The last two years the SEC has done exceptionally well in bowl games overall. Despite going 0-5 in the top-level bowls, they're only barely behind the Pac-12 in bowl winning percentage. Of course, I think the 0-5 looms large when judging the overall strength of the conference. The SEC still has the kind of depth we've been accustom to seeing but the top tier of the conference isn't superior to the rest of the nation's top-tier.
I think the quality of talent has kinda hurt the SEC as even more 3rd year or 4th year redshirt players are going to the pros. The top-tier NFL talent is largely concentrated in the South and the change of the NFL contract rules has disincentivized "waiting for the 1st round" for "playing to get paid in the 2nd contract." The amount of early departures LSU and Alabama have lost in the last few years is truly staggering. It is a trend across the conference though. The SEC has to lead the nation on Junior entries in the NFL draft. I think this is a big piece of why our top-tier hasn't been appreciably better to the rest the last few years. You can only lose a Junior DB so many years in a row before you end up with secondaries like Alabama's the last few years. Couple in some recruiting misses earlier in this decade at DB and you have the core of our problems this season. Worth noting that OL recruiting dipped/whiffed in this time period too and our drop off as a physical run team is similar to the DB problems.
I think the quality of talent has kinda hurt the SEC as even more 3rd year or 4th year redshirt players are going to the pros. The top-tier NFL talent is largely concentrated in the South and the change of the NFL contract rules has disincentivized "waiting for the 1st round" for "playing to get paid in the 2nd contract." The amount of early departures LSU and Alabama have lost in the last few years is truly staggering. It is a trend across the conference though. The SEC has to lead the nation on Junior entries in the NFL draft. I think this is a big piece of why our top-tier hasn't been appreciably better to the rest the last few years. You can only lose a Junior DB so many years in a row before you end up with secondaries like Alabama's the last few years. Couple in some recruiting misses earlier in this decade at DB and you have the core of our problems this season. Worth noting that OL recruiting dipped/whiffed in this time period too and our drop off as a physical run team is similar to the DB problems.