re: Who wins the SEC?

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With the WR room that LSU has what QB would turn down that opportunity?

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Four of his top five receivers from last season left.

Anderson - returning
Lacy - gone
Taylor - NFL
Daniels - transferred to Miami
Williams - NFL

Anderson is a stud. Beyond that who knows.

We all made fun of Texas and Ewers for his ugly deep balls and lots of quick short passes, but it is easy to forget that the interior of that OL gave up a ton of pressure and the OL tended to block much better on outside zone instead of inside zone. Lots of off-tackle and pulling guards and not a lot of true "power" football. Go back and look at either UGA game, and it becomes obvious that Texas could not run up the middle regardless of the set, and Georgia then used that gang up on the OZ plays and made Texas extremely one-dimensional. Yes, UGA had the players to do so and exploited it mercilessly, but schematically, lots of teams attacked Texas the same way.

Go back and think about Sark at Bama. If Sark can't run up the middle, lots of the flexibility of his offense goes away. I don't think we have seen "peak Sark" at Texas yet on Offense and this season will probably be much closer to what it will evolve into at Texas.

One of the interesting things I found out/forgot about was Texas lost their top back in Fall camp last year, and their 2nd string guy still ended up with 1k yards. Baxter was supposed to be the all purpose back that could do both between the tackles and to the outside, which (if he is fully healthy) would be a big improvement in the RB rotation for Texas. Texas last year had a ton of speed out of the backfield, but didn't really have a guy that would could consistently run between the tackles.

On top of that, PFF heavily dinged their C/LG group as run blockers and I expect the next group of OL to get more push (or at least not get driven back as much) in the ground game. Having one amazing tackle and a solid second one made people gloss over how bad the interior was in getting a push in the run game.

With the Texas D plus two solid backs, Manning doesn't have to be "great" for them to win. If Texas can replace the consistency of the short passes from Ewers with a consistent ground game, look out. If Texas can run inside and outside this fall, plus having the threat that Manning will run, lots of team will be forced to creep up and let Manning throw deep. Texas lost a lot of speed and experience on the outside, but increased in versatility at TE. If Manning can consistently throw the deep ball, we will be closer to seeing the big chunk play Sark--O from the Bama days than the lower yards per play seen in the first few years at Texas.

When I started to dive into this, I sort of blew off the Texas hype as just that. What is wild is so far the O at Texas is actually behind where historically Sark wants it, and the D is right in line with the D-coordinator's historic production. If Sark gets the O closer to his desired big-play chunk-yardage machine we all loved to hate in 19 and 20 at Bama, I don't see how they aren't a lock for the SEC title game based on what they have returning and how things line up for them. Even if they replicate last year's yard per play (36th in the nation at 6.0) their D and schedule make them an understandable/justifiable pick for the title game.

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Bama Defense has 8 starters returning (most in the SEC) and I don't know if that's an advantage or disadvantage. They gave up around 140 yards on the ground per game and nearly 200 in the air (over 10 yards per completion). 2 years ago, Bama with 8 returning defensive starters would be scary. Now, it's kind of encouraging. - Bama Offense has 6 returning starters from a middle of the pack group...meh

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t's hard to predict that when the year you're referencing is the first year of a coaching regime that includes new defensive and offensive schemes. There's a learning curve for adjusting to the new schemes that, more times than not, produces not-so-favorable results in year 1 that don't happen in year 2.

My guess is, from a defensive perspective, we will not see the breakdowns in year two that we saw in year one, because a lot of that last year was the players playing in a new defensive scheme. The encouraging thing is the recruiting has not dropped off at all. Recruiting is the life blood of college football and players matter. So, I highly doubt we'll continue the dominance Saban had but I wouldn't count on Bama wallowing in "mediocrity" with only 8 and 9 win seasons as the norm. I highly doubt that happens.

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The thread is "Who wins the SEC?". If Saban was HC at Bama and had 8 returning starters on Defense, whoever I would choose for 2nd would be a distant 2nd. As it is...I think Bama will be in the mix...but still think that Texas is ahead of everyone else...then Bama, Georgia and probably LSU will be vying for whoever is 2nd best in the conference.

When you factor in schedule strength ( Phil Steele top 50 schedule ranking):

By difficulty from hardest to easiest:

2. Mississippi State
3. Arkansas
4. South Carolina
6. LSU
7. Oklahoma
9. Kentucky
12. Florida
14. aTm
15. Texas
17. Auburn
21. Bama
28. Vandy
44. Georgia
47. Tennessee
48. Ole Miss
50 Missouri

Maybe I should have given Georgia a better shot at the top.

eta...inadvertently hit submit button too soon

LSU has some good money odds...if I had to bet the House though...UT@Austin is a safe bet to win..


Texas +300
Georgia +350
alabama +500
LSU +950

Texas vs LSU

The coattail riders from Austin will learn eventually that it's not that easy in this conference. It may take losing in Starkville or getting blown out in Austin by some unranked team, but it'll happen.

Luckily, Alabama gets Vandy at home this year.

I'm going to take LSU. Texas will be really good, but winning at Florida and Georgia is a tall drink.