"I was an assistant coach at USC, and we didn't have playoffs": Steve Sarkisian throws light on the evolution of CFP amid recent drama
Texas Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian discussed the changing landscape of deciding college football’s national champion over the past two decades on Wednesday at the SEC spring meetings.
Sarkisian talked about how the structure of determining the best team has evolved since the 2000s, when he was the USC quarterbacks coach. In 2003, LSU beat Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl and was proclaimed as the BCS national champion, while USC claimed the AP national championship after topping Michigan in the Rose Bowl.
But with changing times, the model evolved to four teams and then a 12-team playoff determined by a selection committee.
“You know, I've lived this life going all the way back to the early 2000s – right? – when I was an assistant coach at USC, and we didn't have a playoff … and we grew into a two-team playoff, and we grew into a four-team playoff,” Coach Sark said during a news conference at Miramar Beach Resort in Florida (Timestamp: 0:10).
"And now we've grown into where we're at today, and I think at the end of the day, we all just want to put the best teams to have an opportunity to compete for a championship.”
At the high-powered summit where SEC coaches and ADs met to hash out College Football Playoff changes as well as the potential splitting of the conference from the bigger umbrella of the NCAA, the Super League proposition and SEC-Big Ten partnership were also reportedly discussed.
Steve Sarkisian throws light on the toughness of the SEC
Over the last two decades, the Southeastern Conference has stood as a formidable league hosting some of the top programs in the country. And rightly so, it produces tier 1 NFL-level athletes. Boasting about the dominance of the SEC in college football, Steve Sarkisian mentioned that for the last 18 years, the SEC has had the most NFL draft picks.
In 2025, a record was made with 79 players from the league getting drafted in Green Bay. The SEC's draft haul vaulted from 65 players selected last season and has seen a steady increase in the past two decades, showing the prowess and quality of the programs. As a result, teams are slowly foregoing their decades-old rivalries with other conferences programs and focusing more on navigating the tough SEC schedule.