This is an opinion column.

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Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is becoming a full-blown conspiracy theorist.

His Rebel Land Shark Black Bears defeated Duke 52-20 in the Gator Bowl on Thursday night. Kiffin then used his postgame press conference to question the College Football Playoff Corruption Committee again.

Only this time Coach Kiffin was armed with a list of names and a hat made of aluminum foil.

The SEC is “just different,” Kiffin said, before launching into a confident manifesto.

“It’s just completely different,” Kiffin said. “And with those comparisons to other conferences and the ACC and the Big 12, it just seems to me like we might as well play in different leagues. Not different conferences. Different leagues.

“For example, here’s the NFL,” Kiffin said, gesturing to different levels. “This is the SEC. Here are the few Big Ten teams and here is everyone else. So you will see it in the draft. It’s going to be different, just like it always is in the SEC – the amount of kids being drafted here and there.

“And really, it’s just a bad system,” Kiffin said, referring to the College Football Playoff.

“It’s a bad system and there are people in there…they gave me the list of coaches today. Maybe these coaches have never been to these stadiums and played in these games here in the Deep South.

“And how do they even know? How do they even know what it’s like to have to win with these teams in these places, in these stadiums and on the road?”

Kiffin is blessed with a little bit of the crazy genius gene, and I love that about him. He’s good for the game because he’s entertaining. But do I agree with everything he says? Let’s just say he makes things difficult sometimes.

For example, when he ignores the truth.

Is the College Football Playoff Corruption Committee problematic? Yes, there needs to be more oversight and more journalists in the room. (I am appointing my colleague Michael Casagrande as committee chair next year.)

However, is the SEC “just different”?

It turns out that this year’s “it just means more” league didn’t quite live up to the hype created for it by ESPN and sports fans like me.

Alabama started the season ranked No. 5 according to the Associated Press, but was exposed by mediocre teams like Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and finally Michigan.

Preseason No. 1 Georgia lost to Alabama and Ole Miss in the regular season but won the SEC thanks to a pair of wins over Texas. However, in the College Football Playoff, the Bulldogs were beaten in the face by Notre Dame, a team that has struggled against the SEC for years. No longer. The Fighting Irish were clearly the stronger team in the Sugar Bowl, knocking Georgia out of the playoffs with a decisive 23-10 win.

Let’s do Tennessee.

The Volunteers finished the season ranked No. 7 before being completely destroyed by Ohio State in the first round of the CFP. Final score from Columbus, Ohio: Buckeyes 42, Vol. 17.

Texas is the only SEC representative still in the College Football Playoff, but this is the Longhorns’ first year in the league. Does anyone really think Texas is a bona fide member of the SEC? Team Interloper is about as Southern as Elon Musk is American.

If Oklahoma could do it again, the Sooners would probably stay in the Big 12 and be perfectly content with the Longhorns calling Dixie.

Here’s a question for the offseason. Did Alabama coach Nick Saban shore up the entire SEC? With Saban gone, the league that Kiffin thinks is so special is starting to lose its luster. The top teams this season were all coached by former Saban assistants, and Alabama looked like a cheap knockoff because of its bowl game.

Money has changed the game and leveled the playing field. Is this just a bad year for the SEC or is this a trend?

Saturdays in the South will always be a little different. Kiffin is right. When it comes to football on the field, there are SEC conspiracy theories and then there is reality. Notre Dame manhandled Georgia, Michigan embarrassed Alabama, and the best team in the country, Ohio State, bought the SEC’s two best players.

BE HEARD

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Joseph Goodman is the leading sports columnist for Alabama Media Group and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”