Get hyped? Ranking the SEC based on offseason hype
Spring is the time for hype. Spring practice is over, and your team looks brilliant. That 2018 schedule doesn’t look so imposing. This is the year that good old State U is going to go 10-2 (unless you’re a Bama fan, in which case, substitute 12-0). The problem is that everybody (again, except Alabama, which is already printing a run of 2018 CFP championship T-shirts) thinks this way. It can’t be true for everybody. But we’re going to rank the SEC — based solely on the hype.
Buying up CFP tickets
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Auburn
Alabama has the resume, and it has the hype to go with it. You can understand. I mean, the Tide strolled into the national title game, looked vulnerable and unveiled a new offensive scheme built around superhuman QB Tua Tagovailoa. They already were the best team in the country, and when pushed, the found another gear. So they’re definitely on the front of the hype train, and deservedly so.
The same logic applies for Georgia, which looked headed for its first national title in nearly four decades until Alabama pulled their talented human QB for a cyborg. On the down side, Georgia lost a ton of talent — five of the top 66 picks in the NFL Draft were Bulldogs. On the upside, Georgia is still in the East, which is like playing six conference games a year instead of eight.
Auburn, of course, managed to beat Alabama and Georgia, but to stagger these wins around things like losing to an LSU team that lost to Troy. Still, if you beat the only two teams that got more hype than you, you’re getting some hype yourself.
Moving on Up?
- LSU
- Mississippi State
- Florida
- Texas A&M
LSU has the fourth best odds in the SEC to win the national title. Oddly, the Tigers also are projected to win fewer than eight games. So either there’s some hidden hype around the Tigers, or somebody is really bad at math. Ed Orgeron has compiled NFL talent, and seems unsatisfied with the ho-hum offenses that have doomed the Tigers in recent seasons. There’s some buzz here, although there could be more.
Mississippi State has rarely been a force in the SEC West, but don’t tell our man Connor O’Gara, who is bullish on Joe Moorhead. If we were ranking the SEC off O’Gara’s hype, we’d put the Bulldogs on top. As it is, there’s definitely some excitement around Starkville, which is a fairly unusual thing.
It’s even more unusual because the usual source of excitement there is now in Gainesville. If Florida won the East two of the past three years with no offense at all, how can they fail with Dan Mullen running the show and lighting up scoreboards? Much as with Georgia, the lack of substantial (non-Georgia) competition in the East helps Gator Nation feel pretty darn salty right now.
They also might be salty because they got rid of Jimbo Fisher, who moved from nemesis FSU to Texas A&M. A&M was the talk of the West a few short years ago when Johnny Manziel was selling autographs instead of tabloids. Can Jimbo jump-start their program? There was a feeling out there that A&M was underachieving, and a new regime could be the change A&M needed. There’ll be more hype next year, but much like O’Gara’s Mississippi State pick, there are people who see A&M as a conference sleeper.
Hoping to Hang On
- South Carolina
- Kentucky
- Missouri
Three teams from the East have relatively minimal buzz, and are mostly just hoping to maintain recent success. South Carolina finished second in the East last year, and returns many of the players who put it there. But in a year when Florida and Tennessee rededicated their football programs, it feels like Carolina is mostly trying not to get left behind.
Ditto that for Kentucky, which couldn’t beat Florida even in the Gators’ most miserable of seasons. The Wildcats did knock off Tennessee for the second time in 35 years, but are hanging most of their hopes on improved performance from a defense that has been porous for the past two seasons.
Missouri probably has the most buzz of these three, because of QB prospect Drew Lock, but instead of Josh Heupel calling the plays, it’ll be Derek Dooley this fall in Columbia. J’Mon Moore is in the NFL, and there’s reason to fear that the Tigers’ best chances to end up in the top half of the East disappeared with him.
Maybe Next Year
- Tennessee
- Arkansas
- Ole Miss
- Vanderbilt
The lack of preseason buzz renders four more programs more or less silent. After the most arduous coaching search in memory, Tennessee seemed to stumble onto a solid hire in Jeremy Pruitt. But the logical guess is that he’s a recruiting class or two from being ready to compete in even the SEC East.
Arkansas’s search wasn’t as hard, but Chad Morris has to climb the mountain that is the SEC West. Even if the Razorbacks are on the right path, it’s going to probably take at least another year to show up in wins and losses.
Much the same can be said for Ole Miss. The Rebels somehow won six games, but then lost Shea Patterson, Van Jefferson and others in the aftermath of the probation that will rob their team of significant depth come fall. If Matt Luke can win six games again, he might be SEC Coach of the Year.
And then there’s Vanderbilt. The days when James Franklin was the coach and Vanderbilt actually had preseason buzz feel about a thousand years away now.