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SEC Football: Let’s Get Some Love For Georgia

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The Georgia Bulldogs haven’t won the SEC title since 2005, one year prior to their conference’s seven-year national championship run. The Dawgs haven’t won the national title since 1980 and have only seriously competed for it once in the last thirty years (their 2012 near-miss). So maybe I understand why the betting odds are a little averse to making them the favorite in this year’s SEC race.

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But understanding doesn’t mean agreeing, and it’s time to give Mark Richt’s Bulldogs some serious love as a championship contender—which in the SEC, means a contender to win the whole thing.

college football bowl historyGeorgia is a 13-2 betting choice to win the SEC title, and there are five conference teams with better odds. It’s no surprise that Alabama is the prohibitive favorite, even if the Tide are rebuilding.

I won’t say I’m shocked that LSU and South Carolina each rate higher than the Dawgs in the eyes of the bettors. Auburn at 5-1, slightly better than Georgia? Absolutely understandable. But Florida also at 5-1? Seriously? Why is everyone this down on the Dawgs?

The answer has to be the need to replace quarterback Aaron Murray. But senior Hutson Mason was at least able to get some experience in the final two games of last season, an overtime win over Georgia Tech and a bowl loss to Nebraska. Murray tore an ACL late in the year and Mason had to step in.

It cost the Dawgs a Gator Bowl victory, but if the experience helps Mason early—and the schedule opens with Clemson and South Carolina—then it will be the equivalent of sacrificing a pawn to take a queen.

What I like most about this year’s Georgia team is that the defense is stacked with experience. It’s this unit that’s the sole reason the Bulldogs haven’t been able to break through and win the SEC over the last nine seasons. But they’ve got ten starters back, and Richt plucked a new coordinator off the staff at Florida State.

Thus, Mason steps in with real game experience under his belt, an improved defense to back him up and one of the great running backs in the country in Todd Gurley, an anticipated contender for the Heisman Trophy so long as he can stay healthy. Those are the reasons I think this is Georgia’s year to win the SEC East, capture the conference championship game and make the College Football Playoff.

ALABAMA-AUBURN OUT WEST

It’s purely reputation and recruiting that have Alabama is the heavy favorite in this division, the conference overall, and on a par with Florida State in being considered virtual locks to be in the four-team Playoff.

I won’t say reputation and recruiting are bad reasons to give Alabama this deference, but if it’s the case, I may as well junk my lifetime proclivity for buying college football annuals and seeing who has what players returning. Because based on this, Alabama should have some struggles (relatively speaking) ahead.

There’s a new quarterback, significant rebuilding on defense and a young offensive line. All of that adds up to reasons for looking elsewhere in the SEC West.

And why not start with the program that actually won the SEC West last year and came within a play or two of winning the national championship?

Auburn brings back four starters on that offensive line that was pushing people around and piling up insane rushing numbers by the end of last year. Even with running back Tre Mason gone, I have every confidence head coach Gus Malzahn can plug in another back and keep the yards coming.

In the meantime, Nick Marshall is back at quarterback and should be more polished. The defense has six starters, evenly distributed across the unit’s three layers. The fact Auburn has to visit Alabama this year is a big stumbling block—and by Thanksgiving weekend, the Tide’s experience problems should be in the rearview mirror. But with the raw number of contenders in the West, it’s also possible that Auburn-Alabama won’t be winner-take-all. Thus, I am taking Auburn to win the West.

THREE MORE CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS

LSU: The hype in Baton Rouge is about running back Leonard Fournette, an incoming freshman that many feel could have been a top five NFL draft pick out of high school. No pressure on the kid or anything. In a recent interview, head coach Les Miles compared Fournette’s zeal for preparation and winning to that of NBA legend Michael Jordan. Way to keep the hype toned down coach.

The hype machine may be hard on the freshman, but if he’s even a fraction of what everyone says he is, it means LSU won’t miss departed quarterback Zach Mettenberg quite so much. The offensive line is tough. It’s the development of a young secondary that will determine if this team can win the SEC West.

South Carolina: A significant rebuilding job for Steve Spurrier across the board. I know they’ve had a strong run over the past three years, winning 11 games all three seasons. But with no SEC East titles and no major bowl appearances, I feel like the program missed an opportunity.

Florida: I’m filing a protest against including Florida among true championship contenders, but I’m deferring to the betting odds. If you want to tell me Florida will be improved and be a bowl-caliber team again after last year’s 4-8 train wreck, I agree. If you want to tell me they can pull a signature upset (Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and LSU are on the schedule), I suppose I could buy it. But there’s no reason to think the woeful offense that has characterized Wil Muschamp’s tenure here is going to get any better.

BOWL TEAMS & DARK HORSES

Ole Miss: I got on their bandwagon last year, with all the young talent that head coach Hugh Frieze has brought on and was disappointed when the Rebels lost five games. But most of them were close and this might be a case of some of us just getting antsy and jumping on them a year too early. The Rebs will play good defense, Bo Wallace is back at quarterback and the program that got used to playing with some expectations.

Tennessee: The Vols’ SEC title odds are a respectable 15-1 (by comparison Ole Miss is 12-1). I dunno. There isn’t a single returning lineman on either side of the ball and I’m not all that sold on Butch Jones as a SEC-caliber head coach. Tennessee won five games a year ago, I won’t say that getting six and a bowl bid is out of the question, but I can’t see much more than that.

Missouri: It’s a big rebuilding job for Gary Pinkel after last year’s amazing run to the SEC East title. At least Maty Mauk, the new starting quarterback, got some experience last year when James Franklin was injured and led a couple big wins.

Mississippi State: It’s a big year for head coach Dan Mullen. His program was once the rising dark horse in the SEC West, but has started to fall behind. Perhaps an overtime win over Ole Miss last year and a subsequent bowl blowout of Rice will get things back on track. The Bulldogs look strong on defense and have Dak Prescott back at quarterback.

Texas A&M: Johnny Manziel is gone, and the Aggies might shift to a more run-oriented approach behind a veteran offensive line. The defense has eight starters back and you have to hope that experience allows this group to make significant strides. Head coach Kevin Sumlin is choosing from underclassmen at quarterback…of course that was also true when he unveiled the freshman Manziel in 2012, and Sumlin is known for his offensive wizardry.

THE LONGSHOTS

Arkansas, Kentucky and Vanderbilt are all considered longshots and even making a bowl game would be a cause for celebration. With the Hogs and Wildcats, I understand the sentiment. Bret Bielama and Mark Stoops still have considerable building to do and schedules that aren’t very forgiving.

Vanderbilt, I’m not ready to write off so quickly. I know head coach James Franklin is gone for Penn State. But I like the hire of Stanford defensive coordinator Derek Mason as the new boss. There’s always concerns about whether a successful coordinator will be a good head coach, but Mason did oversee a physically tough unit at Stanford and he’ll make sure the Commodores hit and play the game the right way.

What’s more, the Commodores have players back in both trenches. Mason won’t be without challenges, but I don’t see why Vandy is a 250-1 longshot in the SEC, while Arkansas and Kentucky are at 70-1 and 80-1 respectively. If nothing else, Vanderbilt will be better than both of those teams.

FINAL PREDICTION

As noted above, the pick in this conference is for Georgia to defeat Auburn in the SEC title game. While I generally avoid making predictions regarding the four-team College Football Playoff until all conference previews are completed, I don’t think there’s any doubt that the SEC champ will be in that group of four.

The question is whether Auburn—or another strong runner-up could join the league champ in the Playoff. That, I’ll leave for when TheSportsNotebook does its final predictions prior to the season opener on August 28. And, as usual, it’s the SEC and South Carolina that will open up the year, as the Gamecocks play Texas A&M on the opening Thursday night.

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SEC Football Preview

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The SEC took its dominance of the national championship race last year to a new level, not only winning its sixth consecutive title, but having it sewn up prior to the BCS National Championship Game even being played, as Alabama-LSU paired up in a rematch for the title, a game that will take its place in history alongside the 1976 NCAA basketball final when Indiana met Michigan and ushered in a new era of conference rematches in the postseason. I have my doubts that this is a good thing, but it’s undeniably happening. Will the SEC make it seven in a row in 2012? Will they sweep the title game spots again? Let’s break down the SEC football race for the coming season…

Everything starts with LSU & Alabama with the way last year finished and the two schools are on top of the preseason polls this year. But though it may start in Baton Rouge and Birmingham there’s nothing saying it will finish there this time around. Both programs have substantial rebuilding projects ahead of them on the defensive side. LSU’s project got tougher with the recently announced suspension of All-Everything corner Tyrann Mathieu for drug use. It’s easy to say these programs just reload. That’s true to a certain extent—I’d rather rebuild here than have everyone back at Ole Miss—but it does make holding a spot in the nation’s top two tougher. Without Matheiu, LSU lacks a gamebreaker on the defensive side. Alabama needs to find one. It’s gamebreakers—not just good players, which both schools have in abundance—that swing the game or two every year where a top team is under the gun in an unexpected spot.

The powers-that-be are both better situated on offense. Each returns most of its offensive line. Alabama has quarterback A.J. McCarron back and in his second year as a starter he should be ready to assume greater responsibility for the offense. Eddie Lacy will have zero problem stepping in for Trent Richardson at running back. For LSU, returning back Spencer Ware is poised to have a big year, and though they have a new quarterback in Zach Mettenberg I doubt if anyone who watched either of last year’s LSU-Alabama games (zero touchdowns in eight quarters plus overtime) thinks Mettenberg has big shoes to fill. These two teams meet again November 3 in Baton Rouge with a trip to the SEC Championship Game and possibly more at stake.

It’s one thing to say the Tigers and Tide may be vulnerable. It’s quite another to come up with a compelling alternative, especially within their division. Arkansas has both teams at home and is stacked with returning talent. They’ve got an explosive offense, led by Tyler Wilson at quarterback and Knile Davis running the football. But the coaching situation is a mess after Bobby Petrino’s off-field problems got him fired and there is no way I’d take John L. Smith in any coaching situation against Les Miles or Nick Saban. Even at home with a more experienced team. Arkansas might spring one win against the powers, but they’ll also lose a game or two they shouldn’t.

The rest of the SEC West has its strength—Auburn, new addition Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Ole Miss—but nothing that would lead you to elevate them to the leader’s spot. Auburn’s got an experienced secondary and is pretty good elsewhere, making them the best of the group. But they’ve got quarterback instability and highly regarded offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn is gone for the head job at Arkansas State. Texas A&M will score points with its entire offensive line back and an explosive back in Christine Michael, but the defense is young and learning the ropes in the SEC will be its own trial. Mississippi State has the defense to get into a bowl game and three good wide receivers. If new junior quarterback Tyler Russell, a former high school America, comes though, the Bulldogs could be interesting. But if Russell is so good, I’m wondering why it took him this long to start at a school that’s not exactly Southern Cal when it comes to churning out passers. And Ole Miss went 2-10 a year ago and is rebuilding under new head coach Hugh Freeze.

So if you’re looking for someone other than LSU or Alabama, go east young man, if I can turn Horace Greeley’s 19th-century quotation on its head. The SEC East promises an exciting race and that excitement will be produced by high-level parity, not parity born of mediocrity.

Let’s start with Georgia, who won the division a year ago, when they closed the regular season with ten straight wins and ended the absurd talk that head coach Mark Richt needed to be fired. The Dawgs defense is stacked and the skill positions are explosive, with junior quarterback Aaron Murray being the best in the league. Then fill in running back Isaiah Crowell and receivers Tavarres King and Malcolm Mitchell and you have the makings of an All-SEC team right there. The problem is getting the people to block. Richt has some rebuilding to do on the offensive line.

Steve Spurrier won the East two years ago with South Carolina and posted a 10-2 record last season, a year that ended with a blasting of Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl. Now Spurrier gets the immensely talented running back Marcus Lattimore back from a knee injury that cost him most of 2011. South Carolina isn’t stacked on the offensive line or defense, but they have enough back to compete and quarterback Connor Shaw gained valuable experience.

Florida went through a disappointing year under first-year coach Will Muschamp and expectations are not high for 2012. But I think the Gators are going to be in the mix. They’re replacing running backs Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey, but with four starters back on the offensive line, the holes will be there for somebody. They’re also replacing quarterback John Brantley, although Brantley just didn’t work out to begin with. The defense is experienced up and down and this was Muschamp’s unique area of expertise when he was an assistant at Texas.

The rest of the SEC East will not produce the division champ, but there will be a good shot at bowl games and race-altering wins. Missouri joins the league and will have a good offense, led by top receiver T.J. Moe. Tennessee will have a great offense, with Tyler Bray pulling the trigger, targeting good receivers and protected by a good offensive line. If Derek Dooley can rebuild the defensive front he can produce a dark horse team. If nothing else, Dooley should win at least seven games and buy himself another year in Knoxville. Vanderbilt made solid strides as a program last year and returns most of its offense, led by running back Zac Stacy. The Commodore defense, which already had very good secondary people, will be competitive again this year. Book Vandy for 7-8 wins and a decent bowl slot. Kentucky might normally make a run at a bowl game, but third-year coach Joker Phillips will have to settle for rebuilding around a good defensive line and hoping he can steal a conference win or two.

PREDICTIONS: No team really stands out to me in the race, so I’m going to default to the coach in the SEC East and pick Spurrier’s Gamecocks, particularly if Lattimore is back at full steam. In the West, with both Saban and Miles elite-level generals, I’m deferring to the experienced quarterback and giving Alabama the edge, mainly because I think Mathieu’s suspension is too much to overcome. For the league title itself, I’m going to roll the dice and pick South Carolina. I think Spurrier’s moment has come and his program has clearly elevated itself beyond being a competitive bowl team over the last two years. They’re knocking on the door of a championship, and with the rebuilding in the SEC West, this is the year the Gamecocks knock the door down.