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The SEC Network gang got into the act right away not long after the dust had settled on the first ever Selection Sunday featuring a 12-team College Football Playoff field.
Of those 12 teams who still have hopes of winning it all in 2024, 3 of them hail from the SEC. There is conference champion Georgia, Texas and Tennessee. That means a quarter of the field is from the SEC, not a huge amount of teams and not even the conference with the most Playoff bids. That distinction went to the Big Ten, which got 4 teams in.
But when the SEC Network analysts gave their national championship prediction on Sunday night, it was indeed all about the SEC. We’ll cut to the chase with the champion, who the analysts believed will be No. 2 seed Georgia, despite its big question mark at quarterback with Carson Beck’s status unknown. Still, the crew all had the Bulldogs taking down No. 1 Oregon in the title game on Jan. 20.
“I think Georgia wins the whole thing.”
Will the Dawgs make it three national titles in the last four seasons? 👀🏆 pic.twitter.com/wNKNh8aRKi
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) December 9, 2024
RELATED: Be sure to track all the odds and line movement for the postseason with SDS’s College Football Playoff odds.
And what about the SEC’s other 2 Playoff teams? The crew picked No. 9 seed Tennessee to win at No. 8 Ohio State before losing to Oregon in the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, No. 5 seed Texas was predicted to beat No. 12 Clemson, then take out No. 4 Arizona State in the quarterfinals before falling to Oregon in the semifinals.
The Playoff doesn’t kick off until Dec. 20 with the Indiana-Notre Dame matchup in South Bend, so there will be plenty of time for more predictions that will surprise fans and others that might not.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
