SDS’ Ultimate 2025 SEC Preview: Texas on top. Then? … Chaos and a mad dash for other Playoff hopefuls

Everything — and we mean absolutely everything — you need to know about SEC football in 2025, all in one space.

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The 2024 season marked the beginning of a new era in college football, and in the SEC, in particular: The Playoff expanded, the old East/West divisions ceased to exist, Nick Saban quipped from behind a desk rather than scowling on the sideline. But the real, defining theme of the new order turned out to be the absence of any order at all.

The real theme, from one Saturday to the next, was chaos.

For a while there, the work of putting together an “SEC preview” meant writing “Alabama” at the top, banging the gavel, and moving on to the race for second place. You did not have to justify Alabama. Since the pandemic, you could swap Bama for Georgia with just as little thought. Over the first decade of the CFP era (2014-23), Bama and UGA accounted for 9 of 10 SEC championships and 16 of the conference’s 17 bids to the Playoff. Most years, if there was an obstacle to the Tide or Dawgs’ supremacy, it was only the existence of the other.

That changed in 2024, a season when “any given Saturday” often felt literal – and disorienting.

Suddenly, here was a world where Alabama, at one point the owner of a 100-game winning streak vs. unranked teams spanning more than a decade, could be felled by a random stone to the forehead by Vanderbilt. Where Georgia, blue-chip overlord of the trenches, could be overrun and wiped out by an Ole Miss team consisting almost entirely of transfers. Where 4 different teams – LSU, Missouri, Ole Miss and Texas A&M – could spend multiple weeks ranked in the top 10, only to wind up afterthoughts in the final standings. Where, over the course of a single Saturday, 3 different teams on the Playoff track (including Alabama) could be abruptly eliminated by unranked opponents. Where 1 of the 2 hottest teams at the end of the regular season, South Carolina, didn’t appear in the polls until mid-November, and the other, Florida, never appeared at all after spending most of the year poised to fire its head coach. And where, in the Playoff itself, SEC teams lost more games (3) than they won (2, both by Texas) while failing to advance beyond the semifinals.

By the end, the fact that the conference championship ultimately fell to the runaway preseason favorite, Georgia, was less a testament to the Bulldogs’ inevitability than comic irony. Even the Dawgs were only a few weeks removed from being knocked from their pedestal and left for dead in Oxford, and only 1 week removed from surviving an 8-overtime upset bid from Georgia Tech by the skin of their teeth. If anything, they were the bloodiest and bruised SEC champions in 20 years. A few weeks later, they went one-and-done in the CFP, to the surprise of no one who’d been paying attention.

But at least Georgia was in the Playoff, which Alabama was not. (And plainly did not deserve to be.) Yes, the streak of Bama/UGA SEC titles was extended despite a strong push from Texas, but by the time the confetti came down on the Bulldogs, the aura of dominance had already evaporated. In its place, the conference race feels as wide open as it has in years, with at least 4 plausible contenders for the championship and at least half the league seriously gunning for the Playoff.

Any Given Saturday has yielded, finally, to Any Given Season. Embrace the chaos in 2025.

SEC Preseason Power Rankings

1. Texas

Patience in Austin is notoriously thin, and pressure notoriously high. But let’s take a breath here: The Texas Longhorns spent much too long in the wilderness just to start taking deep Playoff runs and lofty expectations for granted.

The reality is Steve Sarkisian has already done most of the job he was hired to do. Texas is certifiably back as a year-in, year-out contender, with back-to-back appearances in the Playoff semifinals to prove it. Year 1 in the SEC was a success. The ‘Horns are recruiting with the big dogs on an annual basis. They’re ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP poll for the first time in school history. They’re the betting favorites to win it all. They boast the the Heisman favorite, who is widely expected to be back on campus in 2026. His heir apparent is already in the pipeline either way. The championship window is wide open for the foreseeable future. Even the most famously entitled, trophy-hunting boosters in the sport can’t complain they’re not getting their money’s worth — at least, not yet.

Now, we’ll see how the vibes hold up as the mission shifts from the “sustained momentum” phase to the “championship or bust” phase. Texas’ Playoff losses in ’23 and ’24 stung, but not nearly as much as they might have if the base didn’t have 2025 to look forward to. This is the year they’ve really been waiting for: The program is established, Sarkisian’s staff is intact, the roster is stacked with Sarkisian’s recruits, Arch Manning is entrenched, the hype is maxed out. The ‘Horns’ time is now. And just because it’s not necessarily now or never won’t make another early exit any less of a disappointment.

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Longhorns at a Glance …

2024 Recap: 13-3 (7-2 SEC | Lost CFP Semifinal | Final AP Rank: 4)
Best Player: Junior LB Anthony Hill Jr.
Best Pro Prospect: QB Arch Manning (eventually)
Best Addition: Junior TE Jack Endries (Cal)
Most Seasoned: Senior Edge Trey Moore (5th year; 42 starts at Texas and UTSA)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore WR Ryan Wingo
Wild Card: Sophomore RB CJ Baxter
Best Name: RB Quintrevion Wisner

Biggest Strength: A versatile array of pass rushers. Anthony Hill, Trey Moore and Freshman All-American Colin Simmons accounted for a combined 105 QB pressures, 23 sacks and 9 forced fumbles in 2024. Good luck finding a more disruptive trio in ’25.

Nagging Concern: A rebuilt offensive line. Four of last year’s starting 5 are gone, 3 of whom were multi-year starters. The vacancy left by All-American/first-round pick Kelvin Banks Jr. at left tackle is the most urgent on either side of the ball.

Looming Question: Who steps up at wideout? Let’s go ahead and assume Manning is who he’s supposed to be. His receivers are almost as green as the golden boy. No one in last year’s rotation moved the needle until the since-departed Matthew Golden finally emerged from the pack in the postseason. Between Ryan Wingo, DeAndre Moore Jr., and an infusion of blue-chip freshmen, there’s no shortage of options, but if there’s a WR1 in the room, they’d love to identify him ASAP.

The Schedule: The Week 1 opener at Ohio State is a Playoff rematch full of sound and fury, signifying … well, not nothing, but probably not all that much in the end. The winner in Columbus will have the inside track to a top seed, but barring a humiliation, the losers will survive with all their goals and most of their margin for error still intact. The first 2 SEC games, at Florida on Oct. 4 followed by the annual rivalry date against Oklahoma, are the real hurdles. Clear them both, and it’s a straight shot to meaningful November matchups against Georgia (in Athens) and Texas A&M (in Austin).

The Upshot: Texas was, if not the best team in the SEC in its debut season, then certainly the most consistent. That was a testament in part to departed QB Quinn Ewers, a perfectly cromulent college quarterback who left with a 21-5 record as a starter over his last 2 seasons. But Ewers never quite paid off his elite billing, and no matter how firmly Sarkisian stressed that there was no controversy between the incumbent and his even-more-hyped backup, by the end, it was an open secret that Ewers’ time was up. No one will ever know what would have happened on the alternate timeline where Manning permanently overtook Ewers at midseason, or any point thereafter, a long-running fantasy that never came to fruition. (Although, not for nothing, the entire NFL passed an unmistakable verdict in April by allowing Ewers to fall to the 7th round of the draft.) If Arch is a hit, the decision to delay his promotion will make even less sense. But then, if Arch is really a hit, nobody in burnt orange is going to be too hung up on wondering what might have been.

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2. Georgia

Even at Georgia, you can’t fairly describe a season that culminates in an SEC title as a letdown. Instead, let’s go with … anticlimax. While the Dawgs ultimately survived the conference slog, it was just that — a slog, with virtually none of the aura or sense of inevitability they’d sustained across the previous 3 seasons. Every conference game was a competitive, 4-quarter affair, including a razor-thin escape against Kentucky in the early going, a chaotic classic at Alabama, and a wipeout loss at Ole Miss. They were tied in the 4th quarter against an overmatched Florida squad down to its third-string walk-on quarterback; needed a last-ditch comeback and 8 overtimes to fend off Georgia Tech; and had to go to OT again to put away Texas in the SEC Championship Game after losing QB Carson Beck to injury. Despite limping into the CFP as the no. 2 seed, their second-round loss to Notre Dame was only a surprise if you were somehow tuning in expecting to see the team that opened the season atop the preseason polls in August rather than the one that had actually taken the field in the meantime.

Of course, it speaks volumes that one of the most mortal outfits of Kirby Smart‘s tenure still had the chops to make it as far as that one did, notching wins over 3 other Playoff teams — Clemson, Texas (twice) and Tennessee — along the way. The ’25 Dawgs arrive with less star power and more questions marks than any UGA team since the pandemic, beginning with the big one behind center following Beck’s transfer to Miami. But since when is Georgia fazed by attrition? As they’ve already proved, just because they’re mortal doesn’t mean they can’t be the last team standing.

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Bulldogs at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 11-3 (7-2 SEC • SEC Champs | Lost CFP 2nd Round | Final AP Rank: 6)
Best Player: Junior LB CJ Allen
Best Pro Prospect: Allen
Best Addition: Junior WR Zachariah Branch (USC)
Most Seasoned: Senior CB Daylen Everette (28 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB KJ Bolden
Wild Card: Freshman DL Elijah Griffin
Best Name: QB Hezekiah Millender

Biggest Strength: The middle of the defense. Interior DL Christen Miller and inside linebacker CJ Allen are entrenched starters with All-SEC and NFL aspirations, surrounded by the usual array of blue-chips vying to replace departed NFL Draft picks. Incoming freshmen Elijah Griffin and Isaiah Gibson were the 2 highest-rated d-line prospects in the 2025 class.

Nagging Concern: Quarterback, with an exclamation point. Presumptive starter Gunner Stockton is in his 4th year in the program but has never been considered an obvious heir apparent by Georgia standards and remains essentially a blank slate. He did just enough to get over against Texas in his first meaningful action after replacing Beck in the SEC Championship Game, but was forgettable in the CFP loss to Notre Dame, leading a single touchdown drive in his first career start. The best case for optimism at this point might be the fact that Smart declined to pursue a transfer to join the competition between Stockton and redshirt freshman Ryan Puglisi. But even that arguably says as much about the timing of Beck’s decision to leave, well after the cream of the transfer crop had already been picked off in the December portal window, as it does about coaches’ faith in his understudies.

Looming Question: Who are the playmakers? The wideouts were plagued by an outbreak of the dropsies in 2024 and bid farewell to leading receivers Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett. In addition to some familiar faces among the holdovers, the Bulldogs also added a couple of big-ticket transfers, Zachariah Branch (USC) and Noah Thomas (Texas A&M), as well as 5-star freshman Talyn Taylor. They don’t necessarily need a headliner to separate himself from the pack, but they do need to identify targets Stockton can trust in a pinch.

The Schedule: About as favorable as they come in this conference: 3 of 5 ranked opponents (Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas) come to Athens, where Georgia has won 31 straight dating to 2019; a 4th, Florida, is at a neutral site as always, as is the season finale against Georgia Tech, slated for Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. That leaves just 3 true road tests: at Tennessee, Auburn and Mississippi State.

The Upshot: This is what they used to call a rebuilding year: Uncertainty at quarterback, relatively little proven star power, new starters breaking in at every position group. Georgia doesn’t do “rebuilding,” but let’s just say that, recruiting rankings aside, this is not a roster likely to be drafted en masse by the Philadelphia Eagles anytime soon. The bet is on a gold-standard program continuing to churn raw talent into another 11- or 12-win season at a reliable clip. There are much worse bets. (Spoiler: BetMGM lists Georgia as +320 to win the SEC Championship and +700 odds to win the national championship.)

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3. Alabama

At their best, the Saban-era Tide operated with such ruthless, week-in, week-out efficiency the effect was boring. Months passed without a single random variable threatening to disrupt the proceedings. You knew exactly how a Bama game was going to end, and usually when. (Sometime in the middle of the 2nd quarter, early 3rd at the latest, when the final gasp of air was squeezed out of the opposing sideline.) Well, that era officially qualifies as nostalgia. Of all the epithets hurled at the 2024 Tide, the one thing no one could ever call it was boring.

Instead, Year 1 of the post-Saban era was a roller coaster: Blowouts followed by upset scares; huge leads blown and salvaged in dramatic fashion; dominant performances against rivals offset by random flops against unranked opponents. In conference play alone, Alabama was on the right side of a historic win over Georgia, the wrong side of a historic upset at Vanderbilt — Vanderbilt! — narrowly dodged another bullet against South Carolina, blew a 4th-quarter lead at Tennessee, beat the pants off LSU and Missouri, puked up a Playoff bid against Oklahoma, and finally handled Auburn in more or less routine fashion. They went out with a no-show performance in a bowl game named for a company no one has ever heard of against a Michigan team with no offense to speak of, their 3rd loss in a game they were favored to win by double digits.

The effect was disorienting, and not just because of the contrast between Kalen DeBoer‘s Tide and Nick Saban’s. Even amid the undeniable stench of decline, in their better moments they were still clearly an outfit capable of beating anyone on any given Saturday, and potentially ripping off 3 or 4 wins in a Playoff scenario with the nation’s most talented roster was never out of the question. It still isn’t, especially when you’re reviewing a depth chart as densely populated by former 5-stars as ever. That hard part, apparently, is going to be keeping it together for long enough to give themselves a chance.

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Crimson Tide at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 9-4 (5-3 SEC | Lost ReliaQuest Bowl | Final AP Rank: 17)
Best Player: Sophomore WR Ryan Williams
Best Pro Prospect: Junior OL Kadyn Proctor
Best Addition: Senior LB Nikhai Hill-Green (Colorado)
Most Seasoned: Junior OL Parker Brailsford (28 career starts at Bama and Washington)
Emerging Dude: Junior DB Bray Hubbard
Wild Card: Junior QB Ty Simpson
Best Name: OL Kam Dewberry

Biggest Strength: Abundance of next-level talent spread evenly across the roster. Nothing has changed here. Singling out a specific position is beside the point when virtually everyone on the two-deep is a former blue-chip with pro potential.

Nagging Concern: Replacing dual-threat QB Jalen Milroe’s share of the ground game. When it mattered, the running backs typically yielded last year to Milroe, who led the team in carries and yards and went into full workhorse mode in wins over Wisconsin (76 yards, 2 TDs), Georgia (113 yards, 2 TDs), South Carolina (72 yards, 2 TDs), LSU (185 yards, 4 TDs) and Auburn (96 yards, 3 TDs). Ty Simpson is not a statue, by any means, but he isn’t going to carry the load against the top half of the schedule, either. Who is?

Looming Question: Is Ty Simpson a steady hand? Milroe’s enormous upside was undermined by his volatility — one week he looked like God’s gift to the sport, the next like he was learning how to play quarterback from scratch. Simpson is a former 5-star, but in the wake of the Milroe Experience, the offense needs consistency behind center more than it needs a specimen.

The Schedule: The only thing last year’s losses had in common was they all came away from home. Go ahead and raise the red flag for trips to Georgia, South Carolina and — as always — Auburn. Tennessee and LSU are back in Tuscaloosa, as are Vandy and Oklahoma for their respective revenge dates. Alabama is 32-1 at home since the start of the 2020 season but is in no position right now to take anything for granted.

The Upshot: I always imagined whoever followed the GOAT would have the luxury of coasting to at least a couple of recognizably Saban-esque seasons on raw talent and inertia. Instead, whatever sense of continuity DeBoer inherited is already strained. At least the talent part is still true. The momentum can still go either way – but not for long. A return to the Playoff in Year 2 is the bare minimum to restore some semblance of stability. 

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4. LSU

It’s getting to be about that time. LSU fans could content themselves in Brian Kelly‘s first season with a cathartic win over Alabama and an SEC West title. Simmering frustration in Year 2 was offset by the joy of rooting for a Heisman-winning quarterback at the helm of the nation’s most prolific offense. By Year 3, there was nothing to stop it from boiling over. The immediate catalyst for the meltdown was a progressively humiliating, three-game losing streak at the hands of Texas A&M, Bama, and Florida, each loss a little bit worse than the one before it in its own way. Amid the skid, the Tigers took another deflating L when prized QB recruit Bryce Underwood flipped his commitment to Michigan, eliminating one of the few remaining incentives to buy stock in Kelly’s future.

A couple token November wins over Vandy and Oklahoma kept Kelly from being fed to the mascot for Thanksgiving, but didn’t alter the larger trajectory. If it’s not literally playoff-or-bust in Year 4, it’s close enough in spirit for his contract buyout to become the topic of casual conversation across the state of Louisiana. LSU is now 6 years removed from its last nationally relevant season in 2019, a course Kelly was hired specifically to reverse after the rapid disintegration of the Ed Orgeron administration. Kelly is a better coach than Orgeron over the long haul, but unless he can give the locals some reason to believe he’s capable of winning big with a roster of his own making, he’s running out of time to prove it.

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Tigers at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 9-4 (5-3 SEC | Won Texas Bowl | Unranked)
Best Player: Junior LB Whit Weeks
Best Pro Prospect: Senior QB Garrett Nussmeier
Best Addition: Senior DB AJ Haulcy (Houston)
Most Seasoned: Haulcy (33 starts at Houston and New Mexico)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore RB Caden Durham
Wild Card: Junior LB Harold Perkins Jr.
Best Name: DL Jacobian Guillory II

Biggest Strength: A deep, dynamic bunch of wideouts. Last year’s leading receiver, Aaron Anderson, is a rising star in the slot, and LSU made a point to pursue size (Oklahoma’s Nic Anderson) and speed (Kentucky’s Barion Brown) via the portal. The competition for targets on the outside between Nic Anderson, Brown, and holdovers Chris Hilton Jr. and Zavion Thomas is the kind of problem coaches dream of. Especially when the guy slinging it, Heisman hopeful Garrett Nussmeier, is coming off a 4,000-yard season and could become the first Tiger QB to throw for 3,000 yards twice.

Nagging Concern: An overhauled o-line. The only returning starter, center DJ Chester, was easily the lowest-graded of the regular starting 5 as a redshirt freshman, per PFF. Both starting tackles, Will Campbell and Emery Jones Jr., were drafted in the top 100 picks with more than 5,000 combined snaps; their likely replacements, home-grown sophomore Tyree Adams and redshirt freshman Weston Davis, have combined for 162.

Looming Question: Will the new faces on defense pay off? The Tigers improved in ’24 under first-year defensive coordinator Blake Baker — it would have been almost impossible not to, compared to the flaming wreckage of the ’23 D — but still finished in the bottom half of the conference in most of the ways that matter. They invested heavily in the pass rush, adding 3 veteran edge rushers via the portal, and in the secondary, where big-ticket transfers AJ Haulcy (Houston) and Mansoor Delane (Virginia Tech) were joined by 5-star freshman DJ Pickett, a potential Day-1 starter. More importantly, they also welcomed back jack-of-all-trades linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., who missed nearly all of last season to a torn ACL. Read on for more on Perkins’ role in the individual awards section below.

The Schedule: The Week 1 opener at Clemson is meaningful on a couple of levels: 1), LSU is desperate to avoid starting 0-1 for the 6th year in a row, a streak that stands in for its broader failure to break through nationally during that span; and 2), the Tigers need all the margin for error they can get. Six of their 8 conference games are against ranked opponents, including road trips to Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma.

The Upshot: Kelly came to Baton Rouge in 2022 talking the talk about being “in an environment where I have the resources” to win a national title. Since, LSU has drifted further from contention, while his former school, Notre Dame, advanced to the CFP Championship Game in 2024 under former Kelly assistant Marcus Freeman. Not that anyone at LSU is fixated on how their boys stack up against the Irish, specifically. But they do care about direction. If Kelly is going to last long enough to walk the walk, the pressure is on to prove the Tigers are getting closer, not further away.

5. Texas A&M

For a fleeting moment last fall, it looked like Mike Elko‘s debut in College Station was going somewhere. If you don’t remember, don’t worry, you probably just sneezed or something and missed it. But let the record show: As of Nov. 1, the Aggies were proud owners of a 7-game winning streak, perched at 10th in the AP poll coming off a pair of blowout wins over then-No. 9 Missouri and then-No. 8 LSU, and beginning to think big. Excluding the COVID year, that represented A&M’s best November ranking since 2016, when a 7-1 start under coach Kevin Sumlin … uh, collapsed in a 1-4 finish.

You might remember what happened next. Beginning with a blowout loss at South Carolina, the Aggies dropped their last 3 games in SEC play, plus a bowl game in Las Vegas, as a 7-1 start … collapsed in a 1-4 finish. They fell out of the polls altogether with a bogus standard 8-5 record, unranked at year’s end for the 4th year in a row.

That might or might not be relevant this season, when essentially the same team faces essentially the same schedule in a slightly different order. Just something to keep in mind around the time the weather turns.

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Aggies at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 8-5 (5-3 SEC | Lost Las Vegas Bowl | Unranked)
Best Player: Junior LB Taurean York
Best Pro Prospect: Senior Edge Cashius Howell
Best Addition: Junior WR KC Concepcion (NC State)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Trey Zuhn III (5th year; 37 starts at left tackle)
Emerging Dudes: Sophomore WRs Terry Bussey and Mario Craver
Wild Card: Sophomore CB Dezz Ricks
Best Name: OL Dametrious Crownover

Biggest Strength: A fully intact, long-in-the-tooth offensive line. Seven returning o-linemen have extensive starting experience, boasting a combined 154 career starts and an incredible 10,385 snaps between them, per PFF. Four of the 5 starting spots are set. The only real battle is at center, where 2024 starter Kolinu’u Faaiu is attempting to hold off the guy he replaced in the pivot, 2023 starter Mark Nabou Jr., who is returning from a torn ACL that cost him the entire season.

Nagging Concern: Uncertainty at the skill positions. The WR rotation underwent a complete overhaul, bidding sayonara to last year’s top 5 targets while importing a pair of Power 4 transfers, KC Concepcion (NC State) and Mario Craver (Mississippi State), to flank 5-star sophomore Terry Bussey. The top 2 running backs, Le’Veon Moss (knee) and Rueben Owens (foot), are coming off season-ending injuries.

Looming Question: Can QB Marcel Reed take the next step? Reed supplanted the much more highly touted Conner Weigman as QB1 in 2024 and held his own despite presiding over the November skid. A better athlete than passer, he was efficient enough to turn in respectable marks in passer rating and QBR while consigning Weigman to the portal. Expanding his downfield range could be the key to unlocking the offense.

The Schedule: An early trip to Notre Dame looms, but the conference slate sets up nicely again for A&M to be playing meaningful football in November. Unusually, the SEC office did its part to front-load the proceedings by assigning the Aggies 3 consecutive home games to open the conference schedule (vs. Auburn, Mississippi State and Florida), immediately followed by 3 consecutive road dates at Arkansas, LSU and Missouri. As a result, they’ll go almost a full month without leaving home from mid-September to mid-October, then wait another month for their next home game against South Carolina.

The Upshot: The Aggies are short on headliners compared to the conference’s upper crust. On paper, though, they’re a well-rounded outfit with no glaring weaknesses and solid fronts on both sides of the line of scrimmage. They’re going to be okay in the trenches, a reflection of Elko’s meat-and-potatoes ethos. If the revamped passing game pans out, they might just be in it for the long haul. Until further notice, though, that is a load-bearing if. 
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6. Ole Miss

Everything aligned for Ole Miss in 2024, from the first-round quarterback to the 8-figure roster to a user-friendly schedule. The Rebels dispatched the 2 best teams on that schedule, Georgia and South Carolina, by a combined score of 55-13. They led the conference in scoring offense, scoring defense and turnover margin. And still — still! — they found a way to light their golden Playoff ticket on fire, dropping a random game in each month of the season to an underdog. In September, they flubbed the SEC opener against Kentucky, supplying the Wildcats with their only SEC win. In October, they blew a 4th-quarter lead at LSU by allowing touchdowns on consecutive plays at the end of regulation and in overtime. In November, they ran out of gas at Florida despite outgaining the Gators by 120 yards. At its best (see the Georgia game), it might have been the best team in Ole Miss history. It ended the season in the Gator Bowl.

When is an opportunity like that going to come along again? Probably not in 2025: A school-record 8 NFL Draft picks left town — none of whom began their careers in Oxford, including face-of-the-program QB Jaxson Dart — and the incoming portal haul (while large) is nowhere near as decorated as the one that elevated the roster last year. In fact, the new quarterback, Austin Simmons, will be the first starting QB at Ole Miss who actually signed with Ole Miss out of high school since Shea Patterson in 2017. Maybe that’s a sign of confidence in a home-grown talent; maybe it’s a sign that boosters are wary of going all-in on an annual basis after watching their last investment come up short. Either way, if the Rebels are still aiming high they’re going to have to get there on an economy fare.

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Rebels at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 10-3 (5-3 SEC | Won Gator Bowl | Final AP Rank: 11)
Best Player: Junior LB/Edge Suntarine Perkins
Best Pro Prospect: Perkins
Best Addition: Junior Kicker Lucas Carneiro (Western Kentucky)
Most Seasoned: Senior WR De’Zhaun Stribling (5th year; 40 starts at Oklahoma State/Washington State)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore QB Austin Simmons
Wild Cards: Transfer DEs Princewill Umanmielen (Nebraska) and Da’Shawn Womack (LSU)
Best Names: QB Trinidad Chambliss … OL Diego Pounds

Biggest Strength: The pass rush. Yes, the d-line suffered enormous losses from the unit that led the nation in sacks in the regular season. But the Rebels return heat-seeking edge Suntarine Perkins, a former 5-star who led the conference in sacks in SEC play, as well as senior Zxavian Harris, heir apparent to first-rounder Walter Nolen on the interior. They portal haul included a pair of intriguing young edge rushers, Princewill Umanmielen (brother of third-rounder Princely Umanmielen) and Da’Shawn Womack, who will get every opportunity that they didn’t get at their previous stops.

Nagging Concern: A depleted secondary. The entire 2-deep moved on. Ole Miss shored up the back end with 7 new additions via the portal, 3 of them coming directly from SEC rivals. The likely starters at corner, Jaylon Braxton (Arkansas) and Ricky Fletcher (South Alabama), are coming off season-ending injuries.

Looming Question: Is Austin Simmons a long-term solution at quarterback? Simmons, a redshirt sophomore, was not a blockbuster recruit, arriving in 2023 as a low 4-star. But he did beat out a big-time recruit, LSU transfer Walker Howard, for the backup/heir apparent role last year. (Howard subsequently transferred to his hometown school, UL-Lafayette.) And Simmons’ only meaningful snaps were memorable: After Dart was sidelined by an early ankle injury against Georgia, he came off the bench to lead a 10-play touchdown drive on which he was 5-for-6 passing for 65 yards. Personally, watching it in real time, I thought Ole Miss should have let Dart simmer on his gimpy ankle for another drive or two and let the understudy cook; instead, Dart limped back in on the next series, presided over the win, and didn’t yield to Simmons again in a competitive situation the rest of the season. But as far as small sample sizes go, they don’t get much more encouraging than that.

The Schedule: Again, extremely favorable: The Rebels miss Texas, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas A&M for the second year in a row. A Week 5 toss-up against LSU, in Oxford, will set the tone for the rest of the year. Win it, and Ole Miss is a midseason dark horse with only 1 remaining game in which it’s likely to be a decisive underdog, at Georgia. Lose the LSU game, and the margin for error against Oklahoma, South Carolina and Florida over the second half of the season becomes extremely thin.

The Upshot: For a guy who’s flying well under the radar, Simmons is one the conference’s more compelling wild cards. There are too many established starters and rising stars across the league to get carried away about a neophyte based on a single impressive drive, regardless of the opponent. The advantage to being essentially unknown is that it’s still possible Simmons could turn out to be anything, from a star to a bust. Given his brief but brilliant cameo against UGA and Lane Kiffin‘s track record with quarterbacks, the odds favor the former. And after breaking the bank for a roster that turned out to be less than the sum of its parts, that sounds like exactly the kind of low-stakes bet this program is in the market for.

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7. Tennessee

Life comes at you fast in the NIL era. In January, the Vols were perfectly content with their investment in Nico Iamaleava, a 5-star franchise type whose first season as a starter in 2024 yielded a 10-3 record, a come-from-behind win over Alabama, and the program’s first Playoff berth. By April, the Nico era in Knoxville had come to an abrupt end, the casualty of an apparent rift over a reported request by Iamaleava’s camp for a significant raise from the school’s NIL arm. (Reported is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence; Iamaleava has disputed that money was a motivating factor in his exit, claiming he transferred to UCLA to be closer to family. Take that for what it’s worth. But as a rule, it’s wise to take everything you read where NIL negotiations are concerned — especially specific figures accompanied by dollar signs — with a grain of salt.) Just like that, Tennessee’s most touted quarterback signee since Peyton Manning, the guy the Vols had pinned their hopes on for this season and beyond, was a ghost.

Vols fans, of course, will argue that their now-former favorite boy hadn’t earned a raise. They have a point. Record notwithstanding, Iamaleava finished in the bottom half of the SEC in yards per attempt, passer rating and Total QBR, and was routinely overshadowed by Tennessee’s defense and ground game. His performance in Tennessee’s losses was underwhelming, especially in a November loss at Georgia and a first-round Playoff beatdown at Ohio State. And that’s before you even consider the trickle-down effects of horse trading on the locker room and the program at large. If the rift really was as wide as portrayed in the reporting, to the extent that Iamaleava was incommunicado with UT coaches, a hard reset was probably for the best, before the situation devolved into some kind of full-blown NFL-style holdout.

Still, personal drama aside: Strictly from a football perspective, can they honestly argue they’re better off without him? That’s a tougher sell. Blue-chip sophomores who have overseen a 10-win season on the early stages of the growth curve don’t exactly grow on trees, do they? Especially ones with Iamaleava’s still tantalizing potential. His replacement, Joey Aguilar, has a lot more football under his belt as a multi-year starter at Appalachian State, but nowhere near Nico’s upside. Put it this way: Aguilar, ironically, spent the spring at UCLA, where he was the projected starter before the Bruins landed Iamaleava. Did anyone even attempt to make the case that Aguilar should stick around and compete for the job in L.A.? They did not. The Aguilars of the world might be perfectly respectable in the right context, which Josh Heupel‘s offense may very well turn out to be. But they’re not going to make anybody stop wondering about what might have been possible with the Nicos.

– – –
Vols at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 10-3 (6-2 SEC | Lost CFP 1st Round | Final AP Rank: 7th)
Best Player: Junior CB Jermod McCoy (health pending)
Best Pro Prospect: McCoy
Best Addition: Freshman OL David Sanders Jr.
Most Seasoned: Junior OL Wendell Moe Jr. (27 starts at Arizona)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB Boo Carter
Wild Card: Sophomore WR Mike Matthews
Best Name: DB Steele Katina

Biggest Strength: The cornerbacks. Outside starters Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson III were pleasant surprises in ’24, holding down the starting jobs from start to finish and faring well against the vast majority of the schedule — 3 of the 5 touchdowns they allowed between them were to Alabama’s Ryan Williams and Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, which, hey, it happens. (McCoy actually gave Williams all he could handle in the Vols’ win over Bama, holding him to 1 reception on 5 targets and earning a lot of money in the process.) True freshman Boo Carter settled in at nickel over the second half of the season, rounding out what should be one of the league’s most flame-resistant units once McCoy is back to full speed coming off a torn ACL.

Nagging Concern: Replacing Dylan Sampson’s production at running back. Sampson, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, was the real engine of the offense, accounting for more than 1,600 scrimmage yards and a school-record 22 touchdowns before suffering a hamstring injury that sidelined him for essentially all of the December trip to Columbus. (Not that his presence would have made the difference in a game Tennessee trailed 21-0 in the first quarter.) If there’s another workhorse in the pipeline worth feeding 20+ times per game, the most likely candidate is 210-pound sophomore Peyton Lewis. More likely, the job will fall to a committee featuring some combination of Lewis, DeSean Bishop and Duke transfer Star Thomas.

Looming Question: Is Joey Aguilar an SEC quarterback? Aguilar is a 5th-year, one-and-done transfer who had a couple good-not-great seasons at App. State following 2 years in the JUCO ranks. His production significantly declined from 2023 to ’24, when he served up an FBS-worst 14 interceptions en route to ASU’s first losing season in more than a decade. The hope is that the picks were largely a product of circumstances opposite a terrible defense — all 14 INTs came with the Mountaineers trailing. At the very least, Aguilar needs to be kept out of situations where he feels compelled to take risks, which should sound familiar in these parts.

The Schedule: Assuming they hold serve against unranked opponents (based on the preseason AP poll), Tennessee needs to beat some combination of Georgia/Oklahoma at home and/or Alabama/Florida on the road to make another Playoff push. It’s worth noting that the status of the Vols’ best retuning player, Jermod McCoy, is still in limbo for the early part of the season, which could affect his availability for the SEC opener against Georgia in Week 3. The other key dates all fall in the back half of the schedule, good news for a team that can use all the time it can get to figure out what it’s about.

The Upshot: Iamaleava was hardly the MVP of last year’s run, but had he remained in the fold, he almost certainly would have been in ’25, for better or worse. His sudden exit left the Vols without a clear identity, at least on offense. They’d love to recreate last year’s run-first template with a new back filling Sampson’s shoes behind a rebuilt offensive line.

• • •

8. Oklahoma

Oklahoma’s offense crashed and burned in 2024. In SEC play, the Sooners ranked dead last in total offense and next-to-last in scoring, narrowly avoiding the basement in the latter column only thanks to 4 touchdowns scored by the defense. By midseason, they’d benched their franchise quarterback, fired their offensive coordinator, and lost every wide receiver on the preseason 2-deep to injuries. Only a miracle November upset over Alabama salvaged what was otherwise a start-to-finish disaster.

Step 1 in the renovation project: A new offensive coordinator, Ben Arbuckle, by way of Washington State. Step 2: A new quarterback, Mateer, who’s a proven fit in the system. Mateer backed up future No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward for 2 years at Wazzu before piloting Arbuckle’s offense to 36.6 points per game in ’24 in his first turn as a starter. A dual threat, he was the only FBS quarterback to eclipse 3,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing (excluding sacks), and his 44 total touchdowns led the nation. With numbers like that, dwelling on his marginal measurables – Washington State was 1 of only 2 FBS teams that offered Mateer a scholarship out of high school, along with New Mexico State – or the marginal competition he faced was a luxury a team as desperate as OU could not afford.

If nothing else, Mateer should represent an immediate upgrade over the underachieving Grayson Arnold. Beyond that, I’d advise holding off on the Heisman buzz until we see how he holds up opposite a couple of first-rate defenses from Michigan and Texas in the first half of the season. If he looks the part, well, the hits only keep on coming against a murderer’s row of a schedule in conference play. But if the Sooners stand a chance of running the gauntlet, it will be because their biggest offseason investment has paid off.

– – –
Sooners at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 6-7 (2-6 SEC | Lost Armed Forces Bowl)
Best Player: Junior QB John Mateer
Best Pro Prospect: Mateer
Best Additions: Mateer (Washington State) and senior RB Jaydn Ott (California)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Febechi Nwaiwu (5th year; 33 starts at Oklahoma and North Texas)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore CB Eli Bowen
Wild Card: Senior WR Deion Burks
Best Name: DL Alex Shieldnight

Biggest Strength: The pass rush. Senior R Mason Thomas is an established presence off the edge, and expectations are high for incoming transfer Marvin Jones Jr., a former 5-star with previous stops at Florida State and Georgia. (If you don’t know who Marvin Jones Sr. is, geez, ask your dad.) The Sooners should also get some juice on the interior via senior DT Grace Halton, and from Oklahoma State transfer Kendal Daniels, a free-range, jack-of-all-trades type who’s moving into the free-range, jack-of-all-trades position in Brent Venables‘ defense, “Cheetah.”

Nagging Concern: Uncertainty at the skill positions. No one who will touch the ball on offense has made it through a full season as a Sooner. The top option in the backfield, Cal transfer Jaydn Ott, has a couple of highly productive seasons under his belt in Berkeley in 2022-23, but his production plummeted in ’24 as he played through a nagging ankle injury. Top wideout Deion Burks was never right last year due to assorted ailments that limited him to 5 games. The rest of the surrounding cast consists of transfers, neophytes, and still more injury casualties.

Looming Question: Does the Wazzu offense translate to the SEC? Venables is betting the farm on Arbuckle and Mateer recreating their production against vastly better defenses. If the experiment goes bust, it’s probably bringing down the entire administration with it.

The Schedule: The most unforgiving slate in the conference, possibly the nation. At least September is manageable, with a couple of non-conference gimmes and Michigan and Auburn coming to Norman. A 5-0 start is plausible. After that, there’s no coming up for air, with 7 straight conference games against Texas, South Carolina (in Columbia), Ole Miss, Tennessee (in Knoxville), Alabama (in Tuscaloosa), Missouri and LSU. I get that Oklahoma fans are not accustomed to counting moral victories, historically, but if the Sooners win more in that stretch than they lose, they get to chalk it up as a solid step forward.

The Upshot: Oklahoma’s fortunes have risen and fallen in lockstep with its starting quarterback for 25 years, with a lot more rising in that span than falling. So goes the QB, so go the Sooners. If Mateer holds up his end of the bargain, they’ve got a chance. Otherwise, they know now just how ugly it can get in this league, and how quickly.

• • •

9. Missouri

Mizzou is an impressive 21-5 over the past 2 seasons – that’s fewer losses in the same span than LSU (7), Tennessee (7) or Alabama (6), the same as Texas, and only 1 more than Georgia. Very nice. Now let’s look beyond the loss column, where the comparison to the conference’s upper crust quickly falls apart. 

To its credit, Missouri did finish strong in 2023, notching a couple of ranked wins over Tennessee and a shorthanded version of Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl – its only wins under Eli Drinkwitz over teams that appeared in the final AP poll. In 2024, Mizzou was thoroughly overmatched against any team even within spitting distance of the polls. After nearly a month ranked in the top 10, the Tigers were blown off the field in road losses to Texas A&M and Alabama by a combined score of 75-10; later, they dropped a November trip to South Carolina that officially ended whatever futile argument they might have mustered for Playoff contention if they’d gone to the clubhouse with 10 wins for the second year in a row. 

There’s a lot to be said for consistently taking care of business against lesser opponents. Unfortunately, the main thing that it said about Mizzou in 2024 is that the league office served up a schedule full of them – the Tigers feasted on the bottom half of the conference while somehow missing Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU. In the end, their only wins over opponents that finished above .500 overall came at the expense of Boston College, Vanderbilt and Iowa in the bowl game, by a combined margin of 12 points.

All of which is to say that, while there is a direct path to another 8 or 9 wins in 2025 just by winning the ones they’re supposed to, the real measuring stick is what happens in the few they’re not.

– – –
Tigers at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 10-3 (5-3 SEC | Won Music City Bowl | Final AP Rank: 22)
Best Player: Junior OL Cayden Green
Best Pro Prospect: Green
Best Additions: Senior WR Kevin Coleman Jr. (Miss. State), Sophomore RB Ahmad Hardy (UL-Monroe)
Most Seasoned: Senior DB Jalen Catalon (6th year; 34 starts at UNLV, Texas and Arkansas)
Emerging Dude: Junior Edge Damon Wilson II (transfer/Georgia)
Wild Card: Junior QB Beau Pribula (transfer/Penn State)
Best Name: DB Toriano Pride Jr.

Biggest Strength: The safeties. Mizzou returns 2 starters on the back end, senior fixture Daylan Carnell and rising junior Marvin Burks Jr., and added 3 veterans with starting experience via the portal. The headliner among the transfers, Jalen Catalon, is a former All-SEC pick at Arkansas who’s back in the league after 2 years at Texas and UNLV. Catalan has racked up a lot of miles and more than his fair share of injuries over his vagabond career, but at full speed he still looks like he did as a rising star in Fayetteville. At UNLV, he was a first-team All-Mountain West pick in 2024 under former Razorbacks defensive coordinator Barry Odom.

Nagging Concern: Regenerating the pass rush. The Tigers’ only reliable rusher in 2024, Johnny Walker Jr., graduated. His counterpart on the edge, Zion Turner, is back for his 3rd season as a starter, but hasn’t (yet) had nearly the same impact. Instead, the most likely to bring the heat is Georgia transfer Damon Wilson II, a former 5-star who spent 2 years as a backup in Athens. Had he stayed at UGA, Wilson would have been a candidate for heavy rotation. At Mizzou, he’s a candidate for a full-fledged break out.

Looming Question: Who is QB Beau Pribula? At Penn State, Pribula carved out a niche as top backup and occasional “change of pace” runner behind entrenched starter Drew Allar. He was valuable enough there that the Nittany Lions made a stink about it last December when Pribula decided he had no choice but to leave the team ahead of the Playoff to meet the deadline for entering the portal. (To be clear, they directed their stink at the NCAA’s transfer restrictions, not Pribula.) He put up decent stat lines in limited duty, and brings a dual-threat capacity in the vein of departed starter Brady Cook. Whether he represents an upgrade over Cook in any other capacity is TBD. He is by far the biggest unknown on either side of the ball.

The Schedule: Again, possibly the friendliest the SEC has to offer: Arkansas, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt from the league’s bottom tier, and only Alabama from the top. (And this time Mizzou gets the Tide in Columbia.) The make-or-break games are toss-ups against the middle class: South Carolina, Auburn, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, the first 2 coming at home. Win 2 of those 4, avoid an ambush, and you’ve got yourself another by-the-book 9-3 season.

The Upshot: There’s a decent chance that Pribula is a hit, Mizzou springs an upset or two, and we’re forced to take the Tigers seriously as CFP contenders. Just as likely, they’ll be safely dislodge from the discourse by midseason and you’ll rarely have to think about them unless they’re playing your team. The difference might come down to just a handful of plays.

• • •

10. Florida

Everything went wrong for Florida in 2024, until it suddenly went very right. At their lowest ebb, amid a buzz of injuries and negativity surrounding coach Billy Napier‘s future, the Gators hit their stride, ripping off 3 straight wins against LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State to close the regular season and punctuating the rally with a bowl win over Tulane.

Strictly speaking, the late surge did not save Napier’s job, which had already been preserved by his boss’ decision in early November to announce Napier would be back in 2025 regardless of what happened over the last few games. At that point, though, the point of taking Napier’s future off the table was to put a firewall between the coach and the inevitable, ongoing backlash while his lame-duck team played out the string on a lost season. Instead, over those last few weeks Florida found its quarterback, spoiled meaningful campaigns in Baton Rouge and Oxford, dominated its in-state rival, and generally turned a funereal atmosphere surrounding the program into a celebration of resilience.

Now comes the hard part, or the fun part, or the miserable part, depending on how the season unfolds. The schedule is no less forgiving. Neither is the grading curve for Napier, or for sophomore QB DJ Lagway, now fully entrenched after living up to the hype as a true freshman. Lagway’s highlight reel was more impressive than his consistency in 2024, as you’d expect from a rookie — especially one who was in and out of the lineup, battled injuries and didn’t really settle in as QB1 until the home stretch. Even then, the defense and ground game had as much to do with the Gators’ U-turn as their precocious quarterback. But going forward, this is clearly Lagway’s team, and its ceiling is only as high as his.

– – –
Gators at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 8-5 (4-4 SEC | Won Gasparilla Bowl)
Best Player: Senior DL Tyreak Sapp
Best Pro Prospect: Senior OL Jake Slaughter
Best Additions: Freshman WRs Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Austin Barber (5th year; 27 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Junior LB Grayson “Pup” Howard
Wild Card: Sophomore WR Eugene Wilson III
Best Names: CB Jamroc Grimsley … OL Enoch Wangoy … Kicker Trey Smack

Biggest Strength: A veteran, nearly intact offensive line. Seniors Jake Slaughter, Austin Barber and Damieon George Jr. are all multi-year starters with a combined 72 starts and 4,800 snaps under their belts. Slaughter, in particular, emerged as an All-American in 2024 and has a long future ahead of him at the next level.

Nagging Concern: Stopping the run. Florida ranked next-to-last in rushing defense in SEC play each of the past 2 seasons, suffering through some ghastly performances in that span. They finished strong against the run in 2024 and return a couple of veteran anchors on the d-line in Tyreak Sapp and 330-pound interior DL Caleb Banks. Another finish in the bottom tier of the conference would be a letdown.

Looming Question: Is DJ Lagway in sync with his receivers? Talent is not in doubt on either side of this equation. They just haven’t played much together. The best of the holdovers from 2024, Eugene Wilson III, missed most of Lagway’s emergence due to a hip injury. The rest of the rotation is headlined by an incoming transfer, J Michael Sturdivant (UCLA), and a pair of touted freshmen, Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson. Blue-chips across the board, but how they will mesh as a unit remains TBD.

The Schedule: Brutal. Unlike last year, there’s a brief grace period before the competition gets steep in Week 3. From that point on, it’s a slog, with road trips to LSU, Miami and Texas A&M and a home date against Texas on the front half of the schedule alone. The back half includes Georgia, Ole Miss (in Oxford) and Tennessee — not to mention FSU, although sizing up the 2025 Seminoles is impossible, much less predicting what kind of state they’re going to be in by Thanksgiving. Frankly, whatever pretensions the Gators have of pulling off a Playoff run aren’t likely to survive September. But even they do, there’s still a long way to go.

The Upshot: The vibes are better than the forecast. Even if the elusive momentum from last year’s finish carries over, sustaining it across a slate with as many land mines as this one is expecting too much. Lagway is for real, and there’s a lot to like at both the skill positions and along both lines of scrimmage. If this team had, say, Missouri’s schedule, CFP buzz would be a lot easier to justify. Against the one it actually has, the Gators could be vastly improved over last year from start to finish and still wind up with the same record, or worse.

• • •

11. South Carolina

The only team that finished hotter than Florida, the Gamecocks broke out of the doldrums at midseason and never looked back, closing the regular season on a 6-game heater with wins over Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Missouri and Clemson. While the conference frontrunners (not to mention certain other contenders around the country) took turns embarrassing themselves down the stretch, Carolina accelerated across the finish line, forcing its way into the CFP conversation in the process. Had SMU held on to eliminate Clemson in the ACC Championship Game a week later, the Gamecocks would have been 1 of the teams vying for the final at-large slot that went to the Mustangs instead. As it was, they could be content with the mythical title of “Team Nobody Wants to Play.”

Then came the actual bowl game, a 21-17 loss to Illinois in the Citrus Bowl, which cast some doubt on the narrative: How was the momentum supposed to carry over to a new season when it fizzled before the new year? The answer to that falls overwhelmingly on one player: Sophomore QB LaNorris Sellers. For most of last season, the 6-3, 240-pound Sellers was a predictably inconsistent figure whose skill set had yet to catch up to his enormous potential. By year’s end, the gap was closing fast. The breakout star of the Gamecocks’ surge, Sellers’ over-the-top performance in November — especially against Clemson, more on which in the individual awards section below — made him a viral star and put him on the fast track to Heisman hype entering 2025.

Whether Sellers is up to that is one of the defining questions of the season, across the conference and possibly the country. But you can ask the same question for the rest of the team. Up-and-coming dudes are scattered across the roster, namely junior WR Nyck Harbor and sophomore edge Dylan Stewart, both former 5-stars on breakout watch alongside Sellers. Actually proven dudes, on the other hand, are few and far between. For now, that’s how the Gamecocks’ bid for sustained national relevance feels, too: On watch, pending confirmation.

– – –
Gamecocks at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 9-4 (5-3 SEC | Lost Citrus Bowl | Final AP Rank: 19)
Best Player: Sophomore QB LaNorris Sellers
Best Pro Prospect: Sellers
Best Addition: Senior RB Rahsul Faison (Utah State)
Most Seasoned: Senior WR Jared Brown (5th year; 23 starts at South Carolina and Coastal Carolina)
Emerging Dude: Junior WR Nyck Harbor
Wild Card: Transfer DL Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy (Texas A&M)
Best Names: QB Air Noland … TE Jordan Dingle … OL Tree Babalade … Edge Demon Clowney (yes, Jadeveon’s cousin) … DL Monkell Goodwine … DB Vicari Swain

Biggest Strength: Edge rushers galore. All-American Kyle Kennard is gone, but Dylan Stewart was arguably the better pure pass rusher as a true freshman. In Year 2 he’s on the shortlist of the most unblockable players in America. Senior Bryan Thomas shifts from part-time starter to full-time in place of Kennard; 6th-year transfer Demon Clowney (formerly of Ole Miss) is back in the SEC off a couple of productive seasons at Charlotte; and former 4-star Desmond Umeozulu is due for an expanded role in his third year in the program.

Nagging Concern: The middle of the defense. The top 5 members of the interior d-line rotation have a single career start between them; the top 5 linebackers have none. There is talent at both positions, including a former 5-star (DL Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy); a couple of former blue-chips who signed with Alabama (DL Monkell Goodwine and LB Shawn Murphy); and the No. 1 incoming JUCO transfer at any position (DL Zavion Hardy). But as of now, recruiting rankings represent the majority if not the entirety of their résumés.

Looming Question: Is Nyck Harbor who they said he was? As a recruit, Harbor was touted as a comic-book combination of speed and strength, a high school track champion in the body of a defensive end, the freak of all freaks. Two years in, his NCAA Football ratings have far outstripped his IRL production. He cannot continue to be relegated to Just A Guy status if the offense has any chance of achieving liftoff. He’s clearly at the top of the wide receiver rotation in Year 3; it’s time for his output to reflect it.

The Schedule: The Gamecocks have a golden opportunity to sustain the hype into October with wins over Virginia Tech and the opening acts of the SEC East Reunion Tour (Vanderbilt, Missouri, Kentucky). They’d better, because it gets steep fast: After an open date, the conference schedule serves up a run of LSU (in Baton Rouge), Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss (in Oxford) and Texas A&M (in College Station) in consecutive weeks. Add in the finale against Clemson, and that’s 6 opponents ranked in the preseason AP poll in the final 7 games.

The Upshot: I believe in Sellers, whose November breakthrough as a redshirt freshman looked like the beginning of what figures to be a long and productive career, and in Dylan Stewart, a difference-maker off the edge from Day 1. The rest of the roster? Not so much — not yet, anyway. This is still a young team that might be a year away from running the kind of gauntlet they’ve been dealt over the second half of the season.

• • •

12. Auburn

After 2 years of frustration, this is widely considered a make-or-break campaign for Hugh Freeze, who can no longer point to the (many) failures of the Bryan Harsin administration to cover for his own. In Year 3, the roster overwhelmingly consists of Freeze’s recruits, including incoming quarterbacks Jackson Arnold (via the portal) and Deuce Knight, a 5-star freshman who flipped his commitment to Auburn from Notre Dame late in the process. Freeze could barely conceal his ambivalence toward his last quarterback, the pedestrian Payton Thorne, practically begging during press conferences “don’t blame me” without coming right out and saying it. Now that he has 2 options with blue-chip ratings and Freeze’s personal stamp of approval, he owns the results, for better or worse.

– – –
Tigers at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 5-7 (2-6 SEC)
Best Player: Junior DL Keldric Faulk
Best Pro Prospect: Faulk
Best Addition: Junior WR Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Dillon Wade (37 starts at Auburn and Tulsa)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore WR Cam Coleman
Wild Card: Sophomore QB Jackson Arnold
Best Name: Kicker Towns McGough

Biggest Strength: For possibly the first time ever at Auburn, the wide receivers. Auburn is not exactly known for churning out memorable wideouts — the leading receiver in school history graduated in 1971 and only 2 Tigers have had 1,000-yard receiving seasons — but Freeze had made the position a priority. The 2024 recruiting class included 4 receivers rated as 4- or 5-stars, 2 of whom, Cam Coleman and Malcolm Simmons, made an immediate impact as freshmen. Joining the mix in ’25: Georgia Tech transfer Eric Singleton Jr., who accounted for 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns over 2 seasons at Tech. No area of the team has changed more rapidly for the better.

Nagging Concern: The kicking game. The Tigers’ regular kicker, Alex McPherson, only saw the field in 1 game in 2024 due to an intestinal injury. In his absence, field goals were an adventure, and rarely the fun kind. The next man up, true freshman Towns McGough, finished a dismal 5-for-12 with critical misses in close losses to Oklahoma, Missouri and Vanderbilt. McGough, bless his heart, finally yielded late in the year to Ian Vachon, who hit 6-of-8 attempts over the last 3 games… and subsequently portaled out in the spring. Just days before kickoff, the situation is unsettled: McPherson is still the nominal starter when available, but his status remains in doubt. If he’s ruled out, that leaves McGough and Southern Miss transfer Connor Gibbs, who was 10-for-13 with a long of 59 yards in 2024 at USM. Nobody thinks about the kicker until they have to, but for a team that’s 2-6 in 1-score games over the past 2 years, that’s often enough to know how much they matter.

Looming Question: Is Jackson Arnold reformed? Arnold was an outright bust at Oklahoma, finishing dead last among SEC starters in 2024 in pass efficiency and QBR. He didn’t play at all in OU’s midseason win at Auburn, the first game of a month-long benching before Arnold was reinstated to the starting lineup in late October. The lone glimmer of hope in his season of woe was the Sooners’ out-of-nowhere, 24-3 beatdown of Alabama the week before the Iron Bowl. Arnold’s contribution to the upset came mainly from his legs: He accounted for 131 of Oklahoma’s 257 rushing yards on the night — easily a season high — while completing just 9-of-11 attempts for 68 yards. Freeze knows how to put a mobile quarterback to good use. But he didn’t recruit all those wideouts just to call a bunch of QB runs, either. If Arnold can’t demonstrate growth in the pocket, Deuce Knight’s turn will come sooner rather than later.

The Schedule: It’s a front-loaded slate, dumping road trips to Baylor, Oklahoma and Texas A&M as well as a home date against Georgia in the first 6 games. Auburn needs to win at least 1 of those to prevent a spiral of negativity before mid-October. After the Georgia game, it mellows considerably, setting up a series of winnable games against Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Vanderbilt ahead of the rivalry tilt with Alabama. This year’s Iron Bowl is at Auburn, where the Tigers consistently push the Tide to the brink regardless of the apparent gap between the teams in any given year. Keep it together through the initial gauntlet, and riding a winning streak into the Iron Bowl is on the table.

The Upshot: Barring disaster, the “hot seat” buzz surrounding Freeze’s job security is a better template for generating offseason takes than it is a prediction. An awful lot would have to go wrong to prevent Auburn from at least eking out a winning record, which after 4 straight losing seasons will almost certainly be enough to carry Freeze across the line to 2026. 

Now, how the base feels about that is another story – a story that, as always, depends mainly on how it ends against Alabama. Right now, the Tide seem more gettable at this point on the calendar than they have in a long time. If that’s still the case in late November, there is no reason a coach hired in large part due to his track record of beating Alabama shouldn’t be judged on whether he finally delivers.

• • •

13. Arkansas

It’s Year 6 of Sam Pittman‘s tenure and Hogs fans are checking their watches. Pittman is well liked locally, and has been handsomely rewarded for his initial success lifting Arkansas out of the depths of the Chad Morris era, which resulted in a lucrative contract extension in the summer of 2022. Since signing that deal, the Razorbacks are 7-17 in SEC play with only one win anybody outside of the state remembers, a 19-14 upset over Tennessee last October. If not for that game, Pittman might have already been shown the door following an otherwise forgettable campaign, the third in as many years. As it stands, the betting markets are just a month or two away from laying odds on the likelihood of “interim head coach Bobby Petrino.”

– – –
Hogs at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 7-6 (3-5 SEC | Won Liberty Bowl)
Best Player: Senior QB Taylen Green
Best Pro Prospect: Green?
Best Addition: Senior WR O’Mega Blake (Charlotte)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Fernando Carmona (5th year; 37 starts at Arkansas and San José State)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore RB Braylen Russell
Wild Card: Sophomore Edge Charlie Collins
Best Names: WR O’Mega Blake … DB Quentavius Scandrett

Biggest Strength: Well-seasoned linebackers. Seniors Xavian Sorey Jr. and Stephen Dix Jr. moved directly into the starting lineup in 2024 after arriving from Georgia and Marshall, respectively, with Sorey coming in for a third-team All-SEC nod from league coaches. Both are candidates to record triple-digit tackles in their final college season.

Nagging Concern: Brand new receivers. The Hogs cleared out the depth chart at wideout, bringing in 7 transfer wide receivers and 2 tight ends. Among the portal haul, Charlotte transfer O’Mega Blake (originally at South Carolina) was a first-team All-AAC pick in 2024 after averaging an FBS-best 24.8 yards per catch with 9 touchdowns. But this ain’t the AAC.

Looming Question: Is there any more to Taylen Green? Green leaps off the screen, his lanky, 6-6 frame and loping athleticism combining to form a Kaepernick-esque spectacle. As for the actual quarterback stuff, it was a work in progress. In his first year as a Hog, Green ranked 11th among SEC starters in QBR (which takes rushing stats into account) and 13th in passer rating. As for progress? As a 5th-year senior, it’s now or never. Scouts could potentially fall in love with Green’s traits, but only if gives them fewer reasons to get hung up on his limitations in the pocket.

The Schedule: The Razorbacks only managed to qualify for a bowl game in 2024 by virtue of their upset win over Tennessee. Getting to 6-6 this year might take a couple of upsets: Beyond Alabama A&M, Arkansas State, Mississippi State and maybe Memphis — Arkansas is on the road for that one— they’re likely to be underdogs in every other game. It helps that Texas A&M, Auburn and Missouri all have to come to Fayetteville. (As does Notre Dame, but let’s keep it realistic.) But the SEC road dates — at Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU and Texas — are long shots. If they go 0-4 in those games, the Hogs would have to nearly run the table at home just to break even.

The Upshot: Green is an intriguing athlete, but he hasn’o’t done anything to date in Arkansas or his previous stop at Boise State to suggest he has it in him to singlehandedly reverse a mediocre team’s fortunes. And this is a thoroughly mediocre team, one that offers no reason in particular to believe it will look any different from the thoroughly mediocre teams of the previous 3 seasons. Pittman has sometimes come across after losses as a guy who isn’t all that concerned about whether he still has a job on Monday or not. Stranger things have happened – see the next entry – but all indications from the outside are that the situation in Fayetteville is already running on fumes.

• • •

14. Vanderbilt

This time last year, Vandy looked like a team on a death march, a hopeless, ragtag outfit whose head coach, Clark Lea, was doomed for the scrapheap where failed Vandy coaches have been piling up for generations. Instead, the ‘Dores got effin’ turnt. Sparked by irrepressible QB Diego Pavia, they won 4 games they were favored to lose by at least a touchdown, including the great white crimson whale – a mid-season stunner over then-No. 1 Alabama that might never be surpassed as the greatest upset in SEC history. They earned Vandy’s first bowl bid since 2018, and won it to finish with Vandy’s first winning record since 2013.

Lea is back, and going nowhere anytime soon. Pavia, recipient of an extra year of eligibility as a result of a successful lawsuit against the NCAA, is back. The leading rusher and receiver are back, along with most of the other players who touched the ball. The majority of the starting defense is back. Wait … Is this what optimism looks like? At Vandy? Is that legal? Is this a dream? Are we living inside a simulation? What is, like, reality?

– – –
Dores at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 7-6 (3-5 SEC | Won Birmingham Bowl)
Best Player: Senior QB Diego Pavia
Best Pro Prospect: Senior TE Eli Stowers
Best Addition: Senior OL Jordan White (Liberty)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Sterling Porcher (6th year; 36 starts at Texas Tech and Middle Tennessee)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DL Glenn Seabrooks III
Wild Card: Senior Edge Keanu Koht (transfer/Alabama)
Best Names: DL Linus Zunk … DB Randon Fontenette

Biggest Strength: The Pavia-to-Stowers connection. Over the past 2 years at Vandy and New Mexico State, Pavia and Stowers have hooked up 84 times for 1,004 yards and 7 touchdowns, easily outpacing any other active QB/receiver tandem in the SEC in all 3 columns. While pro scouts may have little interest in the sawed-off Pavia, they’re very interested in Stowers, a 6-4, 235-pound converted quarterback who projects as the first tight end off the board in 2026.

Nagging Concern: Defending the pass. The ‘Dores improved in most respects in 2024, but not in the secondary, where they ranked 119th nationally in pass efficiency defense vs. FBS opponents. That marked the 6th consecutive season they’ve finished in the bottom 20 nationally.

Looming Question: Is the new offensive line an upgrade? Vandy signed 6 transfer OL with starting experience, who collectively bring a 131 career starts and 8,801 snaps between them. The best of the incoming bunch, 6th-year senior Jordan White was a 2-time All-Conference USA pick at Liberty with experience at guard and center.

The Schedule: As usual, Vanderbilt is likely to be an underdog in every conference game, with the possible exception of a late date against Kentucky in Nashville. There’s no route to 6 wins that doesn’t require multiple upsets. What else is new?

The Upshot: Is matching matching last year’s win total realistic? Probably not. Does it really matter? Definitely not. The two guys Diego Pavia replaced behind center, Ken Seals and AJ Swann, were a combined 0-30 as starters in SEC play across their Vandy careers. That was Vandy football: Interchangeable losers. Pavia has already made his mark just by making the Commodores something other than laughingstocks – by forcing smartasses like me to write “that was Vandy football” instead of “that is Vandy football.” It won’t stay that way forever, probably not even for very long. But for 1 more year, the past tense speaks for itself.

• • •

15. Kentucky

By most lights Mark Stoops is the best coach Kentucky football has ever had, with more years on the job (13) and more wins (77) by some distance over anyone else who’s held it. It was out of respect for all that that the tenor of the locals’ discontent last year tended to take the form of respectful requests for Stoops to step aside rather than full-throated calls for his head. The Wildcats limped into the offseason with their worst record overall (4-8) and in conference play (1-7) since Stoops’ first season in 2013, when the program had the reputation of a backwater. The feeling, understandably, was that they’ve come too far just to find themselves back where they started.

But Stoops is still here, banking in Year 14 on a back-to-basics approach that emphasizes the line of scrimmage and ball control. After failing to see results from a series of high-profile transfers QBs, this year’s portal class prioritized the trenches, adding immediate starters on both sides of the ball. Meanwhile, the new QB1, Zach Calzada, is a 6th-year retread whose most distinguishing trait is his longevity. (Yes, that Zach Calzada. Yes, he still has a final year of eligibility to burn.) The preseason buzz the past few years has typically been along the lines of “is this the year Kentucky finally figures out the passing game?” This year, the answer seems to be that they’re not even trying.

And, hey, OK. Stoops’ best teams have often been miserable at putting the ball in the air, but good enough at slugging it out and strangling the clock to death to compensate. They knew who they were, and who they were not. Anyway, the 21st Century approach has only yielded diminishing returns. If this is Stoops’ swan song, at least he’s going out on his own terms.

– – –
Wildcats at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 4-8 (1-7 SEC)
Best Players: Senior DBs Jonquis Hardaway and Jordan Lovett
Best Pro Prospect: n/a
Best Addition: Junior Edge Mi’Quise Humphrey-Grace (South Dakota)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Alex Wollschlaeger (6th year; 39 starts at Bowling Green)
Emerging Dude: Junior RB Dante Dowdell (transfer/Nebraska)
Wild Card: Senior WR Kendrick Law (transfer/Alabama)
Best Name: WR Montavin Quisenberry

Biggest Strength: A veteran secondary. Three starters are back from a unit that allowed just 9 touchdown passes, tied for fewest in the FBS. (If that number seems suspicious, well, kind of: Kentucky faced fewer passes than all but 1 other defense nationally, partly because opposing offenses were usually protecting a lead and running on the Wildcats more or less at will. But 9 TDs allowed on 279 attempts is still a respectable rate.) The 2 new starters, DJ Waller Jr and Jantzen Dunn, are former transfers from Michigan and Ohio State, respectively.

Nagging Concern: Lack of explosiveness on offense. The Wildcats struggled to get the ball to the resident big-play threats, Dane Key and Barion Brown, both of whom portaled out to offenses where they’d have a chance to be fed by future NFL quarterbacks. (Key landed at Nebraska, Brown at LSU.) To fill the void, they imported veteran receivers from Alabama (Kendrick Law), Oklahoma (JJ Hester) and Clemson (Troy Stellato), all former 4-star recruits — but none of whom have lived up to that billing to date.

Looming Question: Run the dang ball? The ‘Cats weren’t any better on the ground in 2024 than they were through the air, and even if they had been they spent too much time in comeback mode for it to bear out. That won’t do. In keeping with the “establish the run” theme of the offseason, Kentucky overhauled the o-line and the backfield, where well-traveled transfers Dante Dowdell (Nebraska, Oregon) and Seth McGowan (New Mexico State, Oklahoma) arrived with workhorse-ready size. Like the new receivers, Dowdell and McGowan are former 4-stars in prove-it seasons as the clock ticks on their college careers. They’re going to get their chance.

The Schedule: The SEC slate offers no breaks: The only conference game Kentucky doesn’t project as a double-digit underdog is a Nov. 22 trip to Vanderbilt, by which time who knows how sick the point spread could possibly get. All 4 conference games in Lexington (vs. Ole Miss, Texas, Tennessee and Florida) are against teams ranked in the preseason AP poll. At least there’s always Eastern Michigan, right. Right?

The Upshot: Another thing about Stoops’ best teams: They had dudes like Josh Allen, Benny Snell, Lynn Bowden Jr., Josh Paschal and Darian Kinnard. Does this one? If there’s an SEC-caliber difference-maker on the premises, he’s yet to be revealed.

• • •

16. Mississippi State

Mississippi State had zero expectations under first-year coach Jeff Lebby and never threatened to exceed them, finishing 0-8 in SEC play with a lopsided home loss to Toledo thrown in for good measure. (In a way, Bulldogs fans should have been grateful for that one, which let them know right out of the gate exactly what they were in store for.) Whatever value the season might have had as a “year zero” situation was mostly wiped out when the best player on the team, Kevin Coleman Jr., portaled out to a conference rival, as did the 2 most promising freshmen, QB Michael Van Buren and WR Mario Craver. As it stands, MSU has nothing in particular show for its misery except a 12-games-and-counting SEC losing streak with no end in sight.

– – –
Dogs at a Glance…

2024 Recap: 2-10 (0-8 SEC)
Best Player: Junior DB Isaac Smith
Best Pro Prospect: Smith
Best Addition: Sophomore RB Fluff Bothwell (South Alabama)
Most Seasoned: Senior OL Brennan Smith (5th year; 31 starts at UTEP and Austin Peay)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore LB Jalen Smith (transfer/Tennessee)
Wild Card: Senior QB Blake Shapen
Best Names: RB Fluff Bothwell … Edge Jy’Kevious “Red” Hibbler

Biggest Strength: Running back depth. The Bulldogs returned both of last year’s leading rushers, Davon Booth and Johnnie Daniels, who combined for 1,317 yards and 9 touchdowns. But they also made a play in the portal for South Alabama transfer Fluff Bothwell, a thickly-built, 230-pound thumper who averaged 7.4 yards per carry with 13 touchdowns for USA as a true freshman. Figuring how to keep all three happy and fed is a much better problem to have than most of the alternatives.

Nagging Concern: Literally every aspect of the defense. Mississippi State ranked last in the SEC in scoring defense, total defense, yards per play allowed, rushing defense, pass efficiency defense, first downs allowed, sacks, takeaways and 4th-down defense. (They were better on 3rd down, finishing next-to-last.) Defensive coordinator Coleman Hutzler is back for Year 2, but nothing about the new or old personnel inspires confidence. I would say there’s nowhere to go but up, but that’s not strictly true.

Looming Question: How short is QB Blake Shapen’s leash? Shapen is a 6th-year vet with 27 career starts (most at Baylor from 2021-23), and it’s possible to imagine his presence would have made a difference last year if he hadn’t been sidelined in the early going by a season-ending shoulder injury. His replacement, Michael Van Buren, left for LSU after a respectable turn in terrible circumstances as a true freshman. But the depth chart actually improved over the offseason: In addition to getting Shapen back, Lebby landed one of the top developmental prospects in the portal, Florida State’s Luke Kromenhoek, as well as a blue-chip freshman, Kamario Taylor, from Mississippi State’s backyard. Shapen’s status as QB1 might not be in doubt, for now. As the season wears on and losses mount, though, so will interest in the understudies. The temptation to look ahead to the competition between Kromenhoek and Taylor for the title of heir apparent in 2026 might be more compelling than most of what happens on the field.

The Schedule: Is there a conference win in the offing? Barring an unforeseen developments, no — neither Kentucky nor Vandy, is on the schedule. The narrowest point spread in SEC play will probably be a Nov. 1 trip to Arkansas, for what it’s worth.

The Upshot: Another long, dark year. The prospect of enduring back-to-back seasons without a conference win is grim, but until further notice that’s where the Bulldogs are at.

• • •

The Players

Most Valuable Player: Arch Manning

To cite headline writers’ favorite Arch-themed cliché, the advance hype for the Manning era is touched with a bit of madness. More than just a bit, actually: With a grand total of 260 snaps, Manning is beginning his tenure as QB1 as the betting favorite for the Heisman, at the helm of the No. 1 team in both major polls, based mainly on — let’s be honest — some combination of the original recruiting buzz that followed him to Austin two years ago and his perennially clickable last name. Rarely, possibly never, has a player with a résumé this thin been sucked into a preseason hype cycle this powerful.

Now, does that mean we’re above it? Please. Not a chance. For one thing, Arch himself has never seemed the least bit affected by the din, to which he’s been acclimating since the 9th grade. For another, what little we have seen of him so far has advanced the plot. In 3 extended appearances in 2024 — September wins over UT-San Antonio, UL-Monroe and Mississippi State in relief of an injured Quinn Ewers — he looked the part and then some, averaging an eye-opening 11.2 yards per attempt with 8 touchdown passes vs. 2 interceptions. Even after Ewers returned to full-time duty, neither his performance nor Steve Sarkisian’s weekly insistence that Ewers’ job was safe were a match for the murmurs that flared up every time the offense failed to score 2 possessions in a row. In the meantime, while Manning barely put the ball in the air again as an understudy, he took advantage of his few appearances off the bench to flash better-than-advertised mobility, both as an open-field runner and as a short-yardage threat with a nose for the end zone.

Then again, it’s also worth remembering that on his only meaningful dropbacks against a real opponent, Georgia hounded Manning into 2 sacks and a fumble on just a handful of snaps in the Longhorns’ only loss of the regular season, a 30-15 decision in Austin in mid-October. That was the game when the broadcast caught both Texas QBs looking stunned on the sideline at the end of a miserable first half. So, you know, take his breakthrough against the likes of UTSA and UL-Monroe for what it’s worth.

At any rate, at least we won’t have to wait long to begin drawing some actual conclusions: Texas’ opening-day trip to Ohio State is the main event of Week 1 and one of the premier nonconference collisions of the season. Both Manning and his counterpart, OSU’s Julian Sayin, have a chance to make a lasting first impression that puts one or both on the Heisman track. If Arch is who pretty much everybody seems to think he is, a win in Columbus could cement his status as the Face of the Sport overnight.

Offensive Player of the Year: LaNorris Sellers

There was a point last October when I openly wondered in my weekly SEC quarterback rankings whether Sellers was cut out to be a long-term SEC starter. The answer: An emphatic yes. Yes, he is. From that point on, he was arguably the best quarterback in America over the final month of the regular season.

Maybe it should have been obvious a lot sooner — Sellers’ upside was plain enough in the early going, even if his limitations were, too. At 6-3, 242 pounds, he instantly sets off the freak siren, boasting the kind of highlight-reel athleticism that at his size inspires lofty comparisons. A 75-yard touchdown run against LSU in Week 3 was an early, fleeting glimpse. Still, prior to an open date in in late October, he profiled as a typically raw, turnover-prone underclassman whose potential at that point far outstripped his production. After, the Gamecocks ended the regular season on a 6-game winning streak that vaulted them into late Playoff contention.

Don’t just go by the record: For the month of November, Sellers ranked No. 2 nationally in total offense and pass efficiency, and No. 1 in total touchdowns, with 16 (12 passing, 4 rushing). In the same span, South Carolina averaged just shy of 500 yards per game, best in the SEC, with Sellers accounting for just shy of 70% of that total. And don’t just go by the stats, either. In a win over Missouri, he led 2 go-ahead touchdown drives in the 4thquarter. Two weeks later, he looked like the second coming of Cam Newton — how’s that for a lofty comparison? — in another come-from-behind win over Clemson, repeatedly turning shoulda-been sacks by future pros into big, loping gains in the open field on his way to 166 rushing yards.

Per PFF, Sellers’ 18 missed tackles forced against the Tigers were the most in a single game all season by any player not named Ashton Jeanty. With 164 passing yards, he was also the only FBS quarterback on the year to rush and pass for 150+ yards in the same game, turning in a season high 92.5 Total QBR rating in the process.

Sure, 6 games (1 vs. Wofford) is not exactly a foolproof sample size, and Sellers was a mere mortal in a 21-17 Citrus Bowl loss to Illinois. Do you wanna bet on this guy turning back into a pumpkin? If his progress continues apace, he’s a bona fide Heisman candidate in 2025, and could be NFL-bound as soon as ’26, his first year of eligibility. And even if it doesn’t, the glimpses of his upside he’s flashed already are enough to buy a whole lot of patience.

Defensive Player of the Year: Anthony Hill Jr.

By certain metrics Texas’ defense was the best in the country in 2024, and by any metric Hill was the Longhorns’ most versatile defender. Smooth, instinctive and ferocious in pursuit, he did a little bit of everything, most of it at an elite level in just his second year on campus. He was omnipresent against the run, logging triple-digit tackles, 44 stops and an SEC-best 17 tackles for loss. He hounded opposing QBs, generating 23 QB pressures and 8 sacks on just a handful of pass-rushing reps per game. He created takeaways, tying for the SEC lead with 4 forced fumbles. He made plays between the tackles, coming off the edge and in space. On a unit loaded with future pros, Hill was the one who consistently leapt off the screen.

The only red flag in Hill’s game is in coverage — PFF cited him for 453 yards allowed on 60 targets, more than three-quarters of that total coming after the catch. No other SEC linebacker allowed more yards, and only 1 FBS linebacker allowed more YAC. (Note for the record here that PFF singled out Hill as the responsible party on the random screen pass that Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson broke for a 75-yard touchdown against the Longhorns just before halftime in the Cotton Bowl, a play that caught the entire defense with its pants down; there wasn’t a white jersey within 20 yards of Henderson when he caught the ball. This stuff is useful in context, but it is not an exact science.) There’s no reason athletically that Hill should be a liability on this front, and he wasn’t in 2023 as a freshman. If that’s the only remaining hurdle he has to clear to becoming a complete package in his money year, show him the money.

Fat Guy of the Year: Kadyn Proctor

It has been a long way to the top for Proctor, a mountain of a man whose potential has loomed larger than his performance. A 5-star prospect and Day 1 starter in 2023, he had all the makings of the next great plug-and-play Bama left tackle. Instead, he visibly struggled as a freshman, allowing an SEC-worst 36 pressures and 12 sacks, per PFF. Understandably frustrated, Proctor transferred home to Iowa that winter following Nick Saban’s retirement and went through spring drills with the Hawkeyes before reversing course and returning to Tuscaloosa last summer. Despite missing the first 2 games to injury, he was vastly improved in Year 2, cutting pressures (15) and sacks (3) en route to a second-team all-conference nod from SEC coaches. Still, a couple of rocky outings down the stretch in demoralizing losses to Oklahoma and Michigan were reminders that, for a full-grown colossus, he remained a work in progress.

In Year 3, the Tide are expecting a finished product. On top of his outrageous feats of weight-room strength and agility for a man listed at 6-7, 366 pounds, Proctor is the ranking vet in the trenches, with 25 career starts at a position that has produced 5 first-round picks over the past decade. If he’s going to fulfill his promise as the next name on that list, the time is now.

Most Exciting Player: Ryan Williams

As teenage phenoms go, Williams wasn’t the most productive, or even the most likely to succeed as the rest of his career unfolds. (An impossible claim for anyone else in the same freshman class as Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith.) But few if any have passed the “Know It When You See It” test with as much style. A Day 1 starter at 17 years old, Williams needed just a few weeks to burn his name in the national consciousness, flashing an uncanny knack for viral panache from the first time he touched the ball. By the first weekend in October, he’d accounted for 7 touchdowns in his first 5 college games, 6 of them on receptions of 40+ yards, and 1 of them entering directly into the pantheon of greatest plays in Bama history while it was still in progress.

What else do you need to see after that? In fact, there wasn’t much to see — Williams’ output slumped down the stretch, with his last touchdown vs. an FBS opponent coming in an Oct. 19 loss at Tennessee. By that point, though, he could have skipped the second half of the season altogether and the accolades still would have rolled in. He was a unanimous Freshman All-American and first-team All-SEC, making him the first true freshman receiver to earn that distinction from the coaches since at least the turn of the century. If those first 6 weeks were just the beginning, they’re also the bar he’ll be measured by for the rest of his tenure.

Most Valuable Transfer: John Mateer

We’ve already covered Mateer’s whole deal in the Oklahoma section of the proceedings: Prolific stats, high expectations, brutal schedule, his head coach’s job in his hands, no pressure, etc. You get it. Every team needs their quarterback to pan out, but the Sooners really need this guy to pan out.

Comeback Player of the Year: Harold Perkins Jr.

Perkins was supposed to be in the NFL by now, redefining the concept of the “positionless” defender in the spread era. Instead, he’s back in Baton Rouge to rehab a) A torn ACL that cost him nearly all of his junior season; and b) His reputation as a free-range playmaker from anywhere on the field. Even before his injury last September, LSU seemed to be struggling with precisely how to deploy Perkins’ dynamic skill set, which made him a breakout star as a freshman but also has its limits. 

One problem the Tigers faced in 2023 was reconciling Perkins’ dynamic presence as a pass rusher with the fact that, at 6-1, 222 pounds, he’s much too light to hold up as an every-down edge defender against the run. The only game they parked him on the edge full-time, a 55-49 loss at Ole Miss, was one of the worst defensive performances in school history. Instead – much to the fans base’s frustration – he spent the rest of that season primarily as a conventional box linebacker or in a nickel role, more “spacebacker” than edge terror. Sacks and pressures declined from ’22 despite a significant increase in Perkins’ overall snap count.

In 2025, coaches have explicitly designated Perkins for “Star,” the hybrid linebacker/nickel position, reportedly at his request. That probably corresponds with how he’ll be deployed at the next level, as a search-and-destroy type whose coverage skills are more likely to translate than his ability to torch lumbering o-linemen off the snap. To neglect his capacity to harass opposing QBs would be criminal, but if they have to pick and choose the right moments to turn him loose, well, that’s why defensive coordinator Blake Bell makes the big bucks.

Late Bloomer of the Year: LT Overton

Once upon a time, Overton was one of the headliners of the infamous 2022 recruiting class at Texas A&M – the one that was supposed to herald the Aggies’ arrival as serious national contenders, then rapidly disintegrated along with the rest of the Jimbo Fisher administration. That group didn’t go bust, exactly, having already produced a pair of first-rounders (5-star DL Walter Nolen and Shemar Stewart went with consecutive picks in April) and more than a dozen projected power-conference starters in 2025, a few of whom are still in College Station. They just scattered to the wind before they could make any impact as a class. 

For Overton, hitting reset has already paid dividends. After 2 years on reserve duty at A&M, he moved directly to the top of Alabama’s rotation in ’24, leading the d-line in snaps and recording nearly twice as many QB pressures (39) as any other Bama defender. Still, based on his potential he’s barely scratched the surface. At 6-5, 280, Overton is the kind of combine-friendly specimen capable of manning any station along the front without sacrificing size on the interior or explosiveness off the edge, which is why he features prominently in so many “way too early” mock drafts despite limp numbers to date in terms of sacks and TFLs. Converting a few more of those pressures into actual production is the next step toward becoming the full-service wrecker he’s meant to be.

Overachiever of the Year: Michael Taaffe

How does a walk-on become a star on one of the country’s most stacked rosters? One step a time. Taaffe has progressed each season in Austin, from anonymous redshirt (2021) to rank-and-file reserve (’22) to part-time starter (’23) to full-time fixture (’24) on a unit that ranked 3rd nationally in total and scoring defense. He enters Year 5 with 24 consecutive starts, 5 interceptions and a dozen PBUs over the past 2 seasons, coming off a stellar junior campaign in which he allowed a single touchdown in coverage and finished 2nd on the team in tackles. The next logical step is all-conference honors as a senior, the cherry on top of a résumé that pro scouts– whatever their lingering reservations about Taaffe’s combine traits – won’t be able to ignore.

Sleeper of the Year: Isaac Smith

As bad as Mississippi State’s defense was in 2024, it could have been worse: At least there was Smith, a touted local product who got all the action he could handle as the Bulldogs’ last line of defense. In his first year as a starter, Smith’s 127 tackles led all SEC defenders — as well as all defensive backs nationally — despite his missing a full game due to injury. Compare that to just 8 missed tackles, per PFF, a stellar success rate for a true sophomore usually tasked with keeping the lid on in the open field. He made enough of an impression on opposing coaches to earn a second-team All-SEC nod in a crowded year for the position, which doubled as a nod toward much bigger things to come as he matures into a leadership role.

Breakout Player of the Year: Cam Coleman

Even for a 5-star recruit, the advance hype for Coleman in 2024 was extreme – in addition to being touted as one of the highest-rated signees in school history, he wasted no time going viral in the spring, raising the bar before he’d even set foot on the field in an actual game. Instead, Auburn fans spent most of his freshman campaign wondering when the light was going to come on. Despite a couple of early flashes, in SEC play Coleman looked like, well, a freshman in SEC play. By the time the weather turned, he was just another face in the crowd with more drops (3, per PFF) than touchdowns (2) through the Tigers’ first 9 games. 

Then the light came on.

Following an open date in early November, Coleman accounted for more catches (22), yards (306) and touchdowns (6) in the last 3 games – vs. UL-Monroe, Texas A&M and Alabama – than he had over the first three-fourths of the season, resetting expectations for Year 2 to full tilt. Assuming incoming QB Jackson Arnold represents an upgrade over the pedestrian Payton Thorne (not necessarily a safe assumption, as Oklahoma fans will assure you), the breakthrough should arrive right on schedule.

Breakout Player, Defense: KJ Bolden

Georgia’s last 5-star safety, Malaki Starks, was a Day-1 starter, 2-time All-American, and, as of April, a first-round pick. Bolden, the No.1 safety recruit in the 2024 class, is off to a fine start in his bid to reenact Starks’ meteoric career arc. Although technically not a starter as a freshman, Bolden was a regular, finishing 6th on UGA’s defense in total snaps, 5th in tackles and 2nd in overall PFF grade. (His coverage grade, specifically, led the team, for what it’s worth.) With Starks and fellow starter Dan Jackson moving on, Bolden is already the ranking vet on the back end as a true sophomore. In Athens, that tends to be a very lucrative distinction.

Rookie of the Year: Elijah Griffin

He’s yet to take a snap at Georgia, but barring disaster, you can go ahead and pencil in Griffin for a first-round projection in 2028. One look at this kid — a 6-4, 310-pounder who started fielding scholarship offers in middle school — is all it takes to inspire visions of the next mutant Dawg lineman, continuing in the tradition of Travon Walker (No. 1 overall pick in 2022), Jalen Carter (No. 9 overall in 2023) and Mykel Williams (No. 11 overall earlier this year). Like those guys, Griffin was a unanimous 5-star prospect, arriving earlier this year touted as the No. 1 d-lineman in the 2025 class; also like them, he boasts enough athleticism on his enormous frame to play multiple roles along the front, including edge rusher. He made an immediate impression in the spring, quickly playing his way into the mix to fill the vacancy in the starting lineup alongside veteran DT Christen Miller.

As UGA fans know well, potential and production are not the same thing: For all their freakishness, Walker, Carter and Williams were all limited in their college careers by some combination of injuries and workmanlike roles that kept their individual impact in check. Time will tell if Griffin has the juice and the consistency to exceed the sum of his next-level traits. For now, just carving out a regular niche on the sport’s most perennially hellacious front is testament enough.