No original SEC team made CFP final four. Feature, bug, or anomaly?

When the talk about College Football Playoff expansion started to become serious, there were questions about whether it would allow Alabama to become even more dominant.

It was a reasonable concern. With an expanded field, the thing that most often tripped up the Crimson Tide - regular-season losses to another SEC power - would have less of an impact. Alabama could lose twice in conference play and still make the 12-team field. The Crimson Tide had won six titles over the past 20 seasons, including when the CFP was still the Bowl Championship Series.

Would expansion simply lead to the rich getting richer?

Turns out: Nope. Nick Saban retired last year, and the first 12-team playoff didn't include Alabama, which suffered three losses. Perhaps more surprisingly, after Tennessee lost in the first round of the playoff and Georgia lost in the second, none of the traditional SEC powers made the final four. Texas, a new arrival to the conference, is there. You will note that Austin is very clearly not located in the Southeast.

And so, the conference that's produced 15 national champions in the BCS-CFP era dating to 1998 has just newbie Texas left to carry its flag. (The ACC was the runner-up conference, with four titles during that period.)

So, is this a blip? A fluke? A weird one-off thanks in part to Saban's departure and an off-year from Georgia, the one program that had grown to rival his in the SEC?

Or is it the start of a new era of parity, one ushered in by rule changes that allow players to be paid and transfer between schools more easily?

The answer is probably all of the above.

NIL payments and the transfer portal have fundamentally changed the landscape. Talented players who might have previously been third on the depth chart at an SEC powerhouse now have real incentives to switch schools and walk into a starting job. Those incentives will only become more compelling as more schools take advantage of rule changes that allow them to directly share revenues with - that is, pay - athletes.

The differences between an elite SEC roster and programs from other conferences were often laid bare at playoff time when a team like Alabama or LSU would send out wave after wave of players who could wear out a top-heavy Big Ten or ACC opponent. (Or Notre Dame.)

This year, not only did Ohio State thump Tennessee and Notre Dame handle Georgia in the playoffs, but Alabama, Texas A&M, and South Carolina all lost bowl games to non-SEC teams. (Ole Miss beat Duke, at least.) No longer can an SEC team, even one with a gaudy win-loss record, show up at a big postseason game and expect to roll over an opponent.

But it's also quite possible for the SEC to find its footing in the new landscape. It didn't turn into an all-conquering football conference overnight, and it could reassert itself again. The tools that other programs - Indiana and SMU come to mind - have used to great effect are also available to SEC schools. The conference still enjoys a natural regional recruiting advantage - five of the top 10 recruiting classes this year are in the SEC, according to one national ranking - and coaches will be able to poach talent from other teams, just as smaller rivals have already been doing to them.

Put another way: If a team like Washington, Oregon, or Notre Dame can grab someone else's starting quarterback for a one-season run at a playoff berth, why can't Georgia or Alabama do the same?

One year of the 12-team playoff field is an insufficient sample, but the SEC's depth could be the wild card. Even if some elite programs become better at capitalizing on the new system, middle-tier SEC schools could also grow into tougher opponents. If it becomes increasingly difficult to be a one-loss SEC team, that will limit the playoff berths the conference's teams earn.

But the same could also be said of other conferences. The Buckeyes would never have imagined Indiana giving them a fright, but the Hoosiers made their late-season showdown interesting for a while. Add in the fact that the Big Ten now includes a bunch of former Pac-12 giants, and it's hard for the SEC to claim its programs face an unusually tough road to the playoff bracket.

Weighing all that, it seems as though the most likely outcome is Alabama and Georgia returning to their customary status as title contenders soon. The funny thing is, as recently as a couple of years ago, that would have been stating the obvious.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.