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Talkin’ season reaches elite levels when the predictions officially come out.
That’s exactly what we got Friday. The media voting has been counted, so it’s time to discuss “disrespect.”
Here is the voting breakdown for the SEC champion:
- 1. Georgia, 165
- 2. Texas, 27
- 3. Alabama, 12
- 4. Ole Miss, 4
- T5. Vanderbilt, 2
- T5. LSU, 2
- 7. South Carolina, 1
And here’s the predicted order of finish:
- Georgia
- Texas
- Alabama
- Ole Miss
- LSU
- Mizzou
- Tennessee
- Oklahoma
- Texas A&M
- Auburn
- Kentucky
- Florida
- South Carolina
- Arkansas
- Mississippi State
- Vanderbilt
Here are 5 takeaways from that:
1. A Georgia victory in the SEC Championship is the prediction … and likely the wrong prediction
We’re not great at this whole “predicting an SEC champ” thing. We’re just 9-for-32. But that with divisions. No longer is that the case in the new 16-team SEC. Perhaps that means that our .281 batting average will get a nice bump by picking Georgia to win the SEC Championship in a rematch against Texas.
For the record, that was my exact prediction. I have the Dawgs beating the Longhorns and winning a national title. That’s not bold, though it’s worth remembering that winning 3 national titles in 4 years has only happened twice in the past 70 years, one of which was when Kirby Smart was on Alabama’s staff (2009, 2011, 2012).
My predicted order of finish in the SEC:
1. UGA
2. Texas
3. Alabama
4. Ole Miss
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma
7. Tennessee
8. Auburn
9. Mizzou
10. Texas A&M
11. Kentucky
12. Florida
13. South Carolina
14. Arkansas
15. Mississippi State
16. Vandy— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) July 19, 2024
But how can you not go with the Dawgs in a post-Nick Saban world? Smart is going for his 4th consecutive 12-0 start, and he’ll do so with a team that returns 68% of last year’s production. Hence, why Georgia got 77% of the first-place votes with more than 6 times as many first-place votes as Texas.
Will that be the kiss of death? Probably, but for now, there’s nothing wrong with going with the Dawgs.
2. Texas and Oklahoma got a __ amount of respect.
“Mixed.”
I’d say that picking Texas to reach an SEC Championship in Year 1 is a nice hat tip to the job Steve Sarkisian has done. It wasn’t just that he led Texas to the Playoff last season. It was that he handed a Playoff-bound Alabama team its largest home loss of the Saban era. The Longhorns return 67% of last year’s production and have the most favorable SEC schedule there is. The path to Atlanta for Texas is even more favorable than Georgia’s. Why? The Dawgs have road games against 3 likely preseason top-10 teams while Texas has just 2 SEC games against teams that won 8 games last year.
Oklahoma, on the other hand, isn’t in the same preseason tier in part because of how different its schedule looks in Year 1. The Sooners were picked to finish 8th, which was slightly behind my 6th-place finish for them. There’s no denying that the schedule has something to do with that. Oklahoma will face 6 SEC teams that won at least 9 games last year. To say that it’s a tougher slate than Texas would be an understatement.
Oklahoma finishing in the middle of the pack would likely mean a 4-4 season in SEC play, and an 8-4 season overall. In a strange way, that’s not that disrespectful. There might not be 10 teams in America that could navigate that schedule and get to 8 regular-season wins. If the Sooners do that and win a couple of those “prove it” games to play for a 9th win in a bowl game, they might actually earn more SEC respect.
3. The biggest difference between my picks and the media was … Mizzou
I wouldn’t push back if Mizzou started in the top 10 of the preseason poll after returning all sorts of offensive production from an 11-win team. Keep that in mind because Mizzou fans will treat what I’m about to say as disrespect.
The media has the Tigers finishing 6th, and I have the Tigers finishing 9th. That’s really not much of a discrepancy. It’s probably the difference between a 5-3 SEC mark vs. a 4-4 SEC mark. With that conference schedule, it might feel disappointing if Mizzou only goes 4-4. It only features 2 matchups against SEC teams that won 8 games, one of which is at home vs. an Oklahoma team that won 10 games in its final season in the Big 12.
What’s my issue? It definitely isn’t the offense, which returns Brady Cook and a deep group of pass-catchers headlined by Luther Burden III. It isn’t the running game, which added some nice pieces in the portal, including a couple of former 1,000-yard rushers from the Group of 5 level.
The biggest question is: Will Mizzou be able to stop anyone? The Tigers had more defensive players drafted (5) than Georgia. On top of that, LSU poached DC Blake Baker and edge-rushers coach Kevin Peoples. We saw how low that Mizzou defensive floor was in 2021 under Steve Wilks. I’m not saying Mizzou plummets to that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a transition year on that side of the ball makes these Tigers the closest thing to 2023 LSU.
4. I somehow had the exact same 11-16 as the media, which is good news for teams 11-16.
Just in case you didn’t want to scroll up a little bit (we’re all certain levels of lazy), here’s how that looked on both my ballot and the media ballot:
- 11. Kentucky
- 12. Florida
- 13. South Carolina
- 14. Arkansas
- 15. Mississippi State
- 16. Vanderbilt
That’s a positive development for the bottom of the SEC. Chances are, I’m sleeping on at least 1 team in that group, perhaps more. Maybe it’s a Kentucky team that’s No. 1 in the SEC in percentage of returning production. Perhaps a revamped South Carolina running game will fuel a bounce-back season. Dare I say, the return of Robert Patrick Petrino, AKA Bobby, will spark an offensive turnaround and save Sam Pittman’s job at Arkansas.
Shoot, maybe Florida somehow overcomes that historically daunting schedule and gets to the middle of the SEC.
The possibilities are endless. Well, except for Vandy finishing in the top half of the SEC. But other than that, this consensus opinion means it’s “disrespect” season for those bottom-tier projected teams.
Oh, and I had the same exact 1-5. In case you don’t want to scroll up for that, either … here ya go:
- Georgia
- Texas
- Alabama
- Ole Miss
- LSU
That’s probably bad news for teams 1-5.
Speaking of one of those teams …
5. Picking against Alabama to win the SEC could have a different feel, but what if it doesn’t?
Here are the past 4 instances in which Alabama wasn’t picked to win the SEC:
- 2009: Won SEC, won national championship
- 2012: Won SEC, won national championship
- 2015: Won SEC, won national championship
- 2023: Won SEC, lost in CFP semifinals
Obviously, all 4 of those occurrences were under Saban. Nobody thrived amidst doubt like the G.O.A.T. It remains to be seen if Kalen DeBoer can continue that trend.
If the Tide did win the SEC in the first year of DeBoer and the first year of the 16-team conference, what would that say? For starters, it would be 4 SEC titles for Alabama in 5 years of the 2020s. For all the talk about the end of the Tide’s run of dynasty, that would be quite the counterargument.
It would also be a sign that DeBoer is either capable of tweaking his offense to fit the personnel and/or, he’s elite at developing the personnel to fit his offense. It would also probably be a sign that the inevitable defensive regression in a post-Saban world wasn’t as bad as some feared, including Saban himself.
That’d be as good of a Year 1 sign as any that Alabama fans can hope for … and as ominous of a sign as everyone else could imagine.
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.
