because the league would not crack down on which Bear Bryant-linked practice?

Coach Bobby Dodd pulled the Yellow Jackets out when the vote went against him; they played as an independent until joining the ACC in 1978.

Which two schools joined in 1990 to bring the SEC to 12 members and make a championship game possible?

Vanderbilt was placed in the East despite sitting in the Central time zone, purely to keep its rivalry with Tennessee.

Missouri and Texas A&M both arrived in the SEC in 2012 from which conference?

Twelve years later the same conference lost Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC too.

Texas and Oklahoma were originally slated to join the SEC in 2025. What let them arrive a year early?

The deal was announced on 9 February 2023, and the SEC scrapped its East and West divisions the same year the newcomers arrived.

In what year did the SEC stage the first Division I conference football championship game?

Alabama and Florida met in the first three; the Big 12 was the next league to copy the format, in 1996.

Where were the first two SEC Championship Games played before the game moved to Atlanta?

Atlanta has hosted every edition since 1994, first at the Georgia Dome and, since 2017, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

During the divisional era, which side led the SEC Championship Game series 19-13?

Only six programs have ever won the game: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn and LSU.

Which SEC commissioner, in office from 1990 to 2002, created the Bowl Championship Series?

He came to the job from Vanderbilt, where he had been athletic director, and had earlier won a Division II national title as Central Michigan's coach.

Greg Sankey, SEC commissioner from 2015, was born in a town named after which SEC school's home?

Media outlets have called him 'the most powerful man in college athletics'; he previously ran the Southland Conference.

On what date did the SEC Network officially launch?

Its very first live event was an exhibition women's soccer match between Arkansas and Creighton, streamed on WatchESPN.

How many national titles did Bear Bryant win in his 25 years at Alabama?

They came in 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978 and 1979, and his final career record was 323-85-17.

Bear Bryant's brutal 1954 Texas A&M training camp gave the survivors what nickname?

Bryant later admitted to Time that he had been too hard on them and would have quit too; the team went 1-9 that year.

Bear Bryant's trademark hat had which pattern?

Oddly, he normally wore a plaid one; the famous version stuck in the public memory anyway, along with his habit of leaning on the goalpost during warmups.

Before Alabama, Nick Saban left LSU after the 2004 season to coach which NFL team?

He had earlier spent four years as Bill Belichick's defensive coordinator in Cleveland, years he later called 'the worst of my life'.

Which backup quarterback threw Alabama's 2nd-and-26 overtime winner against Georgia for the 2017 title?

The catch went to DeVonta Smith, and the win tied Saban with Bryant at six poll-era national championships.

Steve Spurrier's pass-heavy Florida offense, which forced the run-first SEC to adapt, was nicknamed what?

Spurrier won the 1966 Heisman as a Gator himself, then became the first Heisman winner to coach one when Danny Wuerffel won in 1996.

Kirby Smart led Georgia to back-to-back national championships in which two seasons?

Smart played at Georgia himself and was a long-time Saban assistant before returning to Athens.

Which Georgia running back won the 1982 Heisman Trophy?

He was national champion as a freshman in 1980 and left early for the USFL, later joining the Dallas Cowboys.

Besides football, which sport did Bo Jackson play at Auburn on his way to the 1985 Heisman?

He was an outfielder for the Tigers and went on to play both sports professionally, with the Raiders and the Royals.

In 2008, Tim Tebow got the most first-place Heisman votes but finished third. Who won?

Tebow had won it in 2007; the Oklahoma winner and Texas's McCoy split the rest of the ballot ahead of him.

Joe Burrow won the 2019 Heisman and a national title at LSU after transferring from which school?

He was drafted first overall by Cincinnati in 2020, the third straight Heisman-winning quarterback to go No. 1 after Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.

Cam Newton skipped every Heisman ceremony after his 2010 win until returning in 2024 to support which finalist?

Newton's Auburn team went 14-0 and beat Oregon for the BCS title that season.

The Egg Bowl's Golden Egg trophy was created in 1927 after what happened at the 1926 game?

The trophy is a brass football on a wooden base, but 1920s footballs were so blunt and ovoid that to modern eyes it looks like an egg.

The winner of the Alabama-Tennessee game knowingly breaks an NCAA rule every year by handing out what?

Alabama trainer Jim Goostree started it in the 1950s; both schools kept it quiet until Alabama restarted it publicly in 2005 and self-reported a violation.

In which year was the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry officially named the Third Saturday in October?

The first meeting, a 6-6 tie in 1901, ended early when fans rushed the field after an offside call and could not be cleared.

The Florida-Georgia game has been played almost every year since 1933 in which neutral city?

The only recent exceptions were 1994 and 1995, when the old Gator Bowl was torn down and rebuilt for the expansion Jaguars.

How long was the Iron Bowl suspended before Alabama and Auburn resumed playing in 1948?

Alabama celebrated the reunion by winning 55-0 at Legion Field, still the biggest margin in the series.

In which year did Alabama first travel to Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium for the Iron Bowl?

Bear Bryant had refused to consider moving the game out of Birmingham; Auburn beat an undefeated, No. 2 Alabama 30-20 that day.

Which SEC stadium is the conference's largest, seating 102,733?

Texas A&M's home is also the fourth-largest stadium in the NCAA; LSU's Tiger Stadium is second in the SEC at 102,321.

In which year did Neyland Stadium get its checkerboard end zones and the Power T run-through?

New coach Doug Dickey also put the T on the helmet and moved the Tennessee bench to the west sideline.

The idea for Sanford Stadium's famous hedges came from a visit to which other stadium?

Business manager Charlie Martin wanted roses like Pasadena's, but they would not survive Athens weather, so privet went in for the 1929 opener against Yale.

Who first recorded 'Rocky Top', in 1967, long before Tennessee's band adopted it?

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote it, and it is one of Tennessee's sixteen official state songs.

Why is the speed limit on the Ole Miss campus 18 mph?

After Eli Manning won his second Super Bowl, some areas were lowered to 10 mph for his number too.

What does Texas A&M's entire student body, the 12th Man, do throughout the game?

They step 'off the wood' - down from the bleachers onto concrete - whenever a player is hurt or the Aggie War Hymn plays.

Every Georgia mascot since Uga I debuted in 1956 has been owned by which Savannah family?

Uga travels with the team and stays in the same hotel, in his own room; Uga X became the first 'playoff Uga' at the 2018 Rose Bowl.

Oklahoma's Conestoga-wagon mascot is pulled onto the field by two white ponies. What are they named?

The wagon is a scaled-down Conestoga replica; in the 1985 Orange Bowl its premature victory lap cost Oklahoma a penalty and a nullified field goal.

How much money did Texas alumnus Stephen Pinckney gather in 1916 to buy the first live longhorn mascot?

The steer was originally named 'Bo' and shipped to Austin from the Panhandle; the university's burnt-orange colors come from the breed's coloring.

LSU's live mascot is traditionally which kind of tiger?

The current Mike VII and his two predecessors are actually mixed-breeds; Mike III arrived from the Seattle Zoo just in time for the 1958 national title season.

How much time did officials put back on the clock after Nick Saban's challenge, setting up the 2013 Kick Six?

The 57-yard attempt fell short, Chris Davis caught it in the end zone and ran it all the way back; the game drew over 13 million viewers in its final half-hour.

Who caught the 74-yard tipped touchdown in the 2002 Bluegrass Miracle?

Kentucky players were so sure they had won that they doused coach Guy Morriss with Gatorade before the final snap.

In the 2013 Prayer at Jordan-Hare, Auburn's 73-yard tipped touchdown came on which down and distance?

Two Georgia defenders collided going for the ball, which popped up to Ricardo Louis, two weeks before the same stadium hosted the Kick Six.

Missouri's home field is named for which Hall of Fame coach?

The student section was originally 'The Zou', a nickname now applied to the whole Memorial Stadium scene.

Arkansas claims one national championship. In which year, and from which body?

The Razorbacks spent 1915 to 1991 in the Southwest Conference before becoming one of the SEC's two 1990 additions.

Which Alabama quarterback led the Crimson Tide to a 21-14 win in the first nationally televised Iron Bowl?

That was the same year Auburn coach Shug Jordan is credited with coining the name 'Iron Bowl' when reporters asked how he felt about missing a bowl game.

Which private charter member left the SEC in 1966, the last of three schools to depart?

Its programs had struggled against the large state universities; Sewanee left in 1940 and Georgia Tech in 1964.