SEC picks coming next week
Published Friday, July 3, 2009
Look for my annual Southeastern Conference football predictions next week. I'll write about the Eastern Division on Wednesday and then the Western Division next Weekend.
I missed badly on some picks last year and hit on a couple. The bad: I picked Auburn and Tennessee to meet in the SEC Championship Game, and both teams ended up being so bad their coaches were fired. The good: I picked LSU to suffer through its worst season under coach Les Miles (the Tigers went 3-5 in the conference) and Ole Miss to be the conference's surprise team (the Rebels finished behind only Alabama in the West and humbled one-time national championship contender Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl).
And not that it matters now, but my prognostication equation told me Alabama would defeat Auburn in the Iron Bowl last year, which would have earned the Crimson Tide the trip to Atlanta. So, I should have gotten at least half of the championship game correct. I doubted the equation and picked Auburn because of Alabama's horrible 2007 season. There will be no second-guessing this year.
Florida, of course, looks to be an easy choice in the East and to win the championship game, but which West team will meet the Gators in Atlanta is debatable. Check back next week for my choice.
Comments
The Gators are going to repeat as national champions. The rest is academic. I do look for Florida to drop at least one game, maybe against an SEC West opponent. Not sure who they play in the West this year, but running the tables in the SEC is arguably a more difficult feat in college football than actually winning the BCS championship.
Looking at the SEC west this year, wow. You just don't have a sure win anymore. In the past, your safe money would be on one or both of the Mississippi teams struggling both in and out of conference or on the new coaching staffs in Auburn and/or Mississippi State struggling - but when you consider the immediate success of coaches like Houston Nutt, Les Miles, and even the moderate success of Bobby Petrino in Arkansas, an unexpected run for the West title by either Auburn or Miss State would not be a total shocker. I expect both to win big games this year. If you looked purely at stats, Alabama should be the run away favorite with two top recruiting classes, a spectacular 2008 season, and third year coach but if recent tradition holds true, giving Bama the preseason nod would only doom them to finish near the bottom. So my pick would be LSU to win the West in what is certain to be a tough run through the SEC West, dropping at least one game to a West opponent before being taken down by Tebow and the Gators in Atlanta, which should be little more than a stopover for Florida on their way to the Rose Bowl and a showdown with, possibly, the home team, USC. Those are my picks.
I'm gunna have to go with Florida. Theyre returning just about the whole team, and Tebow is looking to prove he can run AND gun, so I expect him to be on his game this year.
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