It’s easy to rip something when you don’t actually sit down and do the exact same exercise. I’d be a bit more enraged by an All-SEC ballot if I didn’t have to fill one out, but on Thursday, I did just that.
Perhaps that took some of the edge off when the 2025 preseason All-SEC teams came out. Alternatively, it gave me a clear direction with my gripes. Not seeing certain players on those squads lit a fire under me.
To be clear, I don’t treat a preseason All-SEC ballot as a prediction. I base it on who a player has been and who I believe they’ll be if they stepped on the field tomorrow. There’s a lot of room for interpretation for that.
But these were my 5 biggest gripes:
Arch Manning shouldn’t be a third-team All-SEC QB
I’d take Manning over Diego Pavia on my team, so don’t misinterpret what I’m about to argue because I didn’t have either signal-callers in the 3rd-team spot. I actually had DJ Lagway as my third-team All-SEC quarterback. But Pavia was an All-SEC quarterback at season’s end last year. Compare that to Manning, who has 2 career starts. His lone SEC start was at home against Mississippi State, AKA the team who didn’t win a conference game last year. I’m a Manning believer who is embracing all things Arch Madness, but he shouldn’t be given a preseason All-SEC honor. Shoot, he’d be the first to admit that.
Remember in 2018 when Tua Tagovailoa was months removed from leading Alabama to a comeback win in the national championship? Even he wasn’t a preseason All-SEC selection in 2018. Why? Well, besides the fact that Jalen Hurts still lingered and a quarterback battle was brewing were the 0 career starts. It didn’t matter that he delivered one of the most clutch plays in college football history.
Manning isn’t in a quarterback battle, and he’s all over the preseason Heisman Trophy discussion. But I don’t recall ever seeing a quarterback with 2 career starts earn such an honor, nor do I recall an example of an All-SEC quarterback failing to earn preseason All-SEC honors the following season. It’s strange that those things happened in the same year.
Arch Madness, indeed.
How did Jadan Baugh not get 1 of 6 RB spots?
I have Baugh as my No. 4 running back in the SEC, and I might be too low on him. Once he became the starter after Montrell Johnson Jr. went down, he was excellent. By season’s end, the Florida freshman had:
- A) More rushing yards than Nate Frazier and Jam Miller
- B) More rushing yards/carry than Frazier and Miller
- C) As many rushing TDs vs. SEC teams as Frazier and Miller combined
- D) More yards after first contact than Frazier and Miller
- E) All the above
It’s “E.” It’s always “E.”
Any guesses on who I thought Baugh deserved an All-SEC honor instead of? No? OK, we’ll keep it moving.
Hmmmm … no Cayden Lee?
Nope. Don’t like that.
Lee was the guy who stepped up and became Jaxson Dart’s go-to receiver when Tre Harris went down for Ole Miss. The casual fan probably didn’t realize that he had more catches and receiving yards than Ryan Williams, and that Kevin Coleman Jr. (Mizzou) and Aaron Anderson (LSU) are the only SEC returners who had more receiving yards than Lee in 2024. He might be viewed as someone with limited upside because he’s primarily a slot receiver, but the only SEC player who had more 20-yard catches than Lee (20) was first-round pick Matthew Golden. That’s for someone who didn’t register a drop with a 79% catch rate on targets.
Lee is being slept on while the promising, but relatively unproven Ryan Wingo got a second-team selection. Wingo didn’t even average 30 receiving yards per game for Texas as a true freshman, and he didn’t rank in the top 50 in the SEC in receiving yards vs. conference competition. Could Wingo finish as a second-team guy? Absolutely. In the likely event that he’s Manning’s go-to target, I’d bank on that.
But Lee is more established, and with classmate Austin Simmons throwing him passes, that preseason All-SEC snub could age like an avocado.
Suntarine Perkins is a preseason All-American but apparently not a preseason first-team All-SEC guy
Linebacker was the toughest position to earn a preseason first-team honor. It’s a stacked group. I’m acknowledging that because in any other year, I’d assume that Perkins is a lock for first-team. But he still should’ve been a first-teamer over a guy I love, CJ Allen. I’ve been saying since his impressive late-season finish as a true freshman in 2023 that he could be Nakobe Dean 2.0 for Georgia. But he was neither the playmaker nor the steadying force that fellow second-year linebacker Perkins was.
On the nation’s No. 2 scoring defense, he was tied for first in both tackles for loss (14) and sacks (10.5). That’s a remarkable feat for someone who played with 4 front-7 guys who were selected in the NFL Draft. Even if Perkins might have a touch of regression because he won’t have as much NFL-ready talent around him in the front 7, I fully expect him to be among the SEC leaders in TFLs and sacks again. No SEC returner had more sacks than Perkins, and preseason first-team selection and fellow preseason All-American Anthony Hill Jr. is the only returner who had more TFLs than him.
Like Hill, Perkins deserved preseason first-team recognition.
R Mason Thomas is the lone returning All-SEC DL … and yet he’s not a first-teamer?
Here’s a trivia question — how many SEC defensive linemen earned all-conference honors at season’s end in 2024? Any guesses? Nine is your answer.
OK, additional trivia question — how many of them left for the NFL? Eight is your answer.
Do some quick math (or read the title of this section) and you’ll see that there’s 1 returning All-SEC defensive lineman. It’s Thomas. Somehow, the Oklahoma defensive lineman wasn’t a first-team All-SEC guy. That’s wild. Not only did Thomas rack up 33 pressures, 12.5 tackles for loss and 9 sacks, but he also forced 2 fumbles and recovered 2 fumbles.
I get that we all assume that Georgia will always have elite defensive linemen, but I’m not sure what Christen Miller has shown that’s more impressive than Thomas. That felt more like a blind “trust Alabama and Georgia in the trenches” pick instead of acknowledging Thomas’ body of work. He could prove to be one of the most valuable “return to school” decisions of any non-quarterback in college football.
Fortunately for Thomas and all of the other snubs on this list, All-SEC honors matter a whole lot more at season’s end than they do in July.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
