ATLANTA — No team ever looks or sounds better than they do at Media Days. It’s a four-day hype video, minus the illegal music.

I mean, Derek Mason, coming off another losing season, said he ain’t sweating a trip to South Bend. (Technically, because it can be chilly in South Bend even in early September, he might be right.)

Realistically, I have to remind myself of this every year: It’s so easy to get caught up in their supreme confidence. Maybe the Dores really do have a chance to beat Notre Dame … let’s go!

Then reality sets in. You remember that Mason’s teams have won two road games against Power 5 teams in his four years, and neither opponent was ranked.

But there’s no doubt some of this talk swayed some preseason votes, either in All-SEC selections or division predictions, or thinking on other topics. As such, I rolled my eyes a few times when these results were announced or agendas pushed.

6. Missouri is not winning the SEC Championship

This one was particularly humorous because the reporter who voted for the Tigers to win it all didn’t vote for the Tigers to win the East. Maybe they thought the SEC Championship Game teams were selected by a secret committee? Alabama didn’t even make it to Atlanta last year, yet still was selected for the Playoff! Who knows. All I know is Missouri is not winning the SEC East, much less the SEC Championship. They’re not beating Alabama at Bryant-Denny in Week 7, either.

5. Kentucky and Tennessee each received 1 vote to win the East … which is 1 vote too many

Kentucky hasn’t had a winning season in the SEC since 1977.

Tennessee has lost two consecutive games to Vanderbilt and didn’t win a single SEC game in 2017.

Come on, folks. I’m all for chaos — my favorite team is always “the best story” — but those picks are a bit much.

The most optimistic Cats fans can point to a favorable schedule: Kentucky’s three most difficult games are at home. That’s true. Mississippi State, South Carolina and Georgia indeed visit Lexington. And as road games go, if you could select 2018 opponents, Florida, Texas A&M, Missouri and Tennessee might be among the top 6 choices in the league. But you have to be good enough to take advantage of all of that. We know Benny Snell is going to get his. Beyond that?

Tennessee will get there, but the Vols are 2 years from legitimately contending. I’m still not convinced they make a bowl this season, though not nearly as adamant about that as I was last year.

As easy as Kentucky’s road schedule is, Tennessee has one nobody wants: at Georgia, at Auburn, at South Carolina. Tucked inside that is the home date with Alabama. Bama has won 11 consecutive in the series — including 6 by 30 or more points.

So, no, neither Kentucky nor Tennessee is winning the SEC East.

4. Some media keep promoting the 9-game conference schedule

You can Google their names. If I call out one, I’ll miss 10 others. Just know there was plenty of talk in Atlanta about how the SEC needs to go to a 9-game conference schedule.

They’re all wrong, and so are the coaches who want this (though, again, we only heard SEC West coaches saying they want more … because that would mean another game against the weaker East.)

I explained here why the 9-game conference schedule is the worst idea in college football. No need for a full rehash. One common pushback was the loss of revenue from fewer home games under my preferred 7-4-1 scheduling model. I pointed out Tom Brady doesn’t get to play 12 home games and, besides, the SEC is cutting each team an annual check north of $40M, money that didn’t exist in the BCS era. Money is not an issue.

(One point that I forgot to make in that piece, in part because it’s so obvious: The more crossover games you play, the more unequal the schedules become. They’re already too unequal, which is why I wish division titles were decided by division games only. Now some want to add a third crossover game? You could have one East team draw Alabama, Auburn and LSU in a year another contender gets Texas A&M, Arkansas and Ole Miss. Of course that’s not fair. The more you add, the more unbalanced it gets, which ultimately could hurt the SEC’s chances of fielding the best two teams in its championship game. That’s so obvious I didn’t think I had to mention it, but here we are.)

My primary argument for a 7-game conference schedule plus 4 games against the other Power 5 leagues is it gives us the best chance to select the four best Playoff teams. That’s the objective, and I like evidence. But for the penny-pinchers, there is a financial windfall awaiting, too, with the 7-4-1 model. There is a lot more potential to grow revenue if you expand your brand into other areas of the country. That’s true for each Power 5 conference.

Rather than continuing to repeat the reasons against, let’s examine the reason some want 9 games, and why that’s so dangerous to the overall goal of selecting the best Playoff field.

The unspoken reason some leagues want 9 conference games is it allows them to control their message about how dominant their league is. That cannot be understated. The Big Ten perfected this — until Ohio State lost its one, big nonconference matchup and then had no opportunity to make that up.

That’s a critical point. If the SEC teams only play one, big nonconference opponent each year, it becomes harder and harder to disprove whatever results from that one game.

The narratives become really simple, really lazy, really fast:

If Alabama wins its big game, then Alabama’s great. And so is the SEC. And the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 have no other chance to prove otherwise.

If Alabama loses that game, then Alabama’s a fraud. And so is the SEC. And it doesn’t have a chance to prove otherwise.

All the 9-game conference schedule accomplishes is protecting your message from other leagues. That’s it. We’re good because we say we’re good. Again, I prefer evidence over rhetoric.

When they expand the Playoff to 8 teams, the number of conference games won’t matter because every league champ automatically will get in, along with two more at-large teams.

But as long as at least one league is left out of the Playoff every year, we have to know which league that should be. The only way to definitively determine that is to have the leagues play more games against each other. A 9-game conference schedule does the exact opposite.

We don’t have a problem crowning a conference champion. Every team has a chance to win (despite those pesky, unequal crossovers). Even Alabama last year had no excuse: The Tide played Auburn. And lost. The key is, it had the opportunity to win a game, not a debate.

Right now, we’re choosing between teams and leagues that don’t face each other nearly enough to form a consensus view — and some want to make that situation even worse. There’s a better way. A much, much better way.

3. Why Drew Lock won’t repeat as first-team All-SEC

I don’t have a problem with anybody who voted for Lock. He’s absolutely outstanding. The SEC has six QBs who could legitimately be named first-team by season’s end.

Four found their way on to the preseason teams. (I picked Jarrett Stidham, who was the second-team selection.)

Tua Tagovailoa wasn’t among the four selected, yet he’s the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.

But the reason I think the media got it wrong about Lock is I think Mizzou stumbles early and I don’t think he comes close to the SEC-record 44 TDs he threw in 2017. First, the NFL Draft pressure is real. But this offense is different. So are the weapons. And so is that schedule.

Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

Lock faces a four-game stretch at Purdue, vs. Georgia, at South Carolina and at Alabama. He didn’t face Alabama last year, but we know what the Tide do to big-time passing games. In the past 10 years, just 11 quarterbacks have thrown for 3 or more TDs against the Tide. (Chad Kelly and Deshaun Watson did it twice.) Watson, Trevor Knight and Johnny Manziel are the only QBs to reach 4. Forty-one QBs in that span who attempted 20 or more passes against the Tide failed to reach the end zone.

A stat-stuffer, that game is not. That’s important because Lock already has fought the criticism that he tends to play his best against weaker competition. He threw 18 of his 44 TDs last season against Missouri State, Idaho and UConn. He added 15 more against Florida, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Tennessee.

If he stumbles even a bit during that four-game stretch, it will cost him votes. I still see him throwing for 35 TDs, but those four games in particular will determine his post-season accolades and Missouri’s bowl destination.

He was so statistically dominant last season it didn’t matter. Those other factors, including his competitors’ team success vs. his, could play a larger role this season.

2. Kadarius Toney is going to surprise people in 2018

I selected Toney for first-team all-purpose. He landed on the third team, still nice recognition for a part-time player without a defined role under Jim McElwain.

Dan Mullen will define his role in 2018, and I expect it to include a lot of jet sweeps and bubble screens — easy concepts to get the ball in the hands of Florida’s most exciting offensive player.

Admittedly, I’m probably way too optimistic about Florida’s offensive potential, but the Gators have weapons. I trust Mullen to employ them correctly — and frequently.

1. Alabama should have been a unanimous pick

The Iron Bowl is in Tuscaloosa, the same place Mississippi State visits.

Alabama hasn’t lost a home game since 2015. It has lost just two in the past six seasons.

Nick Saban hasn’t lost to a former assistant yet. I highly doubt that changes when Texas A&M visits in Week 4 of the Jimbo Fisher era, or when the Tide travel to Knoxville in Week 8 of Jeremy Pruitt’s first season as a head coach.

Still, 21 reporters picked somebody other than Alabama to win the West.

It wasn’t the only mistake we made last week in Atlanta, but it certainly got my attention.