The SEC West has not only won the last five SEC titles; it’s taken four of the past five national titles. Despite Auburn’s choke-job against Florida State, it remains the best division in college football by a mile. So when forecasting the SEC East, it’s not really about who will win the division. It’s about attempting to identify the league runner-up. Or, in recent years, the league’s second or third runner-up.
Here, in order from most likely to least likely, are the teams who will win the right to lose in Atlanta.
1. Georgia Bulldogs
When projecting the East in recent years, most prognosticators have analyzed the early-season Georgia-South Carolina match-up, and then eliminated from contention the team they thought would lose. Bad idea. Georgia lost to the Gamecocks in both 2011 and 2012, yet still won the division both seasons. And South Carolina, if not for an awful performance in Knoxville, would have won the division a year ago despite losing to the Bulldogs in September.
But the guess here is Georgia – who has lost to Steve Spurrier three of the last four times – won’t make it four in five; not with 17 starters coming back and a better Defensive Coordinator coming in. Jeremy Pruitt will be a major upgrade, and the combination of Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall is as good a running back tandem as you’ll find anywhere outside Tuscaloosa.
Georgia lost the division last year, in large part, because they were decimated by injuries. This was especially true at the receiver position, but Gurley went down at key times, and Aaron Murray was lost for the season in November. Hutson Mason takes over for the celebrated Murray, and that’s the most glaring question mark. Against Nebraska, he looked like he thought he was in Kansas. But all indications out of Athens are that Mason is much improved, and the Bulldogs are loaded everywhere else. Look for them to drop a game (maybe two), but they should still win the right to lose one more game before bowl season.
2. South Carolina Gamecocks
Steve Spurrier has been an elite coach for a long time, but he’s never been quite as good as he thinks he is. Total undefeated seasons: zero. Total national titles: one. Total quarterbacks to whom he has done severe psychological damage: 72, not counting (yet) this year’s starter, Dylan Thompson.
And while the ole ball coach has been impressive in the football wasteland that is Columbia, SC, he has also squandered the division title in two of the past three seasons – choke-jobs against Auburn in 2011 and Tennessee in 2013. Win those two games, against teams who were a collective 8-16, and he’d be playing this season for the right to lose the SEC title game for the third time in four years.
Despite getting Georgia at home, the Gamecocks have to replace most of their defensive line. Not a good problem to have with the Gurley Man, the Marshall and the Georgia offensive line coming to town so early in the season. That, combined with Spurrier’s long history of losing at least one game to an inferior opponent, will spell doom – not dome – for the Gamecocks.
South Carolina also has to contend with Auburn and Texas A&M from the West. It’s possible, for the third time in four years, they could beat Georgia and still watch the Bulldogs take the division title.
3. Florida Gators
The good news is, Florida has most everyone back on offense. The bad news is, Florida has most everyone back on offense. It could be called a Catch-22, but they’d probably drop it – assuming anyone could throw it anywhere in the vicinity.
Will Muschamp has shown that he can be a good coach. If not for a late fumble against Georgia in 2012, he would have run the regular season table with one of the worst offenses in recent memory. But no defense, not even one as good as the 2014 edition has a chance to be, can carry a team for an entire season.
With their three biggest division rivals replacing their quarterbacks, the Gator defense is more than talented enough to hold up its end of the bargain. So it will be up to Jeff Driskell and new Offensive Coordinator Kurt Roper to somehow find enough of a pulse to help out. As long as they avoid their Georgia-like injury problems from a season ago, they should still be in contention in November, when Georgia and South Carolina come calling.
4. Missouri Tigers
Missouri had more good fortune last season than a cookie jar in a Chinese restaurant. Which is to say, they were almost as lucky as Auburn.
The two best division teams they beat – Georgia and Florida – had half their respective starters in the hospital. In November, they benefited from a banged-up and partied-out Johnny Football. They even lost a home game to South Carolina. And yet, because the Gamecocks inexplicably lost to Tennessee the week before, the Tigers snuck their way into an ass-kickin in the Georgia Dome.
Make no mistake. Missouri was a gritty, determined and talented bunch last season, rebounding to beat Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl. They should be good again, with quarterback Maty Mauk leading a formidable offensive attack, and a very good coach, Gary Pinkel, roaming the sidelines. But few teams get so many breaks two years in a row.
Georgia and Florida should be much healthier this year (how could they not). Factor in road games in Gainesville, College Station and the other Columbia – two of them coming against teams with revenge on their mind – and Missouri should settle back into the middle of the divisional pack. A loss in Gainesville will mean Florida nudges them out for third place.
5. Tennessee Volunteers
Tennessee needs some volunteers to play offensive line, because every last one of them has fled the city. This is not a good way to enter a football season in the most physical league in the country.
There is good news. Butch Jones and company have recruited well the past couple years, so by the time they get around to playing Kentucky and Vanderbilt, they should be improved enough on both lines of scrimmage to win those games.
But the Orange team will struggle in September and October, losing to five red teams – Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Ole Miss (the Black Bears do have some red on their fur, and it’s not from the bloodletting they endured in Tuscaloosa last year). And it’s likely that they’ll lose at least two others.
Tennessee is a year away from a bowl game, and a lot further away than that from a meaningful one.
In other words, they’re basically out of business.
6. Kentucky Wildcats
Mark Stoops might very well be a good coach. But we may never know, at least not as long as he’s at Kentucky. It’s a roundball school in an oval-shaped world, so unless two or three traditional powers have uncharacteristically bad years, the Wildcats may never climb as high as third in the East, let alone rise to the level of losing to the West champion in the Georgia Dome.
Kentucky loses a Mister (Cobble) on the defensive line, but they do return a Miss (Ashley Lowery) at defensive back. The Wildcats also have a good running back in Jojo Kemp, two serviceable quarterbacks and a couple of veteran defensive linemen. And Stoops has recruited very well by bluegrass standards, so it’s possible they could sneak into a fifth-place finish.
But with the schedule gods giving them a road trip to Baton Rouge followed by a home game against Mississippi State – and we all know how tough the Bulldogs can be if you just played LSU the week prior – the safer bet is that they’ll eke past Vanderbilt to avoid the cellar.
7. Vanderbilt Commodores
Here’s what no one in Auburn, and very few in the Alabama state media, wants you to know. Vanderbilt has a winning record against Auburn (21-20-1). Let that sink in, but please, laugh while you do.
But now let this sink in. Beyond that winning record against Auburn, the only good thing you can say about Vanderbilt’s football history is that Paul “Bear” Bryant was an assistant coach there. James Franklin was trying to change all that, and in a way he did. The ‘Dores have been to three consecutive bowl games, winning their last two.
But Franklin is gone. So are Jordan Matthews, Austyn Carta-Samuels, Walker May and a host of other veterans. Despite getting a relative break in the schedule – Vandy draws Ole Miss and Mississippi State out of the West, so it could have been much worse – new head man Derek Mason will have his hands full just trying to eke out a 6-6 season.
The non-league schedule is an embarrassment, but hey. It’s Vanderbilt. They’ll need two SEC wins to make a bowl game. They likely won’t get it.