Talkin’ season
SEC Media Days have come and gone (wait was that this week?) and now that the circus has left Dallas the media’s preseason predictions are rolling out.
If the predictions come true it looks like 2024 will be a good but maybe not great year for LSU. The Tigers were picked to finish 5th in the new-look SEC behind Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Ole Miss, with the Dawgs and Longhorns predicted to face off in Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game. As a reminder there are no more divisions in the SEC, so the top two teams at the end of the regular season will play for the conference championship.
Georgia, unsurprisingly, was the media’s overwhelming favorite to win the league as the Dawgs received 165 first place votes. Texas was a distant second with 27 first place votes while Alabama got 12. Ole Miss (4), LSU and Vanderbilt (2 each) and South Carolina (1) were the other schools to receive votes. Yes you are reading that right, Vanderbilt once again got multiple first place votes so take these predictions as seriously as the people who vote on them.
Personally I think LSU predicted to finish 5th is more than fair. The Tiger offense was by far and away the strength of the 2023 team and the three biggest reasons why, Jayden Daniels, Malik Nabers, and Brian Thomas Jr., are all in the NFL now. It’s safe to assume LSU takes at least a step back on offense, the question will be how big will the drop off be. As for the defense? They’ll just have to show me. Of course they’ll be better in 2024 than in 2023—because they can’t be worse than the worst ever defense in school history—but how much better? Are they in the top-80 or top-50? We’ll just have to see it play out on the field.
Other thoughts about the preseason predictions:
- Far be it from me to praise Texas but I think they’re easily the second best team in the conference, and a Georgia-Texas SEC Championship feels like a certainty.
- Alabama’s getting a ton of benefit of the doubt. I’m not so sure I agree.
- If anything I’d have Ole Miss at three over Alabama. Stop me when you’ve heard this one before: Ole Miss misses out on the SEC Championship Game again.
- Missouri has a pretty favorable schedule in 2024 so they might finish higher than 6th because they can watch the other teams knock each other off.
- I’ve got no idea what to make of Oklahoma. I think they’re the biggest swing team of 2024.
- If Florida, Carolina, and Arkansas all finish in that 12-13-14 range then all three of those jobs are gonna be open by season’s end.