Southeastern Conference (SEC)
Established	1932
Association	NCAA
Division	Division I FBS
Members	12 (14 on July 1, 2012)
Sports fielded	20[1] (men's: 9; women's: 11)
Region	Southern United States
Headquarters	Birmingham, Alabama
Commissioner	Michael Slive (since 2002)
Website	secsports.com
Locations
Southeastern Conference locations

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The SEC participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I in athletic competitions; for football, it is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A. The conference is one of the most successful financially, consistently leading most conferences in revenue distribution to its members, including an SEC record $220.0 million for the 2010–2011 fiscal year.^[2]

The SEC was also the first NCAA Division I conference to hold a championship game (and award a subsequent title) for college football, and was one of the founding members of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The current SEC commissioner is Michael Slive.^[3]

History[link]

Locations of the SEC full-member institutions beginning on July 1, 2012

Founding and former members[link]

The SEC was established on December 8 and 9, 1932, when the thirteen members of the Southern Conference located west and south of the Appalachian Mountains left to form their own conference. Ten of the thirteen founding members have remained in the conference since its inception: the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University ("LSU"), the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"), Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University.

The other charter members were:

• The University of the South ("Sewanee") left the SEC on December 13, 1940, and later de-emphasized varsity athletics.^[4] It is currently a member of the Division III Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, but will leave that conference in July 2012, along with six other SCAC members, to form a new Division III conference to be known as the Southern Athletic Association.

• Georgia Institute of Technology ("Georgia Tech") left the SEC in 1964. In 1975, it became a founding member of the Metro Conference, one of the predecessors to today's Conference USA. Georgia Tech competed in the Metro Conference in all sports except football, in which it was independent. In 1978, Georgia Tech joined another Southern Conference offshoot, the Atlantic Coast Conference, for all sports, where it has remained.

• Tulane University left the SEC in 1966. Along with Georgia Tech, it was a charter member of the Metro Conference. Unlike Tech, however, Tulane remained in the Metro Conference until it merged with the Great Midwest Conference and became the new Conference USA in 1995. Tulane remained an independent in football until C-USA began football competition in 1996.

1991 expansion[link]

In 1991, the SEC expanded from ten to twelve member universities with the addition of:

• University of Arkansas (see Arkansas Razorbacks for team history before SEC); and
• University of South Carolina (see South Carolina Gamecocks for team history before SEC).

The two new teams joined for the 1991–1992 basketball season. At the same time, the SEC split into two divisions—a Western Division comprising most of the schools in the Central Time Zone, and an Eastern Division comprising the schools in the Eastern Time Zone plus Vanderbilt (which is located in the Central Time Zone, but is in the Eastern Division to preserve its rivalry with Tennessee, while Alabama and Auburn are in the same division to preserve theirs despite Auburn being further east than Vanderbilt). This divisional format remains in place today for football and baseball; the divisions have been eliminated for basketball.

Also in 1992, the SEC was the first conference to receive permission from the NCAA to sponsor an annual football championship game, featuring the winners of the conference's Eastern and Western divisions.^[5] The 1992 and 1993 SEC Championships were held at Birmingham's Legion Field, and have since been held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.^[5]

2012 expansion[link]

On September 25, 2011, the SEC Presidents and Chancellors, acting unanimously, announced that Texas A&M University will join the SEC effective July 1, 2012, with Texas A&M to begin competition in nineteen of the twenty sports sponsored by the SEC during the 2012–13 academic year.^[6] On November 6, 2011 the SEC commissioner announced that the University of Missouri will also be joining the SEC on July 1, 2012.^[7] For football, Texas A&M will compete in the Western Division, and Missouri in the Eastern Division.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Membership timeline[link]

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         id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two

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  bar:14 color:Full from:1991 till:end  text:Arkansas (1991–present)

  bar:15 color:Full from:1991 till:end  text:South Carolina (1991–present)

  bar:16 color:Full from:2012 till:end shift:(-60) text:Texas A&M (2012–future)

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Television and radio contracts[link]

The SEC televises football games across various networks during the fall. SEC coverage is primarily provided by CBS and the ESPN family of networks, which includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ABC. Fox Sports Net also has rights to air seven live football games over the course of the season.^[12]

ESPN reported paying $2.25 billion for broadcast rights of SEC football games beginning in the 2009 season and running through the fiscal year 2025.^[13]

Games scheduled for airing are generally picked two weeks before they occur, with a few matches that are selected by CBS and ESPN prior to the season.

CBS has the first pick for a game and selects the highest-profile game to broadcast to a national, over-the-air audience. The CBS game is usually broadcast at 3:30 eastern time. Some weekends, CBS will air a doubleheader of SEC games.^[14] CBS also has the rights for the SEC Championship Game.

ESPN will air several SEC games each week among its various channels, with Saturday time slots generally at 12:00 ET, 7:00 ET, and 7:45 ET, and some SEC games will be shown on Thursday nights. In previous years, Raycom Sports syndicated regional coverage for an SEC game of the week at 12:30 ET, but the new contract replaced it with a new ESPN-produced syndication package, the SEC Network — whose football games kickoff at 12:21 ET.^[15]

The currently scheduled Fox Sports Net games are set for 7:00 ET.^[16]

For games not selected by any broadcast provider, certain schools may offer regional pay-per-view.

As of 2008, all SEC schools are affiliated with XM Radio, offering their radio broadcasts to an audience on XM. According to SiriusXM, the SEC will not be included as part of the "Best of XM" package deal for Sirius customers.

2008 television contract[link]

During the 2007–2008 fiscal year review meeting, there was discussion among SEC leadership about the possibility of starting a TV network dedicated to its conference, much in the same way the Mountain West Conference and Big Ten Conference have done with the mtn. and Big Ten Networks, respectively. A decision was made to postpone the decision until at least the following year.^[17]

In August 2008, the SEC announced an unprecedented 15-year television contract with CBS worth an estimated $55 million a year. This continues the relationship the SEC already has with CBS, which puts the SEC in the unique position as the only conference to have its own exclusive national television network of the four major over-the-air broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) to display the SEC's events.^[5]

In the same month, the league also announced another landmark television contract with ESPN worth $2.25 billion or $150 million a year for the life of the contract, which is for fifteen years. It is the longest and wealthiest contract among all television deals among the major conferences. With these contracts, the SEC has, outside the Big Ten, the richest television deals in the country and will make the SEC the most nationally televised and visible conference in the country with the coverage that is provided by these contracts.^[18][19]

Commissioners[link]

The office of Commissioner was created in 1940.^[20]

Membership[link]

Current members[link]

The SEC currently has twelve member institutions in nine Southeastern states.^[21] The geographic domain of the conference stretches from Arkansas to South Carolina (west to east) and from Kentucky to Florida (north to south). New members to be admitted in 2012 will extend this reach: northward to Missouri and westward to Texas.

The conference is divided into two geographic divisions: the Eastern Division and the Western Division. These groupings are most notably used in football and baseball. Starting with the 2011–12 season, the SEC scrapped its divisional alignment in men's basketball, following a vote by SEC head coaches on June 1, 2011 at the conference's annual meeting.^[22] This change makes the SEC more consistent with other conferences, since none of the other five "major conferences" use divisions in basketball even if they are used in football, baseball, etc. The conference also does not use divisions in women's basketball. The twelve current members of the Southeastern Conference are:

• ^* Enrollment figures include both undergraduate and graduate students.

Future members[link]

Sports[link]

The Southeastern Conference sponsors championships in nine men's and ten women's sports.

• Baseball
• Basketball – Men's
• Basketball – Women's
• Cross-Country – Men's (except South Carolina)
• Cross-Country – Women's
• Football
• Golf – Men's
• Golf – Women's
• Gymnastics (Women's) (Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU only; Missouri will join league competition in 2012–13)
• Indoor Track & Field – Men's
• Indoor Track & Field – Women's
• Outdoor Track & Field – Men's (except Vanderbilt)
• Outdoor Track & Field – Women's
• Soccer (Women's)
• Softball (Women's) (except Vanderbilt)
• Swimming and Diving – Men's (except Arkansas, MSU, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt)
• Swimming and Diving – Women's (except MSU and Ole Miss)
• Tennis – Men's
• Tennis – Women's
• Volleyball (Women's) (except Vanderbilt) – Note: The SEC voted to suspend the volleyball tournament for a period of three years beginning with the 2006 season.^[24]

Under SEC conference rules reflecting the large number of (male) scholarship participants in football and attempting to address gender equity concerns (see also Title IX), each member institution is required to provide two more women's varsity sports than men's. The equivalent rule was recently adopted by the NCAA for all of Division I.^[25]

While South Carolina and Kentucky field men's soccer teams, the conference does not sponsor the sport; both schools in 2005 joined Conference USA for the sport.^[26] Conference USA also hosts the University of Alabama and the University of Tennessee as single sports members for women's rowing, which the SEC does not sponsor. Florida and Vanderbilt both have women's lacrosse teams, and those teams compete in the single-sport American Lacrosse Conference.

When Missouri joins the SEC, it will be the only school to sponsor wrestling. No SEC school has sponsored the sport since LSU discontinued its program in 1985 in order to come into compliance with Title IX.

Sports facilities[link]

• ^ Two or three games played each year at Little Rock, one or two non-conference game(s) and one SEC game (the LSU game if Arkansas is hosting that game).

Current SEC champions[link]

Source: 2011–12 Southeastern Conference Media Guide^[31]

Football[link]

For the upcoming season, see 2012 Southeastern Conference football season

Before expansion, each SEC school played six conference games. Five of these games were against permanent opponents, developing some traditional rivalries between schools, and the sixth game rotated around the other four members of the conference.

From 1992 through 2001, each team had two permanent inter-divisional opponents, allowing many traditional rivalries from the pre-expansion era (such as Florida vs. Auburn, Kentucky vs. LSU and Vanderbilt vs. Alabama) to continue. However, complaints from some league athletic directors about imbalance in the schedule (for instance, Auburn's two permanent opponents from the East were Florida and Georgia – two of the SEC's stronger football programs at the time – while Mississippi State played Kentucky and South Carolina every year) led to the SEC reducing the permanent opponents to only one per team.

Under the current format, each school plays a total of eight conference games, consisting of the other five teams in its division, two schools from the other division on a rotating basis, and one school from the other division that it plays each year. All permanent inter-divisional games, with the exception of Arkansas vs. South Carolina, were played annually before SEC expansion in 1992.^[32]

The following table shows the permanent inter-divisional opponent for each school listed by total number of games played (records through the completion of the 2011 season with Western Division wins listed first):^[33]

The following table shows the future permanent inter-divisional opponent for each school listed by total number of games played (records through the completion of the 2011 season with Western Division wins listed first):^[33]

Other league athletic directors have advocated discarding the current format and adopting the one used by the Big 12 Conference through 2010, where teams play three teams from the opposite division on a home-and-home basis for two seasons, and then switch and play the other three teams from the opposite side for a two-year home-and-home. However, the potential loss of such heated (and profitable, as the games are often shown on national TV) long-standing rivalries as Auburn-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee, and LSU-Florida have scuttled such plans on the drawing board. The loss of the annual rivalry between Nebraska and Oklahoma had led some Big 12 athletic directors to make a push to adopt the SEC format for the Big 12 prior to the loss of Nebraska and Colorado following the 2010 season. The Atlantic Coast Conference followed the SEC's lead and went one step further, adopting the permanent rival format for both football and basketball (in the latter sport each school had two designated rivals until expansion to 14 schools rendered that arrangement impractical). The Big Ten Conference, which added Nebraska in 2011, is also following the SEC's lead in its scheduling format.

All-time school records[link]

Through the 2011 regular season, not including the bowls that follow.

^[42]

Championship Game[link]

The SEC Championship Game pits the SEC Western Division representative against the Eastern Division representative in a game held after the regular season has been completed. As of 2010, nine of the twelve SEC members have played in the Championship. Ole Miss is the only team from the SEC West to have not played in the SEC Championship Game, and Vanderbilt and Kentucky have failed to play in the game from the SEC East.

The first two SEC Championship football games were held at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Since 1994, the game has been played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. The team designated as the "home" team alternates between division champions; the designation goes to the Eastern champion in even-numbered years and the Western champion in odd-numbered years. As of 2010, the Eastern division of the SEC leads the Western division in overall wins in the championship game 11 to 9.

Bowl games[link]

The post-season bowl game tie-ins for the SEC for the 2010 season are:^[43]

Bowl selection procedures[link]

If the SEC champion is selected to participate in the BCS National Championship Game, the Sugar Bowl is not required to pick the SEC runner-up but may select any eligible BCS team. However, since the BCS title game was moved to a standalone basis in 2007, the Sugar Bowl has selected an SEC team, and since 2008 has chosen the SEC runner-up (the 2007 Sugar Bowl featured LSU, who was not the SEC runner-up but was an eligible BCS team). However, since 2006, the Sugar Bowl has selected either a division runner-up (2006 LSU, 2007 Georgia, and 2010 Arkansas) or conference runner-up (2008 Alabama, 2009 Florida), which has been the second highest ranked SEC team in the BCS standings.

Under SEC guidelines, unless the Sugar Bowl selects the SEC runner-up, the Capital One Bowl must then pick the SEC runner-up if that team has at least two more total wins than the next team in the selection order. The SEC runner-up has not played in the Capital One Bowl since Arkansas following the 2006 season.

After those selections, the Outback Bowl has the first choice of the remaining teams in the SEC East, and the Cotton Bowl Classic has the first choice of those left in the SEC West.

The Chick-fil-A Bowl and Gator Bowl pick afterwards.

The Liberty Bowl and Music City Bowl work together, along with the SEC office, to determine the seventh and eighth picks.

The BBVA Compass Bowl picks last. In the case that the SEC does not have nine bowl-eligible teams, a team from the Sun Belt will be selected instead.

The SEC is presently second in BCS Bowl appearances, with twenty-one appearances, and first in all-time wins and winning percentage, with fifteen wins and a .714 winning percentage. The BCS Bowls include the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, and the BCS National Championship Game.

Since the advent of the BCS National Championship Game format, the SEC is 8–1 in those games. The one SEC loss, however, was at the hands of another SEC team when the SEC sent an unprecedented two teams to the 2012 National Championship game. The SEC was 2–0 in the games where the BCS National Championship Game was played as one of the traditional New Year's Day bowls, and since 2007 (when the game was moved to a separate contest one week later) an SEC team has participated in all six games and has won all six. Interestingly, the SEC team was ranked No. 1 only three times going into the game (the first contest featuring Tennessee in 1998, Alabama in 2009 and the most recent featuring Auburn in 2010); the other four times the SEC team (LSU twice and Florida twice) was ranked No. 2.

Rivalries[link]

The SEC members have long histories. Some of the football rivalries involving SEC teams include:

† Denotes outside of conference

Player awards[link]

Each year, the conference selects various individual awards. In 1994, the conference began honoring former players from each school annually with the SEC Football Legends program.

50th anniversary All-Time SEC Team[link]

In 1982, the SEC Skywriters, a group of media covering the Southeastern Conference, selected members of their All-Time SEC Team for the first 50 years (1933–82) of the SEC.

Men's basketball[link]

For the most recently completed season, see 2011–12 SEC men's basketball season.

SEC teams play a 16-game conference schedule. Although the divisions have been eliminated beginning with the 2011–12 season, that season's schedule will continue to be set according to the divisional alignments, with each team facing each team from its own division twice and each team from the opposite division once. As part of the proposal by SEC head coaches that led to the scrapping of the divisional structure, a task force of four coaches and four athletic directors was set to discuss future conference scheduling. At that time, options included a revamped 16-game schedule, an 18-game schedule, or a full double round-robin of 22 conference games.^[22] However, this was before Texas A&M and Missouri were accepted as new members, creating what will eventually be a 14-team conference.

Before expansion, teams played a double round-robin, leading to an exhausting 18-game conference schedule. Not surprisingly, no team ever ran the table when the conference schedule featured 18 games; three teams went 17–1 (Kentucky in 1970 and 1986, LSU in 1981). Since the league slate was trimmed to 16 games, Kentucky has gone undefeated in SEC play in 1996, 2003 and 2012.

Basketball tournament[link]

The SEC Men's Basketball Tournament (sometimes known simply as the SEC Tournament) is the conference championship tournament in basketball for the Southeastern Conference. It is a single-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records. Starting with the 2012 tournament, the top four seeds in the single league table will receive first-round byes.^[22] The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. The tournament is most often held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, though sometimes takes place at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee or the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Florida.

Prior to moving to the Georgia Dome, the tournament was most often contested at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, home of the SEC's headquarters and centrally located prior to the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina. Other sites to host include on-campus arenas at LSU, Tennessee and Vanderbilt; Rupp Arena in Lexington; and the Orlando Arena.

NCAA tournament champions, runners-up and locations[link]

† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.

Awards[link]

The SEC Men's Basketball Player of the Year is awarded to the player who has proven himself, throughout the season, to be the most exceptional talent in the Southeastern Conference. Various other awards, such as the best tournament player in the SEC Tournament and all conference honors are given out throughout the year. Top honors for any player

Baseball[link]

Since 1990, the SEC has become the most successful conference on the college baseball diamond. That year, Georgia captured the conference's first national championship at the College World Series. Following that, LSU won 6 of the next 19 titles, including 5 of 10 between 1991 and 2000 and its sixth title in 2009. This was followed by South Carolina winning back to back titles in 2010 and 2011. During that same span, 5 teams have also been runner ups at the CWS. In 1997 and 2011 both of the two final teams in the CWS have been from the SEC.

SEC teams have also become leaders in total and average attendance over the years. In 2010 five of the top six drawing programs hailed from the SEC. Six more teams placed in the top 35 nationally.

The NCAA automatic berth is given to the winner of the SEC Baseball Tournament, which was first started in 1977. It is a double-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records. Since 1998, the tournament has been held at Regions Park in Hoover, Alabama and contested under the format used at the College World Series from 1988 through 2002, with two four-team brackets leading to a single championship game. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament.

SEC presidents and athletic directors voted to expand the SEC Tournament to 10 teams starting in 2012. The division winners will receive a bye on the first day of competition, and the tournament will become single-elimination after the field is pared to four teams.

In addition to the winner of the SEC Baseball Tournament, the Southeastern Conference usually gets several at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. Many teams have qualified for the NCAA Tournament despite failing to qualify for the SEC Tournament. One of those, Mississippi State, reached the College World Series in 2007.

College World Series champions, runners-up and scores[link]

Rivalries[link]

Several baseball rivalries have developed in the SEC:

• LSU-Tulane

Historically these schools are arch-rivals, but following Tulane's decades long deemphasis of sports, including its exit from the SEC in 1966, this is the only sport in which the two schools are more evenly matched. On several occasions matchups between the two have drawn national record-setting attendances. Tulane reached its first College World Series in 2001 by defeating LSU in three games in the super regional at Zephyr Field.

• LSU-Mississippi State

Before the arrival of Skip Bertman as LSU's baseball coach in 1984, Mississippi State had long dominated the conference in baseball, with most of that success coming under legendary coach Ron Polk (who returned to coach the Bulldogs in 2002 after retiring following the 1997 season), who coached future MLB stars such as Rafael Palmeiro, Will Clark and Jeff Brantley. But when Bertman arrived in Baton Rouge, LSU's long-dormant program took off, winning 11 SEC championships and five College World Series championships in 18 seasons from 1984 through 2001.

• South Carolina-Clemson

This instate rivalry has long been an intense local affair, with the Gamecocks and Tigers meeting each regular season. It has intensified over recent years and gained national prominence as both teams are often ranked in the top 10 nationally. The two highlights of the rivalry have been the 2002 and 2010 meetings in the final four of the College World Series. Each time, South Carolina emerged from the losers bracket to beat Clemson twice and advance to the National Championship match-up, winning the title in 2010.

• South Carolina-North Carolina

To say that the two teams are familiar with each other would be an understatement as the Gamecocks and Tar Heels have met in the NCAA tournament four times between 2002 and 2007. The 2002 NCAA Regional, 2003 NCAA Super Regional and 2004 NCAA Regional featured both schools against each other. South Carolina took two of three games over the Tar Heels to advance in the postseason in 2002, won both games in 2003 to reach the College World Series and won a pair of games in 2004 to go on to another Super Regional. In 2007, the Tar Heels won the Super Regional two games to one to advance to the College World Series. South Carolina baseball coach Ray Tanner has an even longer history with the Tar Heels, having coached ACC rival North Carolina State for nine seasons (1988–96) before leaving for Columbia.

Women's basketball[link]

The SEC has historically been the most dominant conference in women's basketball.^[69] Since the 2009–10 season, teams have played a 16-game conference schedule with a single league table; prior to that time the conference schedule was 14 games, again in a single table.^[70] Like SEC men's basketball, women's basketball uses the divisional alignment for scheduling purposes; however, the women's scheduling format is significantly different from the men's. Each team plays home-and-home games against five schools—one permanent opponent, two teams from the same division, and two teams from the opposite division; the non-permanent home-and-home opponents rotate every two years.^[71] The remaining games are single games against the six other schools in the conference, with three at home and three away.

The recent history of SEC women's basketball is dominated by Tennessee, who have won regular season and/or conference championships in 20 of the last 22 seasons, as well as 8 national championships since 1987. In the 28 seasons the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship has been held, SEC schools have reached the Final Four 32 times, more than twice as often as any other conference.^[72]

Basketball tournament[link]

The SEC Women's Basketball Tournament is currently held a week before the men's basketball tournament. Like the men's version, it is a single-elimination tournament involving all 12 teams, with seeding based on regular season records. The top four teams in the conference standings receive first-round byes, and the winner earns the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA women's basketball tournament.

The tournament, inaugurated in 1980, was originally held on campus sites; the first tournament to take place at a neutral site was in 1987. The two most frequent sites for the tournament have been McKenzie Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee (seven times) and the Gray Civic Center in Albany, Georgia (six times); however, the tournament was last played in Albany in 1992 and Chattanooga in 2000. Because demand for women's tournament tickets is generally lower than for the men's tournament, it is typically played in a smaller venue than the men's tournament in the same season. The most frequent venues in recent years have been Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas, which have respectively hosted the event five and three times since 2000.

NCAA tournament champions, runners-up and locations[link]

† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.

Rivalries[link]

• Tennessee-UConn

The Lady Vols have historically been the nation's dominant program in that sport. Starting in the mid-1990s, UConn has emerged as Tennessee's main rival for national prominence. The Huskies won four national titles between 2000 and 2004; in three of those years, their victim in the NCAA final was Tennessee. Connecticut also defeated Tennessee in the 1995 Championship game, the Huskies' first-ever title.

Other sports[link]

Besides football, basketball, and baseball, there are a number of other sports in which the Southeastern Conference actively competes.

Rivalries[link]

• Alabama-Georgia, women's gymnastics

These two storied programs have often butted heads for not only SEC titles, but NCAA titles, as well. Georgia has won ten national championships to Alabama's six. For decades the rivalry was dominated by the two long standing coaches of the two schools, Suzanne Yoculan of Georgia and Sarah Patterson of Alabama. Yoculan has since retired bringing their personal rivalry to an end.

• Alabama-Florida, women's softball

These two nationally acclaimed softball programs have proven to be the elite of the SEC and the nation. While consistently being ranked in the nation's Top Ten, both teams find their way to the SEC Tournament Finals and often clash once more in the Women's College Softball World Series.

• Auburn-Texas, men's swimming and diving

One of the youngest rivalries featuring an SEC team, the Tigers and Texas Longhorns are the two most successful swimming and diving programs in the country. The two have combined for 17 NCAA National Titles since 1981 (9 for Texas, 8 for Auburn) and between 1999 and 2007 won every national title awarded. The two regularly face off in a meet during the regular season, Auburn's men own an 12–9 record over the Longhorns. The women just recently began an annual series, with the Tigers winning the series so far 3–1. Texas was the only team to beat the Auburn men between 2001 and 2007.^[73]

Schools ranked by endowment[link]