Alabama Football: SEC Championship repeats and three-peats

Winning an SEC football championship is no on-ramp for repeat championship success. As Alabama Football coach, Nick Saban likes to say, there is no continuum of success. Every season is a new quest for championships. With the season-opening kickoffs, the returning champions are champions no more.

The history of SEC Championships proves the point, because repeat champions are the minority. Going back to the start of the SEC in 1933, only seven of the 17 SEC programs have repeated as champions. One of the seven is Georgia Tech. The Yellowjackets have not been in the SEC since 1964.

The Alabama Crimson Tide leads the SEC with 29 conference championships. Only seven of the SEC’s current 14 football programs have won more than one SEC Championship. Closest to the Crimson Tide are LSU and Georgia with 12 and Florida with 13.

Alabama has repeated as SEC Champion 12 times. The 2022 season will be a three-peat quest for the Crimson Tide.

Auburn has not had a repeat SEC Championship since the Pat Dye era in 1989. For the Tigers, 1989 was a three-peat season. Florida’s last repeat was under Steve Spurrier when the Gators ran off four consecutive championships in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996. The last repeat for the Georgia Bulldogs came in 1982. That season was a three-peat for Vince Dooley’s program.

Even with Nick Saban as the LSU Bengal Tigers’ head coach for five seasons, LSU has not had a repeat SEC Championship since 1936.

Under the legendary General Robert Neyland, the Tennessee Vols had a three-peat in 1938, 1939 and 1940. The Ole Miss Rebels, under Johnny Vaught repeated twice, in 1954, 1955 and 1962, 1963.

Kentucky and Mississippi State have won SEC championships but neither program ever achieved a repeat. Along with Vanderbilt, the SEC’s shortest tenured members, Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Missouri have never won an SEC championship.

Alabama Football leads in three-peats and a five-peat

Along with repeat Championships in 1933, 1934 and 2020, 2021, Alabama Football has three, three-peats (1964, 1965, 1966), (1977, 1978, 1979) and (2014, 2015, 2016). During the Tide’s 1970s Dynasty, it achieved a five-peat that started in 1971 and went through 1975.

Note: In this review, there is no distinction made between outright and shared SEC Championships. Records were retrieved from rolltide.com and secsports.com

In addition to the Crimson Tide’s 29 SEC Championships, Alabama also won four Southern Conference Championships, including a three-peat under Wallace Wade in 1924, 1925 and 1926.