2023 SEC Preseason Power Rankings

Per Brian Edwards:

I think we can break the SEC into five different tiers this season. The top tier is comprised of the legit contenders for a College Football Playoff berth. I believe that group consists of Georgia, LSU, Alabama and Tennessee.

The second tier has four teams – Ole Miss, Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas A&M – that should win at least seven games, probably more like eight or nine, and could get to 10 wins if they can stay healthy and catch a few breaks.

Let’s dub our third group, which consists of Mississippi St. and South Carolina, as our wild-card tier. These teams have two of the nation’s premier quarterbacks so on any given Saturday, they’ve got a chance against anybody when Spencer Rattler or Will Rogers are at their best. With that said, there are some roster deficiencies that keep them a touch below the teams in our second tier.

The fourth tier is comprised of Florida, Missouri and Auburn. These are teams that will still be looking to clinch bowl eligibility in November and have eight-win ceilings. And if injuries take their toll and some things go South, going 5-7 or even 4-8 isn’t out of the question.

Finally, Vanderbilt get its own tier, although there were some positive developments coming out of Nashville in November of Clark Lea’s second season at the helm.

Ouch, Gators.  That’s gotta hurt, especially since Brian’s a Gator.  (He even issues a warning at the end not to be shocked if Florida goes 4-8.  Me?  I’ll be too happy to be shocked if that happens.)

Here’s what he has to say about Georgia.

After going more than four decades without winning a national title, Georgia has won back-to-back natties. The Bulldogs return six starters on offense and seven on defense from a team that finished 15-0 straight up and 8-7 against the spread. They’ve upgraded their wide-receiver room by taking the best wideout from a pair of SEC rivals, Mississippi St. (Rara Thomas) and Missouri (Dominic Lovett). UGA was +3,065 in net yardage in 2022 and won 13 of 15 games by double-digit margins, beating six SEC opponents by 20 points or more. If there’s a weakness, it’s a lack of experience at the QB position. However, I think Carson Beck passes the eye test enough that I made a small wager on him to win the Heisman Trophy at 25/1 odds. I think UGA fans will tell you they have three quality QBs, with Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton being the other two. With Oklahoma coming off the schedule due to its 2024 entrance into the SEC, Phil Steele’s preseason magazine has Kirby Smart’s team with the SEC’s easiest schedule and ranks it No. 56 nationally (Arkansas at No. 38 has the SEC’s next-easiest slate).  [Emphasis added.]

That highlighted sentence is pretty damned impressive, if you ask me.

“Money for me, not for thee?”

Shot.

Deion Sanders: Realignment voice of reason.

"Everybody’s chasing the bag. Then you get mad at the players when they chase it. How is that? How do the grownups get mad at the players for chasing it when the colleges are chasing it?”https://t.co/3pk1uay3Nu pic.twitter.com/ybRacQSbx6

— David Ubben (@davidubben) August 4, 2023

Chaser ($$).

Here is what is legitimately special about college sports: Regionalism, and that any school can field a team if it likes, any school can use sports as the front door to its university, something to brag about, something to unify. There is still something quaint and endearing about it. Go to a field hockey, track or any other non-revenue event and you see authentic college sports. Even on the revenue side, go to a major college football or basketball game and you see what should be protected: The passion, the sense of pride and belonging to something bigger. That hasn’t been lost the last few years with players suddenly having NIL rights. College sports is still special and worth protecting.

But what’s driving realignment isn’t regionalism or a desire to spread the good of sports fairly around the country. It’s money. And college presidents and the NCAA cannot go to Congress now and with any credibility ask for limits on what athletes can get.

And one on the house from Oregon State’s athletic director:

“Conference realignment just doesn’t make sense anymore. What this enterprise was built on was regionality and rivalries. That is gone. That is leaving the Pac-12. Some of the most special pieces about our model is regionality of competition and rivalries. Those things are forgotten.”

I wish I could say I take some degree of satisfaction from watching more folks come around to my long held point of view.  I’d much rather have been proven wrong, though.

The odds that I’m going to keep the blog going after this season shrink by the day, I’m afraid.

A really stupid and futile gesture

Aw, this is cute.

Statement from the Pac-12 Conference: pic.twitter.com/XKwEqw9A3C

— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) August 5, 2023

Who’s this “we” you’re talking about, anyway?

I, for one, welcome our new private equity overlords.

Well, well, well.   Look at what the smartest guys in the room are cooking up now.

Florida State University is working with JPMorgan Chase to explore how the school’s athletic department could raise capital from institutional funds, such as private equity, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.

PE giant Sixth Street is in advanced talks to lead a possible investment, said the people, who were granted anonymity because the specifics are private. Institutional money has poured into professional sports in recent years, from the NBA and global soccer to F1 and golf, but this would break new ground by entering the multibillion-dollar world of college athletic departments.

The school is considering a structure similar to many of those pro sports investments, where commercial rights are rolled into a new company, the private equity fund invests in that entity, and then recoups its money via future media/sponsorship revenue. That’s how Silver Lake structured its investment into the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, and how CVC organized its $2.2 billion Spanish soccer deal with LaLiga.

The process comes as Florida State trustees and administrators publicly voice their concerns that the Seminoles, as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, are financially falling behind rival schools in the SEC and Big Ten. At a board meeting earlier in the week, Florida State’s president and athletic director both emphasized that barring a dramatic change in how the ACC distributes money, the school should explore opportunities to join other conferences. That would carry a $120 million exit fee.

If it comes to fruition, it’ll be a disaster for FSU, of course.  But I have to admit there’s a part of me hoping it does, simply so I can wallow in the satisfaction of the shock the Seminoles’ AD will feel the first time he’s ordered to cut athletic department costs across the board.  Including, one hopes, his salary.

“‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”

This is rich, especially considering the source.

The line from today I can't stop thinking about isn't surprising, but resonates and confirms how we got here. Was from a high-level source at a Big Ten school, about the league's lead media partner and its role in the latest expansion.

"They are running the conference."

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) August 4, 2023

Dude, you work for Mickey.  Cry me a river.

Also, this.

Hearing ESPN not happy about being shut out of the west coast markets by FOX. Pushing B12 to throw some schools a life raft to get west coast content.

— MHver3 (@MHver3) August 4, 2023

Wouldn’t be prudent

There's the question of whether the 12-team CFP will still reserve *six* spots for conference champions in 2024.

Exec Director Bill Hancock told me, "It’s too soon to say. The CFP Management Committee and the Board will discuss the future format when it becomes appropriate."

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 4, 2023

What are you waiting for, Bill?  To see if four lesser lights of the Pac-12 scoop up a few mid-major teams in a reconstituted Pac-12 that they proclaim is still a Power 5 conference?  Good luck selling the Big Ten and SEC on that.