Team Speed Kills Predicts the SEC

A group of nine Team Speed Kills contributors picked every game to be played by an SEC team to come up with our projected results for the season. As the team preview series projections were those of the writer doing the preview, this is our collective look at where we think each team will end up. (Tennessee, Missouri and Ole Miss fans...you might want to quit reading now...don’t say you haven’t been warned)

SEC West

Our group of contributors had the SEC West coming down to the Iron Bowl. In fact, as we had an even number of people doing the picks initially, we had to draw in some more picks for a tiebreaker. That tiebreaker has Alabama winning at Jordan-Hare to take the division with an undefeated regular season record. Auburn is projected to lose to Clemson and Alabama but otherwise run through the season to end up at 10-2.

We were also collectively high on LSU though losses to Alabama and Auburn placed them third in the division. Texas A&M, Arkansas and Mississippi State are projected to be either 7-5 or 6-6. Arkansas is again projected to start out slow with NovemBERT starting a week early at Ole Miss on October 28 and bringing three SEC wins in the last five weeks of the season. Ole Miss brings up the rear in the division with a 3-9 (0-8) record.

SEC East

Georgia was the (surprise?) team which came out on top of our poll in the East at 11-1 with the Bulldogs’ lone loss coming to Auburn. The difference in the division came down to five of the eight contributors picking Georgia to beat Florida in Jacksonville as Florida came out with a 6-2 SEC record (8-4 overall with losses to Michigan and Florida State).

A cluster of teams were clumped together as several games amongst East teams were close calls being picked 5-4 by our nine contributors that voted. Kentucky and South Carolina both ended up being picked to go 4-4 with the Gamecocks getting the head to head edge. Tennessee comes in fifth in the East with a 3-5 SEC record while Vanderbilt and Missouri are at the bottom of the division.

SEC Championship

Georgia and Alabama were picked to meet up in Atlanta with Alabama the unanimous pick to win the SEC.

Week One

While many of the games should be gimmes (including the already completed Arkansas-Florida A&M matchup), there are some intriguing games in week one. Given that we are the SBNation’s SEC site, the confidence in Alabama besting Florida State is high, but the contributors overall are less confident in South Carolina and Florida. Tennessee’s game against Georgia Tech and the Texas A&M-UCLA game were those that split opinion the most with a small majority of contributors picking the Bruins and Georgia Tech drawing a third of the votes.

If you want to join in making picks with the Team Speed Kills contributors, join our pick’em group on Yahoo!