Every non-Alabama team in the SEC finished 2016 with at least 4 losses

Alabama won the SEC, obliterating Florida in the conference championship game on Saturday to the surprise of no one, 54-16. The defending champs will advance to the Peach Bowl against Washington as the undisputed No. 1 seed, making the Playoff for the third year in a row. That’s every year of the Playoff, which nobody else has done.

Nick Saban’s dynasty is amazing. It’s also come at the expense of the conference. And this year’s been a perfect storm of Alabama brilliance and everyone else’s mediocrity or worse. Let’s have a look at the conference’s post-title game, pre-bowl standings:

ESPN

Florida and LSU only played 11 regular season games apiece, owing to a scheduling change that resulted from Hurricane Matthew. That didn’t stop either from getting to four losses in total, nor did any of the league’s other 11 non-Bama teams stay below that mark. Meanwhile, Bama just kept humming along.

There’s only been serious drama in one Bama game all season (a win at Ole Miss), and the Tide mostly steamrolled everyone. Their average margin of victory in SEC games during the regular season was 38-15, and then they beat Florida by a margin that made it even worse. The gap between the Tide and the rest of the SEC is now a chasm.

Good thing Alabama hasn’t recruited better than everyone else and doesn’t have the country’s current top-ranked class for next year, either. Everyone else will be fine.