As a FOX broadcaster, Joel Klatt doesn’t get to watch SEC football in person on a regular basis. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate the conference’s talent and depth.
Early Monday afternoon, Klatt released his personal preseason college football top 25 rankings. His list didn’t start with an SEC squad — Penn State snagged the top spot — but was littered with them throughout. Even with Tennessee‘s absence, Klatt had 9 SEC schools in his rankings, 5 of which were slotted amongst his top 11 teams in the country.
Is 2025 the season the SEC takes back the CFP from the B1G?
Non-SEC fans love to gripe about the SEC potentially receiving 4 automatic qualifiers in the College Football Playoff, but the idea isn’t unfounded. Year in and year out, the SEC has shown itself to be college football’s premier conference. More often than not, no other conference can match it from both a top-tier talent and depth perspective. Klatt believes the Big Ten could pull off that feat in 2025 based on these rankings, where 3 of his top 5 schools hail from:
- Klatt Ranked SEC Teams – 9; Ranked Big Ten Teams – 7
- Klatt Top 20 Ranked SEC Teams – 7; Top 20 Ranked Big Ten Teams – 6
- Klatt Top 10 Ranked SEC Teams – 4; Top 10 Ranked Big Ten Teams – 4
The SEC has a chance to assert itself as the clear class of college football in the season’s opening weeks. In Week 1, Texas travels to Ohio State. One week later, Oklahoma hosts Michigan. And in Week 3, Alabama welcomes Wisconsin to Bryant-Denny Stadium. Victories in all three contests would go a long way toward reiterating the league is an unparalleled force in college football’s landscape.
