30 Day Countdown Day 16: Who Will Win the SEC?

The Power 5 has been reduced to a Power 4, and most fans would agree that there is a Power 2 within those 4. The Big 10 certainly doesn’t lack top-end teams, but as Bill Connelly notes in his SEC preview, seven of the top 10 teams in all of college football (by average SP+) from the last 20 years are now in the SEC. Adding #4 Oklahoma and #7 Texas took the strongest conference in the country and made it even more dangerous. With that said, the SEC did not win the National Championship last year, nor was it the runner-up. Who are the favorites to lead the nation’s toughest conference into this new era and the expanded CFP?

Previous Entries

• Who will win the ACC?
• Who will win the Big 12?

Georgia

The Dawgs were outstanding in 2023, but missed out on a chance to defend their titles due to a badly timed loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. In an expanded CFP, Georgia would have still made the field and certainly would have been one of the favorites to run the table in the post-season. They bring back an outstanding offensive line, and experienced Carson Beck at QB, a deep receiving corps, and six defensive starters. Trever Etienne, a star RB at rival Florida last year, joins from the transfer portal. Defensive lineman Mykel Williams might be the best player on the best roster in the country. Traffic tickets or no, we remain in Georgia’s era until further notice.

Alabama

Set Number: X164471 TK1

The Crimson Tide will be coached this fall by someone other than Nick Saban for the first time since the George W. Bush administration. Despite the bitter taste left by his abrupt exit, Husky fans know that Deboer can really coach. It will be interesting to see how he uses a capable running QB in Jalen Milroe given his tendency toward pocket passers in previous stops. There will be turnover on the defense and among the other skill positions. Deboer brought in a great transfer class, held together an excellent recruiting class, and has a treasure trove of blue-chip underclassmen waiting for an opportunity. Based on the work he did at Washington, I have a lot of faith that Deboer can and will put the right players in position to succeed.

Texas

After a CFP berth a year ago, Sark’s Longhorns are a popular pick to challenge for the SEC Title in year one in the conference. The loss of skill position players around Quinn Ewers (Xavier Worthy and AD Mitchell to the NFL, CJ Baxter to injury) is a valid concern, though they reinforced the receiving corps significantly in the transfer portal. I am interested to see how they replace the dynamic DT combo of T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy. If their combination of internal development and incoming transfers can keep the line at the same level, the Longhorns can stay on the same level, which is that of a true National Championship contender.

Ole Miss

The coaches of these top four contenders have criss-crossed one another to a surprising degree: Sark and Deboer both coached at UW; Sark and Kiffin are inextricably linked due to their shared and successive tenures at USC; Kiffin and Smart were the two coordinators under Saban for two years under Saban. Of the four, Ole Miss is the least obvious member of the group. Nonetheless, Kiffin has gradually elevated the Rebels’ talent level and their actions in the transfer portal represent a statement of intent. They added eight blue-chip transfers, including the arguable #1 transfer in the country in DT Walter Nolan, which was easily good for the top ranking among transfer classes. Vegas likes the Rebel’s conference title chances as well as it likes Texas’s with 7/1 odds for both. Jaxson Dart is back with a deep group of talented receivers. If the defense improves commensurate with the reputations of the new additions, Ole Miss could very well make the leap to be in the mix with the likes of Georgia and Alabama.

Honorable Mention

Jayden Daniels helped to compensate for a terrible defense to keep LSU competitive last year. They still have loads of talent and Brian Kelly coaching, but they need to make lots of progress defensively… Missouri brings back Luther Burden and Brady Cook. That’s enough for Eli Drinkwitiz to keep them interesting… Texas A&M is always among the best in the country in the composite talent rankings and never wins big. Perhaps Mike Elko can reverse that rend.

Verdict

It feels vanilla to pick Georgia over Alabama for the SEC Title. Of course, Georgia did not win last year and Alabama only has joint third-best odds to win the conference, so maybe it is less chalky than it seems. I ultimately chose Alabama as the runner-up over Texas because a) Sark has more letdown season than Deboer on his CV and, b) the loss of CJ Baxter adds to a list of skill position challenges that was already quite lengthy.