SDS’ Ultimate 2024 SEC Preview: New era, higher stakes, same pecking order?

Everything, and we mean everything, you need to know to get up to speed on the 2024 SEC football season, all in one place.
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When we talk about distinct eras, it’s usually in the past tense. One day you stop, take a look around, and realize everything that was once familiar has changed so slowly you barely noticed. Not so for SEC football, or for college football in general. Instead, the 2024 season arrives less like the uncanny result of a series of vague, subtle shifts over time than the hazy aftermath of a meteor strike. Quakes, fissures and extinctions have convulsed the sport, culminating in a dramatically altered landscape that has rapidly taken shape before our eyes. It feels palpably different: The beginning of a new era that everyone has seen coming, with varying levels of dread, from a hundred miles away.

Consider how much has changed since 2023. Divisions: Gone. For the first time since 1991 the wall that separated the East from the West no longer exists. Longstanding scheduling formats have been scrapped, and the SEC Championship Game will simply match the two teams with the best conference records, period. Nick Saban: Gone. The GOAT hung it up in January, leaving the most entrenched dynasty in college football history in limbo. The SEC On CBS: Gone. The conference’s new media deal grants exclusive rights to ABC/ESPN, ending nearly three decades of its biggest games unfolding against the backdrop of late-autumn Saturday afternoons turning into Saturday evenings on CBS. The original, 4-team version of the College Football Playoff: Gone. On the heels of its first true controversy, the decade-old CFP has expanded to an even dozen, with 5 guaranteed slots reserved for conference champs and an undefined approach to filling out the rest that’s guaranteed to cultivate a new generation of angst.

Meanwhile, the existing pack has finally, officially added two new apex predators, Oklahoma and Texas, raising the culture of dog-eat-dog competition to an even more unforgiving level of intensity. Look at these schedules. In a league where at least 9 or 10 teams figure to harbor legitimate Playoff ambitions in any given year, even the definition of what qualifies as a “good” season is suddenly up for debate.

How many of the 7 at-large CFP slots will typically go to SEC also-rans? Three? Four? How many wins will it typically take to secure one? Ten? Eleven? Somebody with elite tastes has gotta finish in 9th or 10th place; is a coach who puts a nationally competitive product on the field and still winds up in the Liberty Bowl due to a brutal schedule automatically on the hot seat? (Get ready for that question to come up early and often.) And just how committed is the Playoff committee to weighing strength of schedule across conferences, anyway? What kind of consideration will they give the loser of the conference championship game for having endured an additional test that other 1- or 2-loss teams didn’t? We’re all going to find out together, the committee included.

Whether all of that strikes you as exciting or disorienting, or both, is up to you. New expectations and new rhythms on the calendar are going to take some getting used to. (And, of course, by the time we all do the suits will be ready to shake it all up again.) But there is no going back. At the end of the day — or the end of an era, as it were — it’s still college football, being played at a higher level than ever before. Saturdays are not going anywhere: They’re just getting more packed.

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The Teams: Projected Order of Finish

Before we get started, let’s make clear up front that these projections take schedules into account in an effort to forecast the order at the end of the regular season. They are not pure power rankings. In a league with 16 teams and varying strengths of schedule, the distinction matters, as we’ll see.

1. Georgia

Predictable? Yes. Boring? Fine. Inevitable? No. In an era defined by rapid upheaval, the one eternal sure-fire bet in college football is that there is no such thing as “inevitable,” a point reinforced again last December when Georgia’s bid for a three-peat came to an abrupt end in the SEC Championship Game. That glitch deleted a 29-game winning streak, a 24-week run at the top of the AP poll, and a long-running aura of invincibility. The Dawgs looked like shoo-ins, right up until they didn’t.

In retrospect, it’s tempting to make the case that they spent too long in cruise control against a middling regular-season schedule that never presented them with a real, Playoff-caliber test. In that context, at least, it’s slightly less surprising that they failed the first one they faced. But that definitely will not be the case in 2024: There’s the main-event opener against Clemson (in Atlanta), followed by big-ticket road trips in September (at Alabama), October (at Texas) and November (at Ole Miss). As usual, you don’t need to know anything about who the Dawgs have got coming back to know who they are: Stacked at every position, unfazed by attrition, well-acquainted with high stakes, rarely in danger of getting caught with their pants down against random underdogs, better than the sum of their parts. They’re the default pick in this spot for a reason. But this time they’re actually going to have to put some skins on the wall to keep it.

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Bulldogs at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 13-1 (8-1 SEC; Won Orange Bowl; 4th in final AP poll)
Best Player: QB Carson Beck
Best Pro Prospect: Edge Mykel Williams
Best Addition: RB Trevor Etienne (Florida)
Best Names: DL Nazir Stackhouse … WR NiTareon “Nitro” Tuggle
Most Grizzled: OL Xavier Truss (6th year; 28 career starts at OG/OT)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB Joenel Aguero

Biggest strength: Tenured QB, seasoned o-line, standard-issue Kirby Smart defense, abundance of dudes at every position, high-stakes experience … I don’t think I need to go on.

Nagging concern: Blah pass rush. Coaches experimented in the spring with moving Mykel Williams from a hand-in-the-dirt d-line role to outside linebacker in an effort to generate more juice, but ideally they’d love to see an underclassman rise to the occasion.

Looming question: Who’s the dominant individual presence? The gotta-have-it receiver now that Brock Bowers is gone? The 1-on-1 nightmare? The feared pass rusher? No shortage of candidates, but even the headliners are more “first among equals” in a loaded rotation than true stars.

The schedule: Easily the most booby-trapped slate of Smart’s tenure, and that’s before you even consider the possibility of an upset bid from Auburn, Florida, or Tennessee.

The upshot: The expanded Playoff lowers the bar for entry but raises the bar for winning it all once you’re in. Georgia benefits both ways: Stepping on a land mine or two in the regular season isn’t a deal-breaker, and if there’s any team in the country built to win 4 straight against top competition when it counts, it’s the Dawgs.

2. Texas

The Longhorns are officially back coming off their first Playoff appearance and best overall season since Colt McCoy’s shoulder exploded in the Rose Bowl. Next: Ending a 19-year title drought. The vibes are good, the talent is better, and crown-jewel quarterback Quinn Ewers is on schedule to fulfill messianic expectations in his third year as the starter. It’s not exactly now or never, considering crown-jewel-in-waiting Arch Manning is still on deck to extend the championship window into 2025, at least. But you know, now would be nice, before the vibe shifts into defining Steve Sarkisian’s tenure by the one big looming box he hasn’t checked rather than the ones he has.

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Longhorns at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 12-2 (9-1 Big 12; Lost Sugar Bowl; 3rd AP)
Best Player: QB Quinn Ewers
Best Pro Prospect: OT Kelvin Banks Jr.
Best Addition: WR Isaiah Bond (Alabama)
Best Name: Edge Justice Finkley
Most Grizzled: OL Jake Majors (5th year; 41 career starts at center)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore CB Malik Muhammad

Biggest strength: Ewers made a big leap from Year 1 as a starter to Year 2 and there’s no reason to believe his ceiling is within sight.

Nagging concern: Edge rushers were nonentities in ’23. Instead, the pass rush came primarily from the interior, via departed All-Americans Byron Murphy II and T’Vondre Sweat. Both starting bookends are back, but hopes are higher for UTSA transfer Trey Moore and 5-star freshman Colin Simmons.

Looming question: Is there a big dog at the skill positions? Last year’s top 4 receivers all left for the draft (most notably first-rounder Xavier Worthy and his record-breaking speed), as did leading rusher Jonathon Brooks, the first RB taken in the draft. Their heir apparent in the backfield, 5-star sophomore CJ Baxter, is likely out for the season due to a knee injury. Someone from a touted but mostly unproven group of transfers and underclassmen needs to emerge.

The schedule: Love the trip to Michigan in Week 2, a chance to bank a high-profile road W against a rebuilding outfit battling a championship hangover. Back-to-back October dates against Oklahoma and Georgia, on the other hand, woof. Texas will be a clear favorite in every other game, although the long-awaited renewal of the blood feud with Texas A&M isn’t being taken for granted by anyone, trust me.

The upshot: The baseline talent level, the trajectory under Sarkisian, and the presence of a maxed-out Ewers all point to a deep Playoff run. There will be more chances to win it all in the future, but probably none better.

3. Alabama

No. 3? We out here disrespecting the Tide? Like what, like they’re some token dark horse? Or, considering how much has fundamentally changed since the last time this outfit took the field, maybe the assumption that it’s still an obvious Playoff contender by default feels more like an exercise in ranking the logo? Either way … feels weird, right? Bama watchers speculated for years about life on the other side of the post-Saban divide, but now that the time has come, it really could go either way.

The roster is not exactly a blank slate. There’s still gifted QB Jalen Milroe, a legitimate Heisman candidate on his good days, and a depth chart loaded with the typical backlog of blue-chip recruits. But the mystique or inertia or je ne sais quoi that defined the dynasty for the better part of the past two decades was at low ebb even before Saban called it a career. From 2009-17 Alabama won 5 national titles in 9 years; since 2018, it’s claimed just 1 in 6 years, in a bizarro season conducted amid the chaos of a pandemic. There was certainly none of the old sense of inevitability during last year’s Playoff run, which felt more like a miracle than a birthright and ended with a thud in the semis.

Attrition hit the lineup hard (10 draft picks, 5 of them in the first two rounds, plus key portal departures on both sides of the ball), leaving more up-and-coming talent in its wake than recognizable stars. And the heir to the throne, 49-year-old Kalen DeBoer, has no experience in the SEC, the South, or any nationally relevant program anywhere else prior to the past 2 seasons at Washington.

Wildly successful seasons, yes; still, even for an obviously competent coach the cutthroat recruiting culture of the SEC is a whole different ball of wax. This campaign is the first one in ages that isn’t necessarily a championship-or-bust proposition. Unless DeBoer rekindles some sense of forward momentum ASAP, it’s not going to be the last.

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Crimson Tide at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 12-2 (9-0 SEC; Lost Rose Bowl; 5th AP)
Best Player: QB Jalen Milroe
Best Pro Prospect: OL Tyler Booker
Best Addition: OL Parker Brailsford (Washington)
Best Names: DB King Mack … OL Wilkin Formby
Most Grizzled: DB Malachi Moore (5th year; 33 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Junior Edge Quandarrius Robinson

Biggest strength: Enormous, experienced o-line featuring three returning starters and a veteran transfer (Brailsford) who will all play at the next level.

Nagging concern: Complete turnover at the skill positions. The top 5 players in rushing/receiving yards in 2023 all left; their replacements are all potential with little proven production.

Looming question: How high does Milroe’s ceiling go? His rapid improvement in ’23 had a lot of people (ahem) ready to anoint him a Heisman frontrunner in ’24; an underwhelming outing in the CFP semifinal loss to Michigan took some wind out of those sails, but there’s still no denying his raw talent. Unlike last year, there’s also no pretense that he can count on the defense to reliably bail him out when he’s gone cold. This time around it is undeniably Milroe’s team.

The schedule: The era of spending entire months at a time in cruise control is over. In addition to a Sept. 28 visit from Georgia, road trips include Wisconsin, Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma, the latter coming the Saturday before the Iron Bowl. For a team that survived several close calls in ’23, that’s a lot of opportunities to make even a minor regression on the field look like a five-alarm fire in the standings.

The upshot: Replacing the GOAT is a humbling assignment under any circumstances, but personally, at least, I always assumed that whoever followed Saban at Bama would at least have the luxury of coasting to a couple of reasonably Saban-esque seasons purely on inertia. Instead, the combination of attrition and a steep schedule makes an immediate drop-off a very real possibility. One way or the other, by December the fan base’s initial verdict on DeBoer should be abundantly clear.

4. LSU

Jayden Daniels delivered one of the most statistically elite seasons of all-time in 2023, but this is a rare instance when replacing the Heisman Trophy winner is among the least of his former team’s concerns. Even an offense operating at a pace worthy of the 2019 national championship team could not overcome a defense that got LSU relegated to the ReliaQuest Bowl. Excluding Vanderbilt (because Vandy), the Tigers finished dead last in the SEC in total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense, passing defense, and third-down defense, and near the bottom in everything else. In 3 losses, they allowed 45, 55 and 42 points to the 3 best opponents on the schedule, while also allowing 30+ points in 5 of their 10 wins. With Daniels, play-caller Mike Denbrock, and a pair of first-round wideouts gone, the offense is doomed to regress to the mean. It can only pray that the defense under first-year coordinator Blake Baker is able to say the same.

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Tigers at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 10-3 (6-2 SEC; Won Outback ReliaQuest Bowl; 12th AP)
Best Player: LB/DB/Edge Harold Perkins Jr.
Best Pro Prospect: OT Will Howard
Best Addition: WR CJ Daniels (Liberty)
Best Names: TE Ka’Morreun Pimpton … DB Major Burns
Most Grizzled: OL Miles Frazier (5th year; 37 career starts at LSU and Fla. International)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore Edge Da’Shawn Womack

Biggest strength: Rising QB Garrett Nussmeier is a wild card, but he will be well-protected. Four-fifths of the starting o-line is intact, including a first-round lock at one tackle (Howard) and an aspiring first-rounder at the other (third-year starter Emery Jones).

Nagging concern: The defense was set aflame in ’23 by every opposing offense with a pulse and failed to add any notable reinforcements via the portal. It’s essentially the same personnel in ’24, just one year older and with a fresh layer of scars.

Looming question: What’s the plan for Harold Perkins? He was the team’s best defender, by far, but the free-range versatility that made him an instant star as a freshman left the impression that maaaaybe he was being spread a little bit too thin in Year 2. The fact that he was arguably the most reliable playmaker on all three levels definitely didn’t help. The man can do it all, but not all at once.

The schedule: Among the friendlier conference slate in the league, if only because the 3 toughest games — Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma — are in Baton Rouge. The Tigers miss Georgia and Texas altogether. The opening-day collision with USC in Las Vegas will determine whether they’re on the CFP track out of the chute or behind the 8-ball.

The upshot: A lot is riding on Nussmeier, who has shown enough in spot duty over his first 3 years in the program to earn the benefit of the doubt as Daniels’ successor. Plan B behind center is a transfer from Vanderbilt with an 0-12 record as a starter in SEC play, so realistically it’s Nuss or bust. At least he can take consolation in the fact that the defense has nowhere to go but up.

5. Ole Miss

Listen, I never imagined the day when I would honestly be citing “depth” as a strength at Ole Miss, either, but here we are. Arguably no coach has exploited the transfer portal more effectively than Lane Kiffin, who has not only improved the Rebels’ front-line talent but also succeeded in stacking it, at nearly every position. By my reckoning, of the 50 or so two-deep players who are in line for regular snaps on offense and defense, only a dozen signed with Ole Miss out of high school, half of whom are offensive linemen.

Importantly, we’re not talking about a Colorado-style, “tear it all down and start over from scratch out of sheer desperation” rebuild here, either — Kiffin has made Oxford a destination for established vets, not second- and third-chance projects off the scrap heap. Transfers formed the core of the 2023 team that set the school record for wins (11) and earned Ole Miss’ highest finish in the AP poll (9th) since 1969. The most indispensable piece of that outfit, senior QB Jaxson Dart (originally at USC), is back in ’24 for his third year as a starter. I don’t know that any of that necessarily justifies Playoff-or-bust expectations in a league where at least 8 other teams with equally stacked rosters are thinking the same thing. But the fact that it’s even in the air at a program that has rarely thought in terms of national relevance speaks for itself.

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Rebels at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 11-2 (6-2 SEC; won Peach Bowl; 9th AP)
Best Player: QB Jaxson Dart
Best Pro Prospect: Edge Princely Umanmielen
Best Additions: Umanmielen (Florida), DL Walter Nolen (Texas A&M), WR Juice Wells (South Carolina)
Best Name: RB Ulysses Bentley IV
Most Grizzled: OL Jeremy James (6th year; 49 career starts at guard/tackle)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore LB/Edge Suntarine Perkins

Biggest strength: Wideouts Tre Harris and Antwane “Juice” Wells are as imposing a pair at the position as any in America. Both dealt with injuries in 2023 to various degrees, but when they’re on the field together, the prospect of the defense leaving either in single coverage is a pick-your-poison situation.

Nagging concern: Lack of next-level talent on the offensive line. This might be the most experienced OL in the country — all 10 guys on the two-deep are 4th-, 5th- or 6th-year vets who have combined for 220 career starts and more than 16,000 snaps at the FBS level — but it doesn’t feature a single guy projected to play on Sundays.

Looming question: Does Jaxson Dart have more to offer in big games? He took a big step forward from 2022 to ’23, improving his production across the board while cutting his interceptions in half. Still, he was overmatched in losses to Alabama and Georgia. If his growth curve ends there, all of the work that’s gone into upgrading the rest of the roster will have been in vain.

The schedule: Assuming they don’t slip on a banana peel in any of the games they’re favored to win, the Rebels’ fate hinges on October toss-ups against LSU (in Baton Rouge) and Oklahoma (in Oxford). A win in either game tips the scales toward a Playoff bid. Losses in both drops the margin for error to zero with the lowest-percentage date on the schedule, Georgia, still on deck.

The upshot: The Kiffin project appears to be sustainable, or at least sustainable enough that we don’t have to pretend like this is the Rebels’ One Big Shot before receding back into the pack. They’re not going anywhere anytime soon (probably). Make no mistake, though: The alignment of a stacked roster, a tenured QB, a manageable schedule and a plausible CFP bid is not a situation anyone invested in Ole Miss football is in danger of taking for granted anytime soon.

6. Texas A&M

They used to say it takes 4 years to honestly evaluate a recruiting class, but the transfer portal has quickly rendered that old chestnut obsolete. Four years now may as well be an eternity. Take Texas A&M’s infamous 2022 recruiting class, celebrated at the time as the highest-rated haul of the online rankings era. Two years later, it has largely unraveled.

Of the 18 players in that class ranked in the top 100 nationally according to 247Sports’ composite rating, only 8 are still on the roster in 2024; the majority of them — including 6 of the 8 players billed as 5-stars — having already scattered to the wind along with the coaching staff that recruited them. Of the 8 who remain, only DB Bryce Anderson started at least 6 games in 2023, and only 3 others (QB Conner Weigman, RB Le’Veon Moss, and DL Shemar Stewart) appear assured of prominent roles in ’24.

Cautious optimism still prevails for Weigman, who was beginning to look the part as a sophomore before suffering a season-ending foot injury, and a couple members of the bottom half of the class are also on track to pan out, most notably WR Noah Thomas. But to the extent that the ’22 class was supposed to be group that finally delivered the Jimbo-era Aggies into national contention, well, here’s guessing it’s going to be a while before another incoming crop anywhere is met with that level of hype again. Wherever there’s a surplus of talent in one place, the portal patiently awaits its share.

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Aggies at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 7-6 (4-4 SEC; Lost Texas Bowl)
Best Player: DL Shemar Turner
Best Pro Prospect: Edge Nic Scourton
Best Addition: Scourton (Purdue)
Best Name: OL Kam Dewberry
Most Grizzled: DL Josh Celiscar (5th year; 39 career starts at UCF)
Emerging Dude: Redshirt sophomore QB Conner Weigman

Biggest strength: A d-line rotation that legitimately goes 10-deep. The addition of aspiring first-rounder Nic Scourton — a Bryan/College Station native who had to go off to Purdue and lead the Big Ten in sacks to get noticed back home — should be an immediate upgrade on the edge, allowing 2023 sack leader Shemar Turner to shift back to his natural position on the interior.

Nagging concern: Marginal juice at the skill positions. The backs and receivers underwhelmed as a group in ’23, and the lone exception, WR Ainias Smith, left for the NFL Draft. The backfield took a hit when 5-star sophomore Rueben Owens suffered a season-ending injury in preseason camp. There’s no danger of running out of options, but singling out one of them who moves the needle on his own could be a process.

Looming question: Is Conner Weigman still on schedule? Technically, Weigman is still in the green zone in Year 3 with just 253 attempts across 9 career games. Still, he’s shown enough in that limited span to keep his blue-chip rep intact. Prior to his injury last year he was off to a fine start, putting up big numbers in terms of Total QBR (87.5) and overall PFF grade (91.9). Considering A&M’s opening-day starter has failed to make it out of September in any of the past 3 seasons, the prospect of a healthy, productive campaign behind center almost feels like a revelation.

The schedule: Pretty friendly, all things considered. The 4 toughest games (Notre Dame in the opener, Missouri and LSU at midseason, Texas in the finale) are all in College Station; meanwhile, A&M misses Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The wild cards are road trips to Florida and Auburn, both of which are probably must-wins to get a whiff of the Playoff.

The upshot: A&M is so thirsty for a championship that its former university president famously greeted Jimbo Fisher to campus with a preemptive championship plaque, date TBD. They’ve been more circumspect about that kind of thing with Fisher’s successor, Mike Elko, who is projecting a deliberately down-to-Earth demeanor in contrast with the drama that followed Fisher and his Himalayan contract. Make no mistake, though: They didn’t fire the last guy to set lower expectations, and whatever patience they’re willing practice for Elko’s sake is not going to extend for long to also-ran seasons that end in the Texas Bowl.

7. Missouri

Mizzou was the SEC’s biggest overachiever in 2023 and has plenty going for it in ’24: A tenured quarterback, Brady Cook; the single most worth-the-price-of-admission playmaker in America, Luther Burden III; a solid incoming recruiting class that capitalized on last year’s unexpected momentum; a relatively friendly schedule; all culminating in a rare appearance in the top half of the preseason AP poll, at No. 11. Life is good in the glow of last year’s surge, but Mizzou has had its moments before. Staying power has been harder to come by. Prior to last year, the Tigers had spent nearly a decade hovering at or near .500 with no apparent end in sight. The talent level has clearly improved under Eli Drinkwitz, but in this conference, all that guarantees you is a fighting chance from one Saturday to the next.

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Tigers at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 11-2 (6-2 SEC; won Cotton Bowl; 8th AP)
Best Player: WR Luther Burden III
Best Pro Prospect: Burden
Best Addition: OL Marcus Bryant (SMU)
Best Names: QB Harold Blood Jr. … WR Daniel Blood
Most Grizzled: DB Joseph Charleston (6th year; 31 career starts at Mizzou and Clemson)
Emerging Dude: Senior LB Triston Newson

Biggest strength: A deep and dynamic bunch of wideouts. Beyond Burden at the top of the rotation, holdovers Theo Wease, Mookie Cooper and Marquis Johnson combined for 1,512 yards and 9 TDs last year on 15.4 yards per catch. Wease and Cooper are former blue-chip recruits in their own right who began their careers at Oklahoma and Ohio State, respectively, and have a ton at stake in their final season on campus.

Nagging concern: Cornerback is a void following the exit of a couple long-tenured starters, Ennis Rakestraw (second-round pick) and Kris Abrams-Draine (first-team All-SEC, fifth-round pick). Into the breach: Former portal additions Toriano Pride Jr. and Dreyden Norwood, both of whom began their career with 4-star billing at Clemson and Texas A&M, respectively, but have yet to have a chance to prove it.

Looming question: Where’s the pass rush coming from? Last year’s resident terror off the edge, Darius Robinson, went in the first round after earning first-team All-SEC. The other bookend, Johnny Walker Jr., is back — brace yourself for the whiskey puns — but the highest hopes are for incoming freshman Williams Nwaneri, the No. 1 edge rusher in the entire 2024 class.

The schedule: Not a cakewalk, but under the circumstances, the Tigers couldn’t have drawn up a much friendlier path to another 10-2 regular season if they’d done it themselves. The nonconference lineup is essentially safe; they also benefited from an SEC slate that dropped 4 projected wins in their lap (Arkansas, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vandy) while giving them a pass against Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss and LSU. Yes, there are prove-it dates with Oklahoma, Alabama and Texas A&M, the latter two on the road. Take care of business against the rest, though, and passing just one of those tests could be all it takes to punch their ticket to the Playoff.

The upshot: Missouri would have crashed a 12-team Playoff field in 2023, and the stars are aligned for another sustained run. When will they be able to say that again after Cook and Burden move on? If there’s not a sense of urgency to make this opportunity count, there should be.

8. Tennessee

Vol stands for volatile: This team’s outlook varies widely depending on how many of its aspiring dudes actually pan out. The new quarterback, sophomore Nico Iamaleava, is a 5-star with a Heisman-caliber ceiling but no meaningful experience prior to last year’s Citrus Bowl. His top wideout, 6th-year senior Bru McCoy, has the ingredients of a star but has yet to put it all together over the course of a checkered college career, including a ghastly ankle injury in 2023 that ended his season in September. The new left tackle, LSU transfer Lance Heard, was nearly as hyped a prospect as Iamaleava and arrived just as green. And the only known difference-maker on defense, edge rusher James Pearce Jr., still has plenty to prove as an every-down player after breaking out last year as a part-timer. Altogether, that comes out to just enough potential to give the green light to Playoff expectations, and enough uncertainty to keep a foot hovering vigilantly over the brake.

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Vols at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 9-4 (4-4 SEC; Won Citrus Bowl; 17th AP)
Best Player: Edge James Pearce Jr.
Best Pro Prospect: Pearce
Best Addition: OL Zalance Heard (LSU)
Best Name: WR Chas Nimrod
Most Grizzled: OL Javontez Spraggins (5th year; 37 career starts at guard)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore QB Nico Iamaleava

Biggest strength: Options galore at wide receiver. McCoy is a wild card coming off a major injury, but between McCoy, Squirrel White in the slot, former blue-chip Dont’e Thornton, Tulane transfer Chris Brazzell, and 5-star freshman Mike Matthews, there’s a WR1 in there somewhere waiting to break out.

Nagging concern: An entirely rebuilt secondary made up of underclassmen and replacement-level transfers. Last year’s DB rotation didn’t exactly set a high bar, but it was more nondescript than it was a liability. For this year’s group, that might be the best-case scenario.

Looming question: Is Nico Iamaleava The One? Iamaleava was not merely hyped: As Tennessee’s first 5-star quarterback recruit since Peyton Manning, it was more like he was anointed, particularly with his enrollment coming in the wake of the Vols’ best season in ages in 2022. After idling in ’23 behind enigmatic senior Joe Milton, his first career start, a 35-0 win over Iowa on Jan. 1, doubled as the official launch of the 2024 Iamaleava bandwagon. Preseason expectations have not been this high for any quarterback in Knoxville, rising or established, since you-know-who. His bid to meet them is a season-defining variable, both in the SEC and potentially across the entire sport.

The schedule: The Third Saturday in October rivalry with Alabama survived the post-expansion shake-up, which along with trips to Oklahoma early and Georgia late leaves no wiggle room in pursuit of 10 wins. Oddly, the SEC schedule opens with back-to-back road games, then returns to Knoxville for the next 4 in a row before sending the Vols on the road again for the last 2; throw in a post-Bama open date, and that leaves them with a 6-week span between road trips.

The upshot: Tennessee isn’t far enough removed from the dark ages yet to take 9-win seasons for granted. But the 2023 team was a letdown, going 0-4 in the 4 biggest games of the season (Florida, Alabama, Missouri and Georgia) by increasingly uncompetitive scores. If Iamaleava pans out, that will go down as a minor glitch in the Vols’ resurgence. If not, though, the shelf life for optimism has never been shorter.

9. Oklahoma

OK, bear with me, Sooners fans, because this is where the difference between “Power Rankings” that ignore the schedule vs. “Projected Order of Finish” that accounts for the schedule really bears out. While nobody here is getting off easy, schedule-wise — well, maybe Missouri — Oklahoma drew the “Welcome to the Neighborhood” itinerary from hell.

For starters, the Sooners only get 3 SEC games in Norman, with the 4th home date replaced by the annual neutral-site collision with Texas; 2 of those 3 games are heaters against Tennessee (early) and Alabama (late). The road trips: At Auburn, at Ole Miss, at Missouri at LSU. Altogether, 6 of their 8 conference games are against opponents ranked in the top 15 of the preseason AP poll, and that’s not including the trip to a “cursed” Jordan-Hare Stadium. All of those games smell like toss-ups. On the other end of the spectrum, they’re also the only SEC team that doesn’t get to chalk up a routine win against Arkansas, Mississippi State or Vanderbilt. The margins in this league are so thin, these are the kinds of calculations from now on that are going to determine the difference between a sustained Playoff run and Christmas in Shreveport.

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Sooners at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 10-3 (7-2 Big 12; Lost Alamo Bowl; 15th AP)
Best Player: DB Billy Bowman Jr.
Best Pro Prospect: LB Danny Stutsman
Best Addition: WR Deion Burks (Purdue)
Best Name: WR Jaquaize Pettaway
Most Grizzled: CB Woodi Washington (6th year; 36 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB Peyton Bowen

Biggest strength: Abundance at wide receiver. Returning starters Nic Anderson and Jalil Farooq averaged a combined 17.9 yards per catch in 2023 with 12 touchdowns; they were both upstaged in the spring by transfer Deion Burks, who’s first up to replace Drake Stoops in the slot. Beyond the top line, 5 other wideouts in the rank-and-file have multiple career TD receptions.

Nagging concern: An offensive line starting over from scratch. All 5 of last year’s OL starters moved on; to fill the void, Oklahoma brought in 5 veteran transfers, only 2 of whom, center Branson Hickman (SMU) and guard Febechi Nwaiwu (North Texas), seemed locked into starting jobs in the spring. The other 3 slots are still up for grabs, including both tackles, which unlike the Big 12 is not a position where you can get away with hiding a weak link for long in the SEC.

Looming question: Is Jackson Arnold ready for primetime? Heir apparent to the sport’s most decorated position since the turn of the century, Arnold takes over as QB1 with the requisite recruiting hype and no competition for the job after sitting behind the Oregon-bound Dillon Gabriel as a freshman. In his first career start last December, he threw 45 times for 361 yards, 2 touchdowns and 3 interceptions in an Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona. That kind of boom-to-bust ratio isn’t going to cut it full-time, but for a fledgling talent just getting his feet wet the boom was all that really mattered. Cautious optimism prevails, until further notice.

The schedule: See above. The days of confidently chalking up 10 wins in August are officially over.

The upshot: If this was strictly a “Power Rankings” effort, the Sooners would vault into the top 5, which just goes to show how infinitesimal the margins here really are. (I have the spreadsheets to back all this up, for what it’s worth. If I’m wrong, at least I come by it through an honest commitment to minutiae.) No matter how you slice it, unless Arnold is a revelation the gauntlet over the second half of the season sentences them to dark horse status, at best.

10. Kentucky

Last October, Mark Stoops responded to a disgruntled caller on his weekly radio show following a 51-13 flop at Georgia by challenging Kentucky fans to “pony up” to land better athletes on the NIL market. He took a lot of heat for that, but at least some of the intended audience took it to heart: The incoming portal class was headlined by a pair of big-ticket transfers from Georgia itself, former 5-star quarterback Brock Vandagriff and All-SEC linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson, as well as aspiring dudes from Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Ohio State, Tennessee and Texas A&M. That doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot, record-wise — the reinforcements are mostly second-chance projects, after all — but if nothing else it’s another sign (along with Stoops’ astronomical salary) that UK boosters are willing to put their money where their mouth is to remain competitive in football. Which, let’s face it, has not always been a given. Just as long as it’s understood that nobody is ponying up for long for a version of “competitive” that amounts to being content with going 7-6 in perpetuity.

–    –    –
Wildcats at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 7-6 (3-5 SEC; Lost Gator Bowl)
Best Player: DL Deone Walker
Best Pro Prospect: Walker
Best Addition: LB Jamon Dumas-Johnson (Georgia)
Best Name: DL Octavious Oxendine
Most Grizzled: OL Marques Cox (6th year; 47 career starts at UK and Northern Illinois)
Emerging Dude: Redshirt junior QB Brock Vandagriff

Biggest strength: A fully intact defensive line. Deone Walker alone is a beast and a half on the interior, combining a 6-6, 345-pound frame with alarming pass-rushing juice for a man his size. Getting back the rest of the unit that finished second in the SEC against the run in 2023 only makes focusing on the big guy that much harder.

Nagging concern: Replacing All-SEC running back Ray Davis, who accounted for a league-high 32.9% of Kentucky’s total offense. The Wildcats are banking on incoming transfer DeaMonte “Chip” Trayanum, now on his third school after previous stints at Arizona State (2020-21) and Ohio State (’22-23). Trayanum has load-bearing size at 5-11, 235 pounds, but has yet to top 85 carries in a season.

Looming question: Does Brock Vandagriff elevate the offense? Kentucky’s past two starting quarterbacks, Will Levis and Devin Leary, were also transfers who portaled in as upperclassmen, and both wound up getting drafted despite thoroughly mediocre production. After all, who expects fireworks from the starting QB at Kentucky, am I right? The bar for Vandagriff is set a little higher. Although he never took a meaningful snap at Georgia, he had the very good excuse of being stuck behind Stetson Bennett IV and Carson Beck for all 3 years he was there. If Beck had opted to go pro after last season, Vandagriff would almost certainly be QB1 right now for the No. 1 team in the country, with all the expectations that come with the title. As it is, he’s stepping into a stable situation with a returning coordinator, a veteran o-line and a perfectly cromulent set of receivers at his disposal in Barion Brown, Dane Key and North Texas transfer Ja’Mori Maclin (yes, cousin of former Mizzou All-American and NFL vet, Jeremy). An attack that barely ekes out 300 yards per game in SEC play for the third year in a row would be a disappointment, to put it mildly.

The schedule: Each of the past 2 years, the Wildcats have limped into the regular-season finale against Louisville at 6-5, and both times they beat the Cardinals to clinch a winning record. The ’24 schedule is set up to extend that trend: Chalk projects 5 likely wins, 4 likely losses, and a pair of toss-ups (against Auburn and Florida) ahead of another make-or-break date against UL. The rivalry also looks like a toss-up, except for the fact that a) It’s back in Lexington, and b) Kentucky has won 5 straight in the series.

The upshot: Is the Mark Stoops experience getting a little stale? Stoops is the most successful coach in school history, but there’s a growing sense in Year 12 that the Wildcats have gone as far on his watch as they’re going to go. For a few hours last November Stoops was the presumptive new head coach at Texas A&M before Aggies fans responded to the rumor with a grassroots rebellion, a sign that he’s beginning to think about moving on. Meanwhile, the 2024 team, arguably his best on paper, still faces an uphill climb to 8 wins. Barring a dramatic turn of events, it’s hard to see him getting another chance to move up the food chain in the next cycle.

11. Auburn

The 6-7 record spoke for itself, but Hugh Freeze’s first season at Auburn was best summed up by the fact that the Tigers lost by a wider margin against New Mexico State (21 points) than they did against Georgia, Ole Miss and Alabama combined (17 points). What exactly you choose to draw from that summary is up to you. The incoming recruiting class is the best at Auburn since the pandemic, but Payton Thorne remains the starting quarterback and the talent level at large remains at least a year or two behind the curve.

–    –    –
Tigers at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 6-7 (3-5 SEC; Lost Music City Bowl)
Best Player: RB Jarquez Hunter
Best Pro Prospect: Hunter
Best Addition: DB Jerrin Thompson (Texas)
Best Name: OL Jaden Muskrat
Most Grizzled: WR KeAndre Lambert-Smith (38 career starts at Penn State)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DL Keldric Faulk

Biggest strength: Bookends Jalen McLeod and Keldric Faulk are worthy successors to a long line of disruptive Auburn edge rushers. McLeod, an undersized transfer from Appalachian State, was easily the Tigers’ best pass rusher in 2023 with 37 QB pressures and 6 sacks. But Faulk, a 6-6, 281-pound sophomore who can play inside or out, is the one who’s really going to make opposing linemen sweat. He’s due for a big leap in Year 2.

Nagging concern: Quarterback, as usual. Auburn hasn’t finished in the top half of the conference in pass efficiency since 2017 (Jarrett Stidham), and the past 2 years have been particularly grim. The incumbent, Payton Thorne, has 38 starts and more than 2,500 snaps at the FBS level — more than enough to go ahead and assume that if he hasn’t turned the corner by now, it’s not going to happen in Year 6.

Looming question: Are the freshmen ready to make an impact? If you ranked every player on the roster by his initial 247Sports composite rating as a recruit, the incoming class would account for 7 of the top 11 scores, including each of the top 4. The top 2, wide receivers Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson, have a chance to play right away at a position that has been bereft for years. (More on which below in the individual awards section.) If the team is doomed to another year of mediocrity, at least the kids can give them a glimpse of a future worth looking forward to.

The schedule: A 4-0 start is likely, but life comes at the Tigers fast after that in a hope-killing stretch against Oklahoma, Georgia and Missouri. Improving on last year’s 6-6 regular season will require at least 1 upset.

The upshot: Brief as it was, the Bryan Harsin era set the program back years at a moment when the rest of the conference was only getting more competitive. It’s easy to see the product improving in Freeze’s second season; envisioning how the record will reflect it against a tougher schedule, not so much.

12. Florida

It’s been rough few years in Gainesville, but of all the prevailing narratives around Florida’s descent into mediocrity, the least convincing is the notion that the lineup is suddenly running low on blue-chip talent. It would be one thing if this was a 10-win outfit struggling to get over the hump against Georgia. Three consecutive losing records are not so easily explained away. Ten of Florida’s 14 losses under Billy Napier have come against opponents rated below the Gators according to 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite, and the 2024 roster is among the small handful that qualified for the Blue-Chip Ratio, as usual. Not for nothing, the incoming recruiting class is the most touted in Gainesville since the pandemic, headlined by crown-jewel quarterback DJ Lagway. The window for chalking up the malaise to “Dan Mullen’s recruiting” is just about closed.

–    –    –
Gators at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 5-7 (3-5 SEC)
Best Player: WR Eugene Wilson III
Best Pro Prospect: CB Jason Marshall Jr.
Best Addition: WR Elijhah Badger (Arizona State)
Best Names: TE Keon Zipperer … K Trey Smack
Most Grizzled: QB Graham Mertz (6th year; 43 career starts at UF and Wisconsin)
Emerging Dude: Junior CB Devin Moore

Biggest strength: D-line depth. There’s no individual star, but the Gators have 8 defensive linemen with starting experience at the FBS level; a couple of rising dudes in sophomores TJ Searcy and Kelby Collins; and a 5-star freshman, LJ McCray. They also added the reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, DT Joey Slackman from Penn, and a 4-star JUCO product, Brien Taylor Jr. Out of roughly 14 candidates vying for playing time there have to be a half-dozen who can collectively be counted on to raise some hell … right?

Nagging concern: The defense was a tinderbox under first-year coordinator Austin Armstrong, who is still nominally in charge. Armstrong was a surprise hire to begin with given his age (31) and relatively thin résumé, and his first year on the headset did not dispel the doubts. Florida allowed an abysmal 7.42 yards per play against SEC opponents, worst in the nation in conference play. (For some context, the next-worse defense by that measure was Vanderbilt at 7.02 yards per play.) Napier resisted calls to fire Armstrong, but did bring in a veteran, journeyman Ron Roberts, under the title of “executive head coach” to effectively serve as co-coordinator. Roberts had a short stint as Napier’s DC at Louisiana in 2018-19, and spent the 2023 season at Auburn. Whoever winds up actually calling the shots, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Looming question: Can Graham Mertz hold off DJ Lagway? Mertz was better than he was usually given credit for in 2023, and has the veteran’s knack for avoiding the bad play: His 0.8% interception rate was the best in the SEC and 5th-best nationally. Big plays, on the other hand, were too few and far between; Mertz ranked last in the conference in average depth of target, per Pro Football Focus, and lost the resident deep threat, first-round draft pick Ricky Pearsall. There’s no competition for now, but if the season descends into lost-cause territory against a nightmare schedule the pressure to turn get the Lagway era underway is only going to mount.

The schedule: A bona fide gauntlet. If the “watered-down talent” narrative is wearing thin, the “brutal schedule” narrative is irrefutable. Florida opens with Miami, closes with Florida State, and in between faces 6 more SEC teams ranked in the preseason AP poll. The closing stretch against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and FSU on consecutive Saturdays is as grueling a November as has ever been conceived. The Gators went out on a 5-game losing streak to end 2023 and will be hard-pressed to avoid that fate again.

The upshot: The first 2 years of Napier’s tenure were a slog and nothing suggests Year 3 is going to be any different. Forget a winning record: This year is strictly about staying competitive enough for long enough to survive to see Year 4.

13. South Carolina

Few coaches have as much fun doing their job as Shane Beamer, who exudes young dad enthusiasm in a notoriously dyspeptic line of work. He always seems like a man pumped to be accompanying his daughter to a Taylor Swift show. In Year 4, though, his tenure is at a crossroad. The momentum of a top-25 finish in 2022 fizzled immediately in ’23, yielding to a 5-7 slog that didn’t look like fun at any point. The Gamecocks weren’t bad, necessarily; they were boring, failing to top 20 points in 6 of their 7 losses despite the efforts of a draftable senior quarterback, Spencer Rattler, and a first-round wideout, Xavier Legette. The result was thoroughly Muschampian. As different as Beamer is personality-wise from his short-fused predecessor, his trajectory is starting to look very familiar.

–    –    –
Gamecocks at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 5-7 (3-5 SEC)
Best Player: DL Tonka Hemingway
Best Pro Prospect: DB Nick Emmanwori
Best Addition: RB Raheim “Rocket” Sanders (Arkansas)
Best Name: DL Monkell Goodwine
Most Grizzled: TE Joshua Simon (6th year; 30 career starts at USC and Western Kentucky)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore WR Nyck Harbor, a bona fide freak

Biggest strength: The interior d-line combo of Tonka Hemingway and TJ Sanders is as good as any in the SEC. They’re both future pros who finished 1-2 on the team in QB pressures in 2023 — rare enough for one defensive tackle, and a true feat for two.

Nagging concern: Redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers is the greenest starting QB in the conference and, excluding true freshman Dylan Raiola at Nebraska, likely the greenest in the Power 4. Few teams in the portal era are content anymore to simply hand the reins to the next man up the old-fashioned way, unless the next guy was an elite recruit, which Sellers was not. It’s unfair to dismiss his potential strictly on that basis, especially after he fended off a challenge from Auburn transfer Robby Ashford in the spring. Until further notice, he’s just got a big question mark following him around by default.

Looming question: Can the new playmakers achieve liftoff? Rocket Sanders and Nyck Harbor are two of the most intriguing weapons in the country. At Arkansas, Sanders led the SEC in scrimmage yards in 2022, only to get waylaid by multiple injuries in ’23. Harbor, a 6-5, 235-pound track star with an infinite SPARQ score, is moving to the top of the wide receiver depth chart after a quiet debut as a freshman. Even if they don’t rise to the level of week-in, week-out stars, either has the potential on any given Saturday to singlehandedly ruin somebody’s season.

The schedule: There are 4 more or less guaranteed wins on offer against Old Dominion, Akron, Vanderbilt and Wofford. Good luck finding a 5th. But before you dismiss any given game as a likely L, double check: Is it a night game in Columbia? Under Beamer, Carolina is an impressive 11-3 in home games that kicked off at 7 pm ET or later – most of those wins coming as an underdog – compared to 9-15 in all other games. Kickoff against LSU on Sept. 14 is already set for noon, but if Ole Miss, Texas A&M, or Missouri gets stuck in a primetime SEC Network slot in Williams-Brice Stadium, they should approach it like it’s the Bermuda Triangle.

The upshot: The Gamecocks went 5-7 with Spencer Rattler and Xavier Legette in the fold. They’re far from bankrupt, talent-wise, but losing that duo to the next level and getting better is not in the cards.

14. Arkansas

Sam Pittman’s honeymoon phase lasted just long enough for him to sign a fat contract extension in the summer of 2022, right as the rebuilding project that had produced a 9-4 record the previous season was beginning to run out of gas. The Hogs sputtered in at 7-6 that fall, plummeting from a top-10 ranking in the process, then rolled to a dead stop in ’23, finishing 4-8 with a single win in SEC play. Pittman fired his offensive coordinator in October; by the end of November, he had the air of a man who’d lost interest in whether he still had a job on Monday or not. (At one point he heatedly refuted a report that his job was safe.) Ultimately, Pittman’s job was safe, but not for long without a quick turnaround under new OC … oh, you have got to be kidding me.

–    –    –
Razorbacks at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 4-8 (1-7 SEC)
Best Player: Edge Landon Jackson
Best Pro Prospect: Landon Jackson
Best Addition: RB Ja’Quinden Jackson (Utah)
Best Name: TE Var’Keyes Gumms
Most Grizzled: DB Hudson Clark (6th year; 31 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore CB Jaylon Braxton

Biggest strength: A pair of decorated edge rushers in Landon Jackson and incoming transfer Anton Juncaj. Jackson, a transfer from LSU, was a first-team All-SEC pick by league coaches in 2023, largely on the strength of a single dominant afternoon against Alabama; meanwhile, Juncaj was a consensus FCS All-American at Albany, the same school that incubated Florida State star turned first-round pick Jared Verse. If his game translates, they’ll form potentially the most problematic bookend combo in the conference.

Nagging concern: The new quarterback, Boise State transfer Taylen Green, projects as a lateral move from the old quarterback, KJ Jefferson, at best. Like Jefferson, Green is huge (6-6/215) and mobile (19 career rushing TDs at Boise); also like Jefferson, he’s erratic as a passer and has yet to play up to the sum of his physical tools over a full season.

Looming question: Can Bobby Petrino revive the offense? Whatever else there is to say about Petrino (and there’s a lot, obviously), his track record as a play-caller speaks for itself, and Arkansas’ decision to bring him back to a campus he left in disgrace more than a decade ago speaks to its desperation on that side of the ball. If Green clicks, there’s enough firepower in the surrounding cast to take a significant step forward.

The schedule: Pittman’s fate could be sealed by October: There is no plausible path to bowl eligibility that doesn’t include at least 1 September upset over Oklahoma State, Auburn or Texas A&M, none of them in Fayetteville. Ambush opportunities after that point are slim to none.

The upshot: This is another case where an improved product on the field does not necessarily equate to a bump in the win column. Pittman only narrowly survived last year, and from this vantage point, frankly it will be a feat if he’s back in 2025.

15. Mississippi State

The sudden death of coach Mike Leach in December 2022 left Mississippi State unmoored, and the results in ’23 reflected it. The Bulldogs finished last in the SEC in scoring offense, posted their worst record in conference play (1-7) since 2006, and failed to qualify for a bowl for the first time since 2009. Leach’s hastily appointed successor, Zach Arnett, never had the makings of a guy in it for the long haul, and conceded as much when he resigned in mid-November. His successor, Jeff Lebby, figures to have more staying power, if nothing else. And for the time being, really, there isn’t much else. The roster, already behind the curve, is nearly bereft following an offseason exodus on both sides of the ball, including long-tenured QB Will Rogers and the entire starting lineup on offense. There’s always the chance they stumbled onto a hidden gem or two in a large but nondescript portal haul. Otherwise, it’s difficult to point to a single position right now where this looks like a competitive SEC outfit.

–    –    –
Bulldogs at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 4-8 (1-7 SEC)
Best Player(s): Incoming WRs Kelly Akharaiyi and Kevin Coleman
Best Addition(s): Akharaiyi (UTEP) and Coleman (Louisville)
Best Pro Prospect:  n/a
Best Name: Freshman WR Sanfrisco Magee
Most Grizzled: OL Ethan Miner (6th year; 38 career starts at North Texas/Arkansas State)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB Isaac Smith

Biggest strength: New wideouts are an upgrade over a juiceless group in 2023. Akharaiyi was a first-team All-Conference USA pick at UTEP in 2023, and Coleman is a former top-100 recruit who initially signed with Deion Sanders at Jackson State in the same class as Travis Hunter.

Nagging concern: Alarming lack of SEC-caliber talent across the board. Never say never, but if there’s a future pro on the roster, he has a long way to go to get there.

Looming question: Is Jeff Lebby genius enough to make chicken salad with this bunch? His reputation as a play-caller precedes him, but the relatively favorable circumstances he enjoyed at UCF (under Josh Heupel), Ole Miss (Lane Kiffin) and Oklahoma (Brent Venables) did not.

The schedule: Early toss-ups against Arizona State and Toledo are a litmus test for just how grim it’s going to get. The only plausible SEC win (short of a huge upset) is an Oct. 26 visit from Arkansas.

The upshot: This is a classic Year Zero situation, but low expectations for a new administration can be a blessing in disguise. The only goal is to be competitive enough to end the season with dignity intact and a convincing case that the worst is behind them.

16. Vanderbilt

Coach Clark Lea summed up the Vandy Experience last year when he defended his decision to leave a plainly overmatched quarterback in for the duration of a blowout loss by telling reporters “he gave us a chance to punt.”

Which plainly overmatched quarterback was he talking about? Which blowout loss? Does it matter? Regardless of who has taken the snaps or which opponent is on the other side of the line, the results are the same: Pain and suffering. Since its last trip to a bowl game, in 2018, Vanderbilt is a depressing-even-for-Vandy 3-38 in SEC play over the past 5 seasons, with 2 of those wins coming (inexplicably) on consecutive Saturdays in November 2022 (apologize for mentioning, Kentucky and Florida). Briefly, it was possible to imagine Lea had stopped the bleeding. In ’23, though, there was blood everywhere. The Commodores lost 10 straight to close the year by an average margin of 20.1 points per game, after which no assurances of patience and support from his boss could obscure the fact that patience is running out in Year 4.

Winter house-cleaning included the offensive coordinator and entire QB depth chart. For his new play-caller, Lea tapped journeyman Tim Beck, most recently the OC at New Mexico State; the frontrunner behind center, Diego Pavia, was an impressive 14-9 as a starter at NMSU on Beck’s watch, including a 31-10 ambush at Auburn last November. That’s already 1 more SEC win than last year’s starters, Ken Seals and AJ Swann, managed in their entire Vandy careers. (Seals and Swann went out with a combined 0-29 record in conference play, only one of the many ways it was usually easier to think of them as the same guy.) Pavia is listed at an aspirational 6-foot — that’s about as believable as your average 6-foot-even dude on Tinder — and plays with a reckless gym-rat flair that has a chance to win over the Vandy fans who are still tuning in, if not many games against decent competition that sees him coming.

–    –    –
Commodores at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 2-10 (0-8 SEC)
Best Player: DB CJ Taylor
Best Pro Prospect: DB De’Rickey Wright
Best Addition: QB Diego Pavia (New Mexico State)
Best Names: QB Blaze Berlowitz … Edge Aeneas DiCosmo
Most Grizzled: DB De’Rickey Wright (5th-year senior, 27 career starts).
Emerging Dude: Sophomore WR Junior Sherrill

Biggest strength: Seniors Taylor and Wright are next-level safety prospects who line up all over the field. Wright was briefly committed to transfer to Texas A&M but opted to finish up in Nashville.

Nagging concern: “He gave us a chance to punt.”

Looming question: Can the New Mexico State connection generate enough spark on offense to save Lea’s job? We’re deep in the dregs here, but honestly this feels like way too many references to New Mexico State even for the Vandy section.

The schedule: Winnable nonconference dates include Alcorn State, Georgia State and Ball State. Better win ’em all, too, because the odds of a W in conference play are still long. Circle a Nov. 9 visit from South Carolina as the narrowest point spread, if you must.

The upshot:  Doom.

•    •    •

The Players

MVP: Georgia QB Carson Beck

Were there ever any doubts about Beck as a worthy successor to Stetson Bennett IV? If there were, they dried up in a hurry. After 3 uneventful seasons as a backup, Beck slid seamlessly into the spotlight in 2023, enjoying all the benefits of being QB1 at Georgia — reliable protection, an arsenal of mostly interchangeable playmakers, a defense that afforded him plenty of margin for error — while putting up a virtually identical stat line to Bennett’s in ’22. UGA finished un the top 5 nationally in total and scoring offense, and the 6-4, 220-pound Beck emerged as the kind of NFL-ready pocket presence that the diminutive Bennett was constantly being compared against.

#Georgia QB Carson Beck (6-4, 220)

On-balance, in-rhythm thrower. Shows anticipation. Decisive and trusts his eyes. pic.twitter.com/I7wU2mSM2h

— Jordan Reid (@Jordan_Reid) May 24, 2024

Bennett, of course, boasts a pair of ace cards that Beck does not: Back-to-back national championship rings. The Dawgs’ loss to Alabama in the SEC title game derailed the comparison; it also guaranteed Beck would be back for his final year of eligibility under the banner of “unfinished business.” The Dawgs remain the safest bet to win it all in the first year of the expanded Playoff, which by default makes Beck the safest bet to win the Heisman. Anything less than a December trip to New York for the award ceremony, followed by a January trip to Atlanta for the CFP title game will go down as… well, maybe underachievement sounds a little too harsh, but at the very least as another sorely missed opportunity.

Offensive Player of Year: Missouri WR Luther Burden III

Burden was the kind of supernova recruit who could have gone literally anywhere he wanted — that is, the kind of recruit who rarely ends up at Mizzou — and his decision to sign with the Tigers in December 2021 was the first signal that coach Eli Drinkwitz might not be resigned to merely treading water. After a respectable but frustrating debut in 2022, Burden was everything he was supposed to be in ’23 right from the jump: A high-volume presence in the slot, must-see TV in the open field, and the face of one of the most dramatically improved teams in America.

Luther Burden is so damn good in space pic.twitter.com/jsNa9v5HPb

— Cam Mellor (@CamMellor) October 7, 2023

Just as important, he was healthy, starting every game and finishing among the Power 5 leaders in targets (120), receptions (86), receiving yards (1,209), yards after catch (724), yards per route (3.29) and receptions of 20+ yards (22). His explosives alone included a pair of long touchdowns in the September win over Kansas State that launched Missouri’s ascent; a 39-yard touchdown against Georgia; and a season-saving, 4th-and-17 conversion against Florida that set up the game-winning field goal in a game Mizzou had to have to secure a New Year’s 6 bowl. Fingers crossed for continued good health, the maxed-out version in 2024 has legendary potential.

Defensive Player of Year: LSU LB Harold Perkins Jr.

Perkins remained tethered to the mortal plane in 2023, turning in a merely very good sophomore campaign that never quite captured the magic of his late-season breakthrough in 2022. Still, by any other standard he was a star. While the rest of LSU’s defense collapsed around him, Perkins held up his end of the bargain, leading the team in solo tackles, tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures and forced fumbles en route to a second-team All-SEC nod from league coaches. He was the Tigers’ best pass rusher, by far, and arguably their best player on the back end, too, posting a team-high 81.1 PFF coverage grade. (His lone interception on the year was a clutch one, initiating LSU’s comeback from a double-digit deficit to beat Missouri.) As advertised, there was nothing they could ask him to do that he couldn’t handle in a pinch.

Harold Perkins with a pass breakup and a sack on the next play. The dude is too good. pic.twitter.com/vE5xb0n4hG

— Ian Valentino (@NFLDraftStudy) September 16, 2023

If there is a concern heading into what will surely be his final season on campus, it’s that Perkins has yet to shed the reputation of “jack of all trades, master of none.” As a pure speed rusher off the edge, he might be unmatched in the college game. At (officially) 6-1, 220 pounds, though, he’s much too light in the pants to consistently hold up in the trenches against the run — LSU tried him as a full-time, every-down edge defender just once last year, against Ole Miss, and the result was one of the worst defensive performances in school history. There was also the fact that the secondary as a unit was so flammable that Perkins’ coverage chops were indispensable. On paper, this year’s lineup looks like more of the same, minus much-maligned coordinator Matt House. Again, getting the most out of Perkins’ unique skill set will likely mean never leaving him in the same place long enough to get comfortable.

Most Exciting Player: Kentucky WR/KR Barion Brown

There’s electric, and then there’s Brown, a high school track champ whose impact with the ball in his hands is more akin to a bolt of lightning. In 2 seasons at Kentucky, he s hascored 13 touchdowns on 151 touches, including 4 house calls on kickoff returns, establishing him as the premier “do not kick it to him under any circumstances” presence in America. Seriously: After watching him go coast-to-coast in consecutive games against Louisville and Clemson to close 2023, any kicker who allows Brown to bring one out in ’24 should immediately have his scholarship revoked.

DON’T STOP KICKING TO BARION BROWN
pic.twitter.com/UAmQEDJ6xL

— Cats Coverage (@Cats_Coverage) December 29, 2023

Brown still has some work to do as a receiver with 11 career drops, per PFF. Once he has ahold of it, though, don’t blink.

Fat Guy of Year: LSU OL Will Campbell

Campbell’s career to date has been one green light after another: Blue-chip recruit, instant starter, Freshman All-American in Year 1, first-team All-SEC in Year 2, maximum expectations in Year 3. He’s missed just 1 game due to injury (a midseason loss to Tennessee in 2022) and didn’t allow a sack as a sophomore while playing every meaningful snap. As a junior, he’s pegged as a consensus preseason All-American and a no-brainer first-round pick in 2025, most likely as the first o-lineman off the board. He’s got the size, the tape and the durability. One more year in line with the past 2, and he could find himself in the running to go No. 1 overall.

Breakout Player, Offense: Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava

If he had it to do over again, Josh Heupel might have been less inclined to hold his hyped freshman back in 2023 as the Joe Milton Experience slowly lost its fizz. When Iamaleava’s number finally came up in the Citrus Bowl, he looked like a natural, accounting for 4 total touchdowns (1 passing, 3 rushing) in a 35-0 rout over Iowa. Too soon to proclaim a star is born? Maybe, but just in time to send his offseason stock into orbit. All signs point to a sophomore campaign with the potential to blast through the “breakout” phase and keep right on going.

Breakout Player, Defense: Oklahoma DB Peyton Bowen

Bowen’s playing time fluctuated in 2023, but when he was on the field he usually made sure everybody knew it: 5 PBUs, a forced fumble against Texas, a blocked punt, a clutch sack, another blocked punt — exactly the kind of impact you want to see from a blue-chip freshman in a limited role to keep the arrow pointing up. Starter’s reps in Year 2 are still going to be hard to come by on a crowded depth chart at safety, but clearly Bowen is coming due for his fair share. In the words of his head coach following a highlight-reel play in preseason practice: “If he ain’t, who is?”

Most Valuable Transfer: Texas A&M Edge Nic Scourton

A late-blooming recruit, Scourton (formerly Nic Caraway) grew up within shouting distance of Texas A&M’s campus but didn’t generate much interest from the Aggies or any other big-time program despite being rated as a consensus 4-star prospect and invited to play in the Army All-America Bowl. (Locally, at least, it didn’t help that he happened to be coming out in 2022, the same year that A&M signed the most loaded d-line class on record.) Instead, he accepted his only Power 5 offer, to Purdue, and made the most of it. His breakthrough sophomore campaign in 2023 yielded a Big Ten-best 10 sacks, 42 QB pressures, an elite PFF pass-rushing grade and a sizzle reel guaranteed to open almost any door in America.

Texas A&M EDGE Nic Scourton (6-4, 280)

Purdue transfer. Built like a tank. High effort and powerful. Effective spin move. Turns 20 years old at the start of next season. pic.twitter.com/tNYkSbMi3u

— Jordan Reid (@Jordan_Reid) June 17, 2024

Scourton came home in the spring to an A&M front stacked with former blue-chips but lacking in proven production. The Aggies’ returning sack leader, Shemar Turner, put on 30 pounds over the offseason — “healthy, Chipotle, stuff like that” — in anticipation of shifting inside from end to tackle, making way for Scourton on the edge. Finally, he’ll have every opportunity to prove that while the Jimbo administration was casting its nets far and wide for the best pass rush money could buy, they never actually had to leave their own backyard.

Rookie of Year: Auburn WR Cam Coleman

Expectations could not be higher for Coleman, a local product who enrolled in January with as much hype as any incoming freshman at Auburn in the online rankings era. Before he’d set foot on campus, 247Sports’ composite rating touted Coleman as the No. 1 prospect in the state of Alabama, the No. 5 prospect in the nation, and the first 5-star of any stripe to sign with the Tigers since 2019. He wasted no time dialing the hype to eleven in the spring, hauling in 4 catches for 92 yards in April’s A-Day scrimmage, including an instantly viral 34-yard touchdown grab that clinched his case for Offensive MVP on the afternoon.

Cam Coleman had a 49-yard catch, hauled in a 35-yard TD pass and watched as Towns McGough kicked seven field goals at Auburn’s A-Day Game on Saturday.

McGough kicked a game-winning 58-yarder as time expired. pic.twitter.com/m72tSmoD5X

— Auburn Gold Mine (@AUGoldMine) April 6, 2024

Yeah, OK, it’s the spring game, an even less useful gauge of future returns than the NFL preseason. We’re talking about practice. Taken with the advance hype, though, a big exhibition debut by a specimen like Coleman is worth getting a little carried away.

When was the last time Auburn had a difference-maker at wide receiver? If you’re not a homer, when was the last time Auburn had a receiver whose name you can remember? The past 3 years have been particularly bleak, with the top individual receiving total declining from 580 yards in 2021 (pedestrian) to 493 yards in ’22 (yikes) and 347 yards in ’23 (sirens blaring). The Tigers replaced a pair of outgoing starters with a pair of replacement-level targets in the portal, but there is no pretense that Coleman or fellow blue-chip Perry Thompson (a summer enrollee) has the luxury of being brought along slowly. The freshmen are going to have every opportunity to move directly to the front of the line.

Sleeper of Year: Kentucky CB Maxwell Hairston

Hairston, a Michigan native, arrived in Kentucky as one of the lowest-rated members UK’s 2021 recruiting class and spent his first 2 seasons idling in obscurity. In Year 3, he made his move. Promoted to the starting lineup, he seized the opportunity, picking off 5 passes, breaking up another 6, and earning a second-team all-conference nod from SEC coaches. He housed a pair of INTs against Vanderbilt, making him the first player in school history with 2 pick-sixes in the same game.

Altogether, Hairston’s overall PFF grade for the season (81.8) was the best among returning SEC cornerbacks, with 7 of the 8 corners who graded out ahead of him going on to get drafted. That doesn’t exactly make him a household name, but rest assured that among the scouts who’ll decide his future, he is squarely on the radar.

Late Bloomer of Year: Florida CB Jason Marshall Jr.

2024 is a prove-it year for Marshall, whose first 3 seasons in Gainesville have been … eh, OK by normal standards, but not quite up to the 5-star hype that preceded him. (It hasn’t helped his rep that, prior to the arrival of a couple incoming blue-chips in the spring, he’d carried the distinction/burden of being the most recent 5-star to sign with Florida in all 3 seasons.) Marshall has played a ton, totaling 32 starts and nearly 2,000 snaps; he’s also been on the wrong end of too many opponents’ highlights. PFF has him down for 7 career touchdowns allowed in coverage vs. just 2 interceptions. On the plus side, he’s allowed an impressive 46.8% completion rate in his direction with 21 PBUs — a portrait of a talented player with boom-or-bust tendencies. A mass exodus of the SEC’s top corners left an open lane for Marshall to make his move on all-conference honors as a senior. Limit the entries in the bust column, he can still go out with as much optimism about his future as he had coming in.

Comeback Player of Year: South Carolina RB Raheim “Rocket” Sanders

Sanders entered low orbit in 2022, accounting for 1,714 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns in one of the most productive seasons in Arkansas history. In 2023, he never left the tarmac, grounded by foot and shoulder injuries that cost him half the season and visibly limited him for the other half. He hit the open market on the first day of the December portal window, joining a mass exodus from Fayetteville in the wake of a 4-8 collapse.

In 2024? TBD, to say the least. Sanders enrolled at South Carolina in January but skipped spring drills to rehab his surgically-repaired shoulder, extending lingering doubts about his health into the start of preseason camp. At full speed, he’s potentially the kind of full-service playmaker the Gamecocks have been missing in the backfield since, gosh, Marcus Lattimore? It’s been awhile. At any rate, with the offense in the hands of a fledgling quarterback, they need all the juice from the surrounding cast they can get.

One last thing …

I’d love to go out here on a BOLD prediction or two, to give myself a chance to feel brilliant if I’m right while risking absolutely nothing if I’m wrong. Believe me, I would. But then, nothing about this unprecedented season is leaving me feeling particularly bold. All of the main-course themes come with a heaping side of uncertainty.

Take Georgia: The Dawgs are the safest bet to win the conference, clearly, and probably the whole shebang. They’ve been the default frontrunners for a few years now and can probably look forward to a few more, at least. Do they inspire me to bang the gavel? Not really. I suspect they’re more likely than not to drop one along the way, maybe two given a steeper schedule, and just like last year they could very well be ones the Dawgs can’t afford to drop.

Take the inaugural post-Saban edition of Alabama: Destined for decline? Or gonna be just fine? Heck if I know, or if I trust anyone who claims they do. The Tide don’t have the automatic mystique they’ve enjoyed for the past decade-plus; they do still have 1) a gifted quarterback with a full season as a starter under his belt, and 2) a deep well of talent that has been reliably replenishing the dynasty for years. Kalen DeBoer and his staff didn’t just fall out of the coconut tree, either.

Take the conference’s most conventionally Heisman-shaped QBs, Quinn Ewers and Carson Beck: Solid, face-of-the-program types on teams that expect to be playing well into January, who might put up numbers on any given Saturday but are unlikely to set fire to the record book or generate the type of viral highlight that makes you say “wow.”

Take the surging optimism at Ole Miss. Historic expectations at Missouri. LSU’s rebuilding defense. Billy Napier’s mandate for progress at Florida in the face of an absurd schedule. Tennessee and Oklahoma handing the reins to a couple of 5-star sophomores who seem capable of just about anything.

My recommendation? Toss the gavel and embrace the chaos. This season is wide open, to the extent that we rarely saw in an era in which 9 of the last 10 SEC championships and 12 of 13 Playoff bids were claimed by either Alabama or Georgia. That era, to return to the original theme, is over. Fully half the conference is a serious Playoff contender now, with all the potential for drama and disappointment that goes with it. We don’t know yet what it’s like to experience a November where nearly every game comes loaded with national implications, as opposed to, say, who’s destined for the Gator Bowl. But we will soon. In the meantime, don’t let the opportunity pass to be reminded anew of this wild, maddening sport’s eternal capacity to surprise us all.

Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.