SEC Season Preview: It just means more… contending teams
Let’s get this out of the way, the traditionalist in me doesn’t like conference realignment and the dissolution of the PAC-12. I grew up seeing Washington Huskies games on KOMO instead of sitcom reruns or cartoons on rainy Northwest Saturday afternoons, or wondering why “Fight On” was playing incessantly as the soundtrack to a game on an impossibly sunny November day in a place I could only dream about.
The answer to all your questions is “money,” and the PAC-12 mismanaged that part of the game behind the game.
Starting with a network that people actually had easy access to, and a marketing plan to push their conference as the one that really matters, the SEC went the other way. The premier power brokers of college football have added two blue blood programs in Texas and Oklahoma, and I have to admit - along with the Big Ten’s absorption of the best of the PAC-12 - there’s some legit bangers on the slate this fall because of it.
If you don’t think the venerable Verne Lundqvist calling the SEC’s best game of the week, nationally on CBS, wasn’t a massive branding advantage for the conference, you’re kidding yourself.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, with Georgia atop the odds board. In the first season of the post-Saban era, Alabama’s in a somewhat unusual spot with odds as long as +750 to win the conference. With the conference’s expansion, divisions have been abolished, so we don’t have the paved roads to Atlanta - for UGA out of the East and Bama out of the West - that we seemed to have in recent years.
Team Rating Nationally
Since you can read about how point spreads are built in the NFL in an earlier post on this very Substack, we don’t need to rehash the entire thing here, other than to note that there’s a different divisor in college football. For me, that number is 63. It’s far greater than the NFL of 27 since the best college football team is that much better than the worst FBS squad. Ie. If peak Georgia wanted to beat the worst version of UMass by 10+ touchdowns, they could. It’s just not necessarily their goal, so going back to 2022 and making that line UGA -63 is as high as I’d be willing to go.
The first thing that jumps out is the hot-button team in the SEC this year - Ole Miss. Ranked sixth in the preseason AP Top 25, the Rebels have a comfy enough schedule this season to make the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Trips to Athens and Baton Rouge are the only games they won’t be favored in. However, in “Game of the Year” lines, they’re listed as 5.5-point home underdogs to Georgia in Week 11. Five points of home-field advantage - in what should be a raucous Oxford atmosphere - gets you to UGA -5.5.
Best bets
Texas A&M (+1500, Pinnacle)
The Aggies have a big Week 1 game with Notre Dame, but that result won’t apply to their standing in the conference. The toughest conference road game they have is at Auburn, and there hasn’t been much to fear at Jordan-Hare in recent years, and I can’t tell you how much more I believe in Mike Elko - who made all kinds of chicken salad at Duke - over Hugh Freeze.
Under Jimbo Fisher, the Aggies gobbled up talent every year but never did anything with it. Unlike most scenarios for a new head coach, the talent cupboard in College Station isn’t bare, so I don’t fear that this is a situation where we should wait for the second year.
I expect Georgia to get back to Atlanta, but the second spot in the conference title game is wide open because, with a loaded conference, the second-place team could have two losses. If Texas A&M can win home games against either LSU early or Texas late, they could even afford a loss at Florida or Auburn.
Put it this way: Would you rather A&M’s first-year head coach situation? Or Alabama’s at +750, where they have Georgia and trips to Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma on the schedule?
Regular season win total
Georgia: Under 10.5 wins (+105, DraftKings)
Ratings in college football became a hot topic with the return of the CFB video game this summer. While that seemed like fun fodder, our system asks an important question - How do you get to a 99 in market rating?
Being favored (-130) to win 11 or 12 games in the new-look SEC, with Clemson (on a quasi-neutral field) and trips to Tuscaloosa, Oxford and Austin on the schedule, not to mention the “easy” games being at Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, and Auburn, sets the bar incredibly high. 10-2 should get the Bulldogs into the SEC Championship, and even a loss there shouldn’t keep them out of the 12-team playoff. At even-money to drop a pair of games during this gauntlet, we’ll take a stab that Georgia may yearn for their cushy schedules of the last few years.
Kentucky: Over 6.5 (-122, FanDuel)
The season hasn’t started, but Kentucky’s already 4-4.
Here are their wins: Southern Miss., Ohio, Vanderbilt, Murray State
Here are their losses: Georgia, at Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Texas
I’m not sure an 8-game parlay on those predictions would pay as well as even-money, but if that made-up bet got foiled, I think it’s because Kentucky pulls off an upset versus getting upset.
If all things are equal, the Wildcats’ season (bowl eligibility and a win total ticket) comes down to four games they should be favored in:
Usually, with a win total of 6.5, we worry that a team takes it easy after qualifying for a bowl game with their sixth win, but the Governor’s Cup is as hotly-contested of a rivalry game as there is these days. We know we’ll get an A+ effort from Mark Stoops’ crew, as the long-time UK head coach passed on a rumored move to a more high-profile gig and should continue to get the most out of his team.
Bonus: “Game of the Year” value
Alabama (+3.5) over Georgia (Bet365)
Our ratings table above suggests that Georgia should be a 6-point favorite on a neutral field with Alabama, which means their Week 5 matchup should be lined under a field goal, in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide are currently offered at +3.5 (-105) at BET365. Bama should cruise over Western Kentucky and South Florida, project over a touchdown favorite at Wisconsin, and have a bye heading into the game with the Bulldogs, so it’s hard to imagine their rating dropping. Meanwhile, at 99, Georgia can't get any higher without being an auto-fade until we’re sure they should be held in historically high regard. Let’s grab the Tide now, and see if we don’t have a good bet in pocket by kick-off on September 28.