2018 College Football Season Preview. (Part 1: S! E! C!)

Last year was a great time to be a fan of the S! E! C!, a conference with so little self-awareness that they think Championship wins by their rivals can be claimed as their own.  Granted, they're not as bad as the PAC-12 in that regard, but their fans are way, way worse.

What they are good at is football, very, very good at football.

Last year they were the first conference to have two of their member schools granted entrance into the increasingly flawed College Football Playoff (this year with NO Larry Culpepper!!!) and looking at the way the game is going I see the same scenario repeating this year.

Here's a look at how I see things playing out.

Conference Standings:
WEST		W	L	EAST		W	L
Alabama		12	0	Georgia		12	0
Auburn		10	2	Florida		9	3
Mississippi State		9	3	Missouri		7	5
Texas A&M		8	4	South Carolina		7	5
LSU		5	7	Tennessee		4	8
Ole Miss*		5	7	Kentucky		3	9
Arkansas		4	8	Vanderbilt		3	9
Wins Division				Wins Division
Conference Championship:
		Georgia Over Alabama
Bowl Teams:		8
	CFP:	Georgia
	Big Six	Auburn
	CFP 2:	Alabama
	Others:
		Florida
* On probation		Texas A&M
		Mississippi State
		Missouri
		South Carolina
Most Underrated:	Missouri
Most Overrated:	LSU
Coaches on Hot Seat:	Mark Stoops, Ed Orgeron
	Matt Luke

Yes, it's just more of the same. Georgia and Alabama avoid each other in the regular season and I don't see a team on either's schedule that can beat them. Of all the teams, I think Auburn has the best chance at beating both. Unfortunately for the Plainsmen, War Eagle um Tigers they get BOTH teams on the road. Auburn has a brutal schedule this year but I do see them beating Washington to start hte year, and then rolling up until week 11 when they play Georgia.

The Conference Championship SHOULD be a repeat of last year, with Georgia once again besting the Tide, with Alabama sneaking into the CFP due to Saban reputation points.  It won't be as controversial this year because, as you'll see, I don't think the other conferences will have much of a gripe heading into the post-season.

Here's a quick run-down of all the teams and how I think their season's going to look....

1. Georgia - Kirby Smart is doing what Mark Richt couldn't do, building a consistent championship caliber team at Georgia. He's recruiting the shit out of both sides of the ball and the team is loaded with talent.  They are young at a couple of key positions and they lost a LOT to the NFL draft, but this is now looking like a team that's reloaded instead of one that needed to rebuild under Richt from time to time.

2. Alabama - What can you say about Alabama and Nick Saban that hasn't already been said? They're the best program in the country, although Georgia is getting closer, they recruit to their strengths and they rarely beat themselves.  I think they're a much better team with  Tua Tagovailoa calling plays. He's a better quarterback than Jalen Hurts in all areas except mobility, but with Alabama's stout offensive line that's not really a problem. Hurts is a good change-of-pace QB and I expect Saban to use him as such.  Can't throw a lick though.

3. Auburn - Auburn is going to be really good, they're going to have a strong season, and probably wind up playing Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.  Let's be honest, it's hard to not like a team with a defensive end named "Big Cat Bryant" right?  Auburn should have a potent offense behind former Baylor Signal caller Jarret Stidham, who got better and better last year as the season progressed. Take away an odd game to LSU and Auburn would have been in the playoff last year.  That said, I think they have questions in the running game and defense which makes them a clear-cut third choice.

4a. Mississippi State - The Bulldogs are going to toss the ball around the field, and they're going to be really good defending the pass.  Whether or not they can run and stop the run against the top teams will determine how far they go. New Head Coach Joe Moorehead brings a historically potent offense Starkville, coming previously from Penn State where he was gifted with Saquon Barkley among other top players. It IS his first job as head coach so there's risk here, but I think Dan Mullins left the cupboard sufficiently full.

4b. Florida - Right before I started writing this, the news of a pretty ugly incident involving Florida Freshman Justin Watkins hit the wires so it's too early to tell how much of a distraction this will be for the team. Head Coach Dan Mullins has experience overcoming distraction however, and a history of performing at a high level in the SEC.  It's a truism that Florida is a better location than Mississippi State so we'll see. Florida's biggest question is who is going to play quarterback for an offense that struggled mightily last year. It seems that Texan Kyle Trask is going to get the nod. He's from Manvel Texas so you know he'll be "well coached" as they say.

5. Texas A&M - With all the hype surrounding the arrival of Jimbo Fisher as head coach 8-4 is going to seem like a down season to Aggie fans. And while I think Fisher is a decent enough coach, former HC Kevin Sumlin didn't do him many favors on the talent front. There's youth all over this roster however, and some of it is pretty talented.  I'm not sure whether Luke Starkel or Kellen Mond will end up calling signals. it appears Starkel is going to get the nod however.

6. Missouri - After Texas A&M the quality in the SEC starts to fall off pretty severely.  The "best" of the rest appears to be Missouri, the team that everyone writes off almost every year but which always seems to outperform it's expectations. This will be Sr QB Drew Lock's swan song, and his audition for the NFL, I'm expecting a great season from him.  The Tigers have a lot of experience in their first team, but might have issues when looking for depth.  That will be head coach Barry Odom's primary task at the beginning of the year where he starts off the season with two cupcakes before a pretty heady matchup against Purdue. He had better figure it out before then.

7. South Carolina - Like many, I was confused when the Gamecocks announced the hiring of Will Muschamp, a coach that failed at Florida so how can you expect him to do better in Columbia?  They say that water finds its level and I truly think that Muschamp's level in the SEC at SC is around 7-5.

8. LSU - The first coach on my "hot seat" list is Ed Orgeron of LSU. As usual the Tigers are going to have a wealth of talent on defense, but not much on offense and I can't find a quarterback on their roster that's going to be capable of moving the ball against college football defenses. I would imagine that Nick Brossette gets the starting duty at running back, but they have a lot of depth behind him. The problem that I see is that the Tigers are going to be very one-dimensional on offense and the better defenses they face are going to chew them up alive.

9. Ole Miss - I'll go on record here and say that the Rebel's hiring of Matt Luke was a mistake, and we're going to start to see just how bad of one it was this year. QB Jordan Ta'amu has a ton of talent to work with in the passing game, but I don't see a lot of ability to run the ball. See LSU for how one-handed offenses work against top defenses.  Add to that the fact that Ole Miss has no defense to speak of the last two years (and little on the roster to suggest an improvement this year) and the Rebels could be wondering when their long nightmare will come to an end. Oh, and not for nothing, they're still on probation this year. (Although they could go to a bowl if they qualified, which I don't think they will.)

10. Tennessee - Trying to follow in the footsteps of rival Georgia, The Volunteers are hoping that former Nick Saban defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt provides them the same spark as Kirby Smart did for UGA.  Pruitt's problem is that Tennessee's talent pool is currently 4 notches lower than the pool at Georgia.  MAYBE QB transfer Keller Chryst can provide some spark and MAYBE the Vols defense can grow a backbone and MAYBE players who last year had off-years bounce back.  After the disaster of the coaching search in the off-season this is a program that's reeling right now. Too many maybes.  The rebuilding program starts now.

11. Arkansas - First year Coach Chad Morris is taking a HUGE leap up in class from SMU to Arkansas and I think the growing pains are going to be real.  There's also the issue that he likes to play a totally different style of football than former HC Bret Bielema and it doesn't appear that he has the athletes to do it.  I LIKE Morris as a coach and I hope that Arkansas provides him time to grow the program. I think they'll be happy with the results.  Just not this year.

12. Kentucky - I'm adding Mark Stoops to the Hot Seat list because I think the Wildcats take a huge step backward this year.  They have some talent in the passing game with a pair of good WR's and a decent signal caller in Gunnar Hoak, but every where else on the field they are lacking.  My prediction is by week 4 of the season the stadium will be around half-full as Kentucky students start asking "when's midnight madness?"

13. Vanderbilt - I always pull for Vandy, the school kept in the SEC to "keep their academics up" can, from time to time, jump and and pull a surprise or three. It seems that head coach Derek Mason is going to keep the keys of the offense Kyle Schurmur, If he struggles though I could see a situation where Duece Wallace is calling signals by the end of the year. The problem for Vanderbilt every where else is just that they're too small, too slow, and not strong enough to compete against the rest of the SEC.  Watch their first game against Middle Tennessee. It could be the start of a LONG season.

Next UP: The B1G - And the saddest preview I'm going to do all year.