Alabama, Florida at top of heap in SEC
Once upon a time, the ACC was derisively called Florida State and the Eight Dwarfs in some circles. It wasn’t entirely fair — Virginia had some good teams in the mid-1990s, and Mack Brown built North Carolina into a power around the same time — but it did reflect the gap between the top team in the conference and everybody else.
No one’s about to dust off that insult, update it for conference expansion and apply it to the vaunted SEC. But Nick Saban’s dynasty at Alabama opened a chasm on the rest of the league last year, with only one conference team (Mississippi) managing to stay within a possession of the Crimson Tide and only one other (Louisiana State) falling by less than 18 points.
The interesting element here is whether things change this year to derail Alabama, which owns five SEC titles and four national titles in the last eight seasons. There should be more stability at LSU, more continuity at Georgia and more experience at Auburn and Florida. The top of the league should be better, though most of those teams will get a sense of where they stand quickly this year.
The Crimson Tide remains the favorite, and a considerable one at that, until proven otherwise.
WEST DIVISION
1. Alabama (No. 1 nationally, 14-1 in 2016): The Crimson Tide was a play away from another national title last year. It returns an electric quarterback in sophomore Jalen Hurts. There are enough pieces back from the best defense in the land, including defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick, to be assured Alabama will continue to smother opponents.
This much seems certain: The Tide won’t trip up against a middling foe. It has won 60 in a row against unranked opponents, a stretch dating from 2007. So maybe Florida State knocks off Alabama in the opener. Maybe Auburn or LSU can snag a victory. Perhaps even Texas A&M, which history tells us will be ranked when it meets the Crimson Tide in early October. It’s more likely Alabama rolls through them all and back into the playoff for the fourth year in a row.
2. Auburn (No. 8, 8-5): The Tigers’ most glaring deficiency the last couple years was erratic play at quarterback. Enter Jarrett Stidham, who played well for Baylor two years ago and transferred from the ruins of the Art Briles regime in Waco.
He had 12 touchdowns against two interceptions as a freshman in 2015, and assuming there’s no rust he should settle in as one of the top quarterbacks in the league. Auburn brings back 1,200-yard rusher Kamryn Pettway, and much of a defense that methodically worked its way back into the top half of the SEC last year. It’s not fun working in Saban’s shadow, but this projects as a team capable of winning 10 games.
3. Louisiana State (No. 12, 8-4): The decision to remove the interim tag from Ed Orgeron and give him his second shot as a full-time coach was the big headline out of Baton Rouge late last season. It was his decision to hire Matt Canada as his offensive coordinator that could determine how things go in the short term for the Tigers.
LSU has run one of the least creative offenses in the country in recent years, though it could get away with it to some extent thanks to a strong running game and a stout defense. Canada likes to move pieces around the field, as he did last year at Pittsburgh while regularly using wideout Quadree Henderson on jet sweeps. But the centerpiece of that offense was still rugged running back James Conner, and the same will be true for the Tigers this year with Derrius Guice.
4. Texas A&M (No. 32, 8-5): There’s really no other ballpark to place the Aggies right now besides somewhere between 25th and 40th nationally. They’ve run off three consecutive 8-5 seasons, all after starts of at least 5-0. Back-to-back games against Alabama and Florida in mid-October are good candidates to trigger this year’s fade.
That is, if there’s even a slide to make. The Aggies open at UCLA and wrap up September against Arkansas and South Carolina. They are vulnerable defensively and have modest experience back at quarterback (either senior Jake Hubenak or redshirt freshman Nick Starkel is likely to start). A couple September losses could unravel things in a hurry for Coach Kevin Sumlin.
5. Mississippi State (No. 35, 6-7): The second-best coach in the SEC works in Starkville. Dan Mullen coaxed a bowl bid out of a team that struggled to find a new identity while trying to replace Dak Prescott, but the Bulldogs won four of their last six as Nick Fitzgerald developed into an imposing dual-threat quarterback.
This isn’t a perfect team, and any chance to get much beyond eight victories rests with tightening a defense that was last in the SEC in passing yards allowed and next to last in points yielded. Improving a vulnerable offensive line is also a priority.
6. Arkansas (No. 42, 7-6): The Razorbacks are a bit of a Texas A&M Minus One, a team more than capable of finding its way to seven victories in the regular season and not much beyond that. Arkansas is a combined 1-11 against Alabama, Auburn and Texas A&M under Bret Bielema, and those teams aren’t leaving the schedule anytime soon.
There could be some traction with senior QB Austin Allen, but this is another team with major defensive questions. The Razorbacks gave up at least 28 points to all but one conference foe last year, and that just doesn’t cut it in the SEC. New defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads has an even younger group to work with this year and must improve a unit that allowed more than 200 yards per game on the ground.
7. Mississippi (No. 59, 5-7): The Rebels didn’t have much of a choice but to go with an interim coach after Hugh Freeze was forced to resign last month, and they couldn’t have found someone with a greater affinity for the school than Matt Luke. But as Luke Fickell (2011 Ohio State), Everett Withers (2011 North Carolina), John Smith (2012 Arkansas) and even Jim Grobe (2016 Baylor) showed, a year-long interim coach faces a lot of challenges.
That starts with the very reason they’re an interim coach in the first place. The previous coach was removed suddenly and there’s a degree of disarray most other teams won’t face. Then there’s the Rebels’ one-year bowl ban and the loss of many of the team’s key offensive skill position players. Getting back to .500 is going to be a tough task for this bunch.
EAST DIVISION
1. Florida (No. 15, 9-4): The Gators won the division for the second consecutive year with a so-so offense and an elite defense. They’ll be a lot younger on defense, even with stellar senior cornerback Duke Dawson, which means the offense needs to take a step forward for Florida to again flirt with 10 victories.
The Gators still haven’t named a starting quarterback, with incumbent Luke Del Rio, Notre Dame transfer Malik Zaire and redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks all competing for the gig. Whoever wins it won’t have time to settle into the role; Florida faces Michigan and Tennessee in the season’s first three weeks.
2. Georgia (No. 17, 8-5): Continuing with a trend that plagued some of the SEC’s high-profile programs last year, the Bulldogs (like Florida and LSU) simply couldn’t muster enough on offense to back up a high-end defense. Playing a promising freshman, Jacob Eason, at quarterback was only part of the issue; the receiving corps was unremarkable and the line allowed 24 sacks for the first time since 2012.
Eason showed promise with his decision-making, and Georgia can always fall back on its tailback tandem of Nick Chubb and Sony Michel. That should be enough to see improvement in the win column, especially with a defense that brings back nearly everyone.
3. Tennessee (No. 27, 9-4): Champions of both life and the Music City Bowl but not the SEC East, the Volunteers have finally achieved a measure of stability that has eluded them for almost a decade. Butch Jones warrants credit for producing back-to-back 9-4 seasons, even if last year’s was disappointing after a 5-0 start that included defeats of Florida and Georgia.
This could be a team that isn’t quite as good but ends up with a similar record. The Vols should be better than the bottom four teams in the division, and the nonconference schedule is navigable even with an opener against Georgia Tech. But Alabama and LSU loom in crossover games, and Tennessee must replace veteran QB Josh Dobbs. A 10-win season seems unlikely.
4. Missouri (No. 48, 4-8): At this time last year, the Tigers had a first-year head coach (Barry Odom) and not a lot back from an anemic offense, but returned more than half their starters from a stout defense. So naturally, Missouri more than doubled its scoring average while the defense plummeted to last in the SEC. Sports can be weird sometimes.
QB Drew Lock progressed from overwhelmed as a freshman to capable of picking apart average defenses as a sophomore. It helped to get a breakout year from J’Mon Moore, who had 1,012 yards and eight touchdowns to emerge as one of the SEC’s top wideouts. The offense should be okay, and modest improvement on the other side of the ball should get the Tigers back to a bowl game.
5. Kentucky (No. 49, 7-6): The Wildcats went .500 in the league last year, which is only a slightly more common occurrence than a solar eclipse in North America. (Just kidding, though it was the first time in a decade the Wildcats went 4-4 in the SEC and just the second time this century.) Kentucky was better, and it did land in a bowl for the first time since 2010.
Mark Stoops’s rebuilding project enjoyed early recruiting buzz, considerable improvement in Year Two, an irksome plateau the following season and then a postseason trip last fall. The Wildcats do some things well (rushing the ball with TB Benny Snell) and still have things to work on (stopping the run, which went from subpar to bad last year). The talent base is much better than four years ago, and maintaining an ability to win seven or more games is Kentucky’s next logical step.
6. South Carolina (No. 52, 6-7): The midseason decision to yank the redshirt off QB Jake Bentley proved a wise one for Will Muschamp last year, and the freshman led the Gamecocks to victories in four of his first five games. The result was an unanticipated bowl bid for a team that endured half a season with an entirely inert offense.
Bentley might be the best quarterback in the division already, and one of the top four or five in the league. That’s a good place for South Carolina to start, but it needs a better rushing attack and its defense to make progress. Neither is a sure thing, especially against a schedule littered with toss-up games. With a September slate of N.C. State, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana Tech and Texas A&M, any early returns between 5-0 and 0-5 are on the table.
7. Vanderbilt (No. 65, 6-7): Like South Carolina, the Commodores scraped into the postseason with an average defense and a middling offense. But Vanderbilt produced an able rushing attack behind TB Ralph Webb, who rumbled for 1,283 yards and enters his final season already in possession of the school’s career rushing record.
The Commodores are poised to follow last year’s blueprint, which means more than a few low-scoring games. It’s also easy to look at a four-week stretch that begins Sept. 16 and features games against Kansas State, Alabama, Florida and Georgia and view it as a potential backbreaker. The Commodores will likely need a strong second half of the season to get back into the postseason.
This story was originally published August 26, 2017 at 9:02 PM with the headline "Alabama, Florida at top of heap in SEC."