When was the last year without an SEC team in the national championship?

The final four-team College Football Playoff will not feature an SEC team playing in the national title. It will be the No. 1 Michigan Wolverines vs. the No. 2 Washington Huskies in Houston on Monday night for the right to crown a champion. Although the two other playoff teams will be playing in the SEC next year, neither the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Texas Longhorns got it done in their semifinals.

With the Pac-12 dying after this season, the Power Five will become the Power Four with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC all almost certainly getting the four first-round byes as conference champions in the next College Football Playoff. Yes, there will be deserving conference winners out of the Group of Five, but this is the final title bout from the old way of doing things in college football as we know it.

The funny part about this national championship game matchup between Michigan and Washington is that it will be a conference game this time next season. This is because Washington is one of four Pac-12 schools joining the Big Ten next year, alongside the Oregon Ducks, the UCLA Bruins and the USC Trojans. We cannot wait to see UCLA play Rutgers in Piscataway to completely break our brains.

But before your brain is completely rendered useless, when was the last time a college football national championship game did not feature an SEC team? Fate would have it, it's the other book end.

When was the last national championship game that lacked an SEC team?

This will be the final four-team College Football Playoff. It expands to 12 teams next season for year No. 11, so to speak. From the 2015 college season to the 2022 one, the national championship game featured at least one of these three SEC teams (Alabama, Georgia, LSU) or ACC power Clemson, sometimes two of the four. This means the last national title without an SEC team was back in 2014.

The first-ever College Football Playoff National Championship saw the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes out of the Big Ten defeat the No. 2 Oregon Ducks. This was Urban Meyer's last national championship victory, as well as the beginning of the end for Mark Helfrich riding Chip Kelly's coattails in Eugene. Ohio State had defeated Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl as the No. 4 seed.

Since 2015, Alabama has played in six national championships (2015-18, 2020-21), winning three of them (2015, 2017, 2020). Georgia has played in three national championships (2017, 2021-22), winning two (2021-22). LSU won the College Football Playoff the only year it qualified (2019). Clemson has played in four national championships (2015-16, 2018-19), winning a pair (2016, 2018).

Although Michigan and Washington have made the playoff before, this is the first time either the Wolverines or the Huskies won a national semifinal game. Michigan had been 0-2 prior to this season, while Washington lost its only national semifinal game prior to this season back in 2016. A win on Monday would give Michigan its first national title since 1997. For Washington, its first since 1991.

Even though the southeast does not have a team in the title bout, everyone will be watching Monday.