The SEC will crown its last true champion in Atlanta on December 5, and Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz is already asking what the league is for after that.
The SEC announced this week that its 35th championship game, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, will be the final one.
The ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 are also done with title games after this season as the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams at the end of the 2027 season. Starting next year, the Power 4 leagues will name their champions by season long standings.
On Monday, we shared the details of the new College Football Playoff format, coupled with an ESPN deal that made the title games the price of expansion.
On Tuesday, Drinkwitz gave a well-thought out coaches' side of it.
"Times are changing, so you've got to adjust with the times," Drinkwitz told reporters. "But my question is why are we associated with conferences anymore if we're not playing for a conference championship?"
"If the point now is just to be playing into a sea of 24, are we just doing it for scheduling affiliation? If we're just doing it for scheduling affiliation, is there a reason to be flying all the way across the country to play games from a national perspective?"
He isn't lobbying to save the games. "Do I think the conference championship games were a good thing? Yes, I do. I think they were great," he said. "Yeah, I agree with the assessment that there's really no reason to play them moving forward."
It's personal for him, though. Drinkwitz came to Columbia ahead of the 2020 season after going 12-1 and winning the Sun Belt in his lone year as head coach at Appalachian State, and an SEC title was one of the goals he brought with him.
He called it "disappointing to me because one of the goals that I had coming into this university" was "to try to get a conference championship and win that game in Atlanta."
Missouri has made that trip twice, losing 59-42 to Auburn in 2013 and 42-13 to Alabama in 2014.
Drinkwitz framed it as part of a bigger shift, with the expanded playoff, NIL, realignment and the portal all moving at once.
"We made a lot of decisions, and we've asked a lot of people their opinions, but have we cared about the fans?" he said, adding "I think you look back and now we've devalued some of the things that made college football so special."
"Bowl games are no longer valuable," he added. "There's no real regional rivalries anymore because there's no more regional conferences, outside of ours, which is the best conference in college football. Every team is starting over each year."
He isn't alone. Wake Forest's Jake Dickert told ESPN the new format "forces everybody's hands into this," adding, "It can benefit a team like us; it can hurt a team like us."
Drinkwitz has a point, and it hits differently for leagues outside the SEC. For starters, the SEC still has geography on its side. A Big Ten that stretches from New Jersey to Los Angeles has a tougher time explaining a cross-country league game in November when a standings table, not a title game, decides the champion, and a 24-team bracket decides everything else.
Once the conference crown stops being a destination, a league starts to look like a scheduling agreement with a TV contract conveniently attached.
Coaches at every level know what Drinkwitz is describing when he talks about "building a program and having a season to build for the next season, where your fans can be excited." A championship you can see from August is a big part of what keeps a community invested.
For now, Missouri (6-3, 3-3 SEC) has a more immediate concern. The Tigers, coming off a 34-20 loss to Texas, visit Georgia (8-1, 6-1 SEC) Saturday at 3:30pm ET on ABC.
Hear Drink's full thoughts below, and stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.