College football is less than a week away. Get excited, make necessary preparations, all that good jazz. The long wait – finally – is about to be over.

Vanderbilt kicks off the SEC football slate on August 26 against Hawaii in the final leg of a home-and-home series that saw the Commodores blitz the Rainbow Warriors last season, 63-10.

The Commodores have a fairly tame schedule this season compared to some other programs in the SEC, facing the 26th toughest schedule in the country per ESPN’s FPI metric. On the other side of things, Ole Miss is projected to be taking on the toughest schedule in the country.

Teams in the SEC West always have a tough path and that shows on this season’s SOS projections as we enter 2023. We decided to take a look at each SEC program’s SOS and rank each team by its difficulty, starting with Ole Miss and moving onward.

Here’s how the preseason SOS rankings shake out compared to the rest of the country:

  1. Ole Miss: No. 1
  2. Florida: No. 2
  3. Auburn: No. 3
  4. Arkansas: No. 6
  5. Tennessee: No. 7
  6. South Carolina: No. 9
  7. LSU: No. 14
  8. Texas A&M: No. 15
  9. Kentucky: No. 16
  10. Alabama: No. 18
  11. Mizzou: No. 19
  12. Mississippi State: No. 23
  13. Vanderbilt: No. 26
  14. Georgia: No. 31

The highest projected SOS heading into the season from a non-SEC program goes to Minnesota, which is projected to play the 4th toughest schedule in the country this season. Funnily enough, the toughest non-SEC/B1G schedule in the country goes to soon-to-be-SEC-bound Texas (12), which will face off against Alabama in its non-conference schedule.

There’s been plenty of discourse about Georgia playing the tamest schedule in the SEC – and there’s certainly something to be said about that non-conference slate – but most of the high SOS in the SEC can be attributed to having to face off against the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide.

If you want a low preseason SOS it’s all about avoiding those 2, with LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M sprinkled in as well.

Ole Miss, Tennessee, Auburn and Kentucky all have to face off against both the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide this upcoming regular season. Florida, which comes in at No. 2, faces Florida State and Utah in the non-conference while also facing Georgia and Tennessee in the East.