Saturday, August 18, 2007

NCAA Projections: SEC


The last conference projection in this blog is for the SEC.

I love the SEC. It is perhaps my favorite conference. I'm not fanatical about any of the teams, but I love to see them beat up on each other. It's Southern fried football at its best.

The East division is traditionally the toughest in college football. Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee are perennially strong. Now, South Carolina, in the third year of coach Steve Spurrier, looks to make that threesome a quartet. When we last saw the Florida Gators, they were making mincemeat out of Ohio State in the national championship game. The Gators will always be good as long as Urban Meyer is the coach. This year looks to be a relative down year for the Gators, but only due to the schedule. Florida must travel to LSU and South Carolina. I look for them to lose both of those games.

Georgia will win the East division, in spite of a loss to Florida. Georgia never beats Florida, no matter how good they are. I'll go with history there. The new wrinkle to this division, though, has been added by the Gamecocks of South Carolina and their coach, Steve Spurrier. The 'Cocks continue to improve. They will pass Tennessee in the SEC pecking order. This is not good news for Vols coach Phil Fulmer. Just when the Vols were through with Spurrier, their nemesis ends up at South Carolina and becomes a pain in the Big Orange posterior there.

In the West, LSU looks to be favored in every game they play. I think they will be very good, and their toughest opponents are at home. Arkansas has a Heisman Trophy candidate in Darren McFadden, but enough off-field controversy for the National Enquirer. Auburn will be pretty decent, and Alabama will bounce back under new coach Nick Saban.

SEC Projections:

East
Georgia 11-1 7-1
Florida 10-2 6-2
South Carolina 9-3 5-3
Tennessee 7-5 4-4
Kentucky 5-7 2-6
Vanderbilt 4-8 1-7

West
LSU 12-0 8-0
Arkansas 9-3 5-3
Alabama 8-4 5-3
Auburn 8-4 4-4
Ole Miss 4-8 1-7
Mississippi State 3-9 0-8

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