Steele’s 2019 preseason SEC teams

One last snapshot from the Preview, and then you’re on your own.  (Buy the mag, in other words.)  Here’s his four preseason conference teams.

That’s 116 players in total.  Here’s the breakdown by individual teams, with the first team numbers in parentheses:

• Alabama 15 (10!)
• LSU 13 (4)
• Auburn 9 (2)
• Georgia 9 (4)
• Missouri 9 (2)
• Florida 8 (1)
• Ole Miss 8 (0)
• South Carolina 8 (1)
• Texas A&M 8 (2)
• Arkansas 7 (0)
• Kentucky 6 (1)
• Mississippi State 6 (0)
• Tennessee 5 (1)
• Vanderbilt 5 (1)

And a few random observations:

• You may not like seeing it, but this is yet another confirmation that Alabama is still on a completely different level of existence, talentwise, from the rest of the SEC.
• Gee, maybe Tennessee isn’t quite back yet.
• Everyone talks about Florida being the clear number two team in the East, but between its schedule and talent base, Mizzou could be the sneaky number two instead.
• LSU matched Georgia with four picks on the first team and finished with thirteen players overall, four better than the Dawgs.  The Tigers aren’t Georgia’s problem this year, but, as always, they’ll be Florida’s.
• Another reminder as South Carolina struggles its way to bowl eligibility:  the ‘Cocks aren’t a bad team; they’re a decent team with a bad schedule.
• Auburn has a total of two offensive players on all four teams.  Gus has his work cut out for him, it seems.
• You can pick a few bones here and there — four LSU offensive linemen seems a stretch to me, at least based on what I saw at their spring game — but this is one of the more conservative projections I’ve seen from Steele, who usually has more than a few real stretches on his lists.  I could be missing something, but he only projects  a single true freshman, LSU’s Stingley, into the entire 116.

Your thoughts?

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