The SEC in the College Football Preview Magazines
by kleph on Jun 9, 2011 3:18 PM EDT
in SEC Football
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PrintThe first wave of college football preview magazines have hit the shelves and just about all of them are calling for a banner year from the Southeastern Conference. Every one expects an SEC team to contend for the 2011 BCS National Championship and all but one predicts the league's representative will bring the crystal fooball home for the seventh year in a row.
All rankings in the top 25 are bold. Those in the top 10 are highlighted in red and those between 11 and 20 are highlighted in blue.
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Sporting News only provides a top 25 list. Phil Steele only provides a top 52 list.
The consensus is clearly that Alabama and LSU are the cream of the conference and Arkansas ain't too shabby either. Past that it's a bit puzzling. Georgia is ranked as high as No. 9 by Phil Steele but doesn't even make The Sporting News' top 25. While not in anyone's Top Ten, South Carolina gets solid marks across the board by the mags.
Just about everyone speaks well about Mississippi State but varied pretty wildly when it came to ranking the Bulldogs. Sporting News and Lindy's seemed to think Auburn's fall from grace won't be as bad as many seem to be predicting. Lindy's and Athlon believe Florida is a Top 20 team while Phil Steele and Sporting News disagree.
Now let's see how they each broke down the conference...
With one exception, the pre-season mags all agree on the bottom half of the conference. Every title concurred that Tennessee, Kentucky and Vandy will bring up the back of the SEC East in that order. There was consensus about the middle of the SEC West - Arkansas at No. 3 and Mississippi State at No. 4 - while everyone but Phil Steele put Ole Miss right above Auburn in the division cellar.
The larger disagreements were at the top of the divisions. Alabama was everyone's top pick in the SEC West except for The Sporting News. And there was almost no agreement on the order of top three in the East. But each and every one agreed whoever represented the West on Dec. 3 in the Georgia Dome would best the Eastern team and head to New Orleans play for the national championship.
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SEC Championship: Alabama over Georgia
Phil Steele is big on the SEC this year. He's got three teams in the Top Ten and is bullish on just about everyone but Florida and Auburn. "No question this is y far the best league," he writes. He cites Auburn's loss of 34 scholarship players and penchant for close wins last season as proof of a major dropoff for the Tigers.
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SEC Championship: LSU over South Carolina
This is easily the contrarian prediction for the 2011 season. Not only does The Sporting News have LSU besting Alabama in the West, they opine the Tigers will represent the SEC in New Orleans on Jan. 9. They also go against the convention by picking Georgia as No. 3 in the East and outside of their entire Top 25. The magazine seems to be putting a premium on the the loss of offensive talent in Tuscaloosa and Athens.
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SEC Championship: Alabama over South Carolina
Lindy's probably has the most conservative predictions for the 2011 season of all the preview magazines. Concerns on various offenses among the top teams doesn't dampen the title's confidence in the respective defenses. And while the magazine expects Auburn to end up with a W/L in the .500 range, they still believe the Tigers are a top 25 team.
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SEC Championship: Alabama over Georgia
If you live in Gainesville, this is the magazine for you. Athlon is high on the Gators and believes the available talent is abundant enough to smooth the transition of the new coaching regime. The questions about Stephen Garcia and the fact South Carolina dropped five games last season prompted the magazine to put the Gamecocks behind Florida in the East.
UPDATE 06/10: Here is Stassen's comprehensive breakdown of the preseason magazine reports. HT @DrSaturday.
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The only thing that preview magazines are good for is for something to read on plane trips near the beginning of the season. Other than that…there isn’t really a point to them other than to read them just to see how many mistakes there are.
Also…why is everyone so high on LSU all of the sudden? Are they forgetting that Les Miles is still the coach? Which of course means at least one loss due to an inablitly to manage a clock.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
i find they are a reasonable barometer
to perceptions of teams in the off season. and ones like steele’s are a great general resource for details about various teams (schedule, lineup, players, etc) you might not be as readily versed on as those in your own conference.
Remember the Rose Bowl: The Story of the Alabama Crimson Tide & the Grandaddy of Them All
Not to mention they’re an excellent resource for information on rosters, depth charts, recent history and the like. Keeps it all in one place.
Plus, I enjoy Athlon’s feature of getting rival coaches to give a soundbite about each team. They’re not always instructive, but they give an idea of how coaches think about other teams.
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Yeah, but they still aren’t really worth the price. I’d rather just ask a fan of said team (made much easier here at SB Nation) about what they think.
Phil Steele…etc. They have to follow 100+ teams. They know 1/10th at best about each team.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
I don’t know about the rest of them, but keep in mind that this is literally all Phil Steele and his crew do. They watch just about every college football game from the last year, breaking everything down, look at the numbers.
If you’re looking for an accurate prediction of the order of finish in each conference, these magazines aren’t worth any more than anyone else’s thoughts, but the level of detail about each team in Steele’s magazine is almost unmatched.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
Agreed on the Steele detail
I used to really enjoy the Sporting News guide, but that thing’s fallen completely off the map in the last 2-3 years.
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 10, 2011 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, well, Steele is one of the better ones. But they are all worth a grain of salt. Maybe Steele’s is worth a couple grains.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
Going on the Steele method...
Based on a lack of correlation from one year to the next on turnover margin, and a large impact from the margin in a given season. Basically an expectation of a return to the mean.
Expect upswings from…
Mississippi(-6), Vanderbilt(-4), and Kentucky(-4).
Downswings from…
Alabama(12), Georgia(10), LSU, and Mississippi State(+7)
and minimal change from…
Auburn(5), Tennessee(4), Florida(2), Arkansas(1), and South Carolina(0)
Obviously this is without factoring anything else in like returning starters or schedule.
Having said that, I have zero clue what the LSU thing is… this is a team with 6 VERY CLOSE wins(and 2 close losses) with a pretty big positive margin. Their defense should be pretty good again, but as much as I had to listen to crap about Patrick Peterson last year his absence shouldn’t be a good thing. They do return a lot of starters, but the new OC is going to need to be a miracle worker to get good QB play. I reserve the right to revise my opinion if Mettenburger comes out and starts lighting folks up.
I look at them as a third or fourth place west team.
I will also say...
that last offseason I thought Steele was WRONG on Oklahoma… and he was to the degree of winning a NC. But I thought Oklahoma was staring 6-6 in the face. He is a pretty good prognosticator… at least relative to me. At times.
i tend to be
deeply skeptical about the idea that LSU is a top5, much less a top 3 team as well. Bama seems like a clear West favorite to me.
Alabama is the favorite here too...
I also question Arkansas a bit, based on Mallet… but I expect the West to be down quite a bit, so if they even get adequate quarterbacking I figure they are top 3 barring Mettenberger being a revelation.
Mississippi State will be pretty good, and I don’t expect Auburn to fail as spectacularly as people expect. I do believe Chizik is a pretty mediocre coach, but as long as Malzahn is there and they stick with a hands off approach they will absolutely not slip past Mississippi. I’m still amazed the guy is just an OC, he is the closest thing to an Urban Meyer or Steve Spurrier I’ve seen in years. He may be a bad interviewer but good lord I despise playing one of his teams.
Interesting. But yeah, that is pretty much my feelings on LSU as well. I just don’t get why they are getting so much love.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
look at it conversely
who do you put above them? alabama and lsu both dodge the two teams folks reckon are going to vie for the east. miss state gets them both including georgia on the road. arkansas gets s. carolina as well as texas a&m and missouri ooc.
Remember the Rose Bowl: The Story of the Alabama Crimson Tide & the Grandaddy of Them All
I was talking about nationally.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
His formula
Only applies to teams TO margins in the double-digits one way or the other.
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 10, 2011 11:40 AM EDT up reply actions
Are they forgetting that Les Miles is still the coach?
Given his track record as the most successful coach in LSU history… that’s sort of a positive. LSU does tend to play to the level of its opponents under Miles, but the team has been trending positively, improving its SEC win totals for two straight years, and the team is brimming with young talent. And firing our incompetent OC has definitely improved the prognosis for the offense.
I think Bama’s the team to beat out West, but LSU is #2 for the reasons y’all point out — a lot of people come back from a really good team.
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
And The Valley Shook!
I self-indulgently tweet @ATVSPoseur
Well, if Tennessee counts to 11 y’all lose that game, and if Urban Meyer isn’t sleeping through a fake field goal attempt, y’all lose that game.
But hey, that’s why we play the games.
I just think Les Miles is good for a loss (by his own accord) a year.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.
So “that’s why we play the games,” but Les Miles has some magic hex that will always lose one game a year…right…
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 10, 2011 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions
It has happened every year (for the most part) since he took over at LSU. He has also lucked his way into a lot of wins as well. Must be that New Orleans voodoo. :)
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
Yeah, no other coaches ever get lucky
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 11, 2011 12:30 AM EDT up reply actions
Les Miles has gotten a bit more than the average.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
Not really
His just get more attention.
Every national champion of the BCS era has gotten a couple of lucky breaks.
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 13, 2011 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
If an LSU defensive back doesn’t fall down… twice… we beat Arkansas. If SEC refs actually enforced personal fouls against Nick Fairley, we might beat Auburn.
It’s called selection bias. You remember the events that support your theory, and forget the ones that don’t. I don’t remember this luck against Ole Miss or Bama in 2009.
LSU has gotten breaks, and they’ve had breaks go against them. That is the way of the world.
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
And The Valley Shook!
I self-indulgently tweet @ATVSPoseur
There isn't a national champion in the last 10 years
That didn’t receive a few fortunate bounces.
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 11, 2011 12:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Are they forgetting that Les Miles is still the coach?
You mean the Les Miles that went 11-2 last year, has a national title and returns 15 starters? Yeah, how could anybody possibly think LSU will be good…
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
I can think of a lot of coaches that have won a national title who weren’t really all that good. I’m sure you could as well.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
And I can think of just as many reasons why Les is actually a pretty good coach. I mean wins and losses do count, right?
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 10, 2011 3:58 PM EDT up reply actions
At some point
The house is going to win. Miles has been running a LOT on lucky breaks.
by Durdens Wrath on Jun 10, 2011 4:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Been hearing that since 2005
You’d think at a certain point the guy might deserve a little credit.
Writer (and a handsome one at that),
And the Valley Shook
by Billy Gomila on Jun 10, 2011 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions
And
Perhaps a lot of the people calling Miles lucky don’t understand the odds of the events where he “gambles.” Many of his famed fourth down conversions come on plays where the likelihood of picking them up is well above 50-50.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
update to the post
here is stassen’s comprehensive breakdown of the magazines’ predictions for the 2011 season.
Remember the Rose Bowl: The Story of the Alabama Crimson Tide & the Grandaddy of Them All
oh hey
three SEC West teams are consensus top 16. All three are on UT’s schedule. I envy Georgia (who plays none of them) right now.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Jun 10, 2011 4:00 PM EDT reply actions
That is exactly why I think UGA should be (and probably will be according to Vegas) the favorite to win the East. Their schedule is as smooth as butter compared to Carolina, Florida and Tennessee.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
I tend to have Carolina as the favorite
But Georgia is 2nd. Carolina, by the way, only plays one of the top three in the West.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Jun 10, 2011 6:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Nothing wrong with picking Carolina. But I wouldn’t trust Garcia.
Editor at Alligator Army - The Florida Gators Blog
The Florida Gators - The most despised team in all of college football - Which is fantastic.
I really don't
But they do have an easier schedule than UT and Florida, and I trust Secretariat.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Go Bolts! Out West, go Preds! Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Jun 11, 2011 9:13 AM EDT up reply actions
That’s why South Carolina beating Georgia is of vital importance. Picking up that tiebreaker basically wipes out that one-game advantage UGA has in the scheduling of West teams.
Team Speed Kills -- SBNation's SEC Blog
If you're so inclined, follow me @Year2
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