Preseason SEC bowl projections

Perhaps the only thing harder to guess in the preseason than a Heisman Trophy winner is bowl projections. Did anybody predict Lamar Jackson to win the Heisman or Washington to reach the College Football Playoff before the 2016 season? Nope.

The SEC sent 12 teams to bowls in 2016, tying the league’s mark set in 2014. Will the league do it again? Why not? There are 41 bowls including the Playoff final and the SEC sent a 5-7 Mississippi State team to a bowl last year thanks to its Academic Progress Rate numbers.

A few notes:

• The guess here is that three SEC teams make New Year’s Six Bowls (Playoff team Alabama, plus LSU and Auburn) so that bumps every other bowl with an SEC tie-in back in the pecking order.
• Ole Miss, of course, is ineligible so that gives the SEC a maximum of 13 teams.
• Vanderbilt, for now, will have to prove it can return to a bowl. Missouri, on the other hand, is looking likely to return. Yes, the Tigers have major questions on defense. But they should put up enough points to outgun at least two league foes and their nonconference schedule — Missouri State, Purdue, Idaho and at Connecticut — is softer than a marshmallow inside a cream doughnut placed on a silk pillow.

So this will be fluid throughout the autumn, but here is our preseason look at bowl projections for all SEC teams: