The SEC

The SEC is the strongest conference overall winning the last three national championship games with a combined score of 103-52. For those not aware, the SEC is broken up into two divisions, the East and the West. At the end of the regular season, the division champs play in the conference championship game and the winner gets an automatic BCS bid to represent the SEC and it looks like Florida is on the way again.

SEC EAST
It seems almost certain the Florida Gators will win the SEC East with their very weak schedule. The only game that may pose a problem is the road game at LSU where they’ve recently struggled. Even if the Gators blow that game, they are still going to win the SEC East. No other team can compete with Florida in the East. The Gators return their entire starting defense and Tebow is back for his final season. For all you Bulldog lovers, without Moreno and Stafford, Georgia will be looking up all season long and their thin secondary is going to be exposed on opening day. They are going to be in the L column quickly as they have to face a very strong Oklahoma State team on the road (OSU may have the strongest offensive trio in Zac Robinson, Dez Bryant and Kendall Hunter). Tennessee has a new coach who just fired up the Gators with his most recent rants over recruiting. The Vols have an untested QB and are weak at the O line. It’s not even worth my breath to talk about South Carolina, Vandy or Kentucky.

SEC WEST
The SEC West is a bit more unpredictable but with The Matador’s crystal ball, the clouds are clearing. You have three teams that can legitimately win the SEC West–LSU, Alabama and Ole Miss. Most are favoring LSU. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because of their strength at running back, but who knows. LSU will lose key games because they lost key players at the D line and O line positions. Jefferson, their QB, is still suspect at best but he did have a strong Chick-fil-A Bowl, showing signs of potential and stability. Alabama is going to have a sick defense which rivals the Gators. My concern is their offensive production. I don’t see them scoring enough points to keep up with their SEC rivals. We will learn a lot about Bama on September 5th, when they face VaTech in Atlanta. Either way, the team is not strong enough to be on top. In the end, my team out of the West who will be standing strong is Ole Miss. They are bringing back all their play makers on offense including my Heisman hopeful long shot Jevan Snead. This team will score a lot of points with McCluster and Hodge catching the ball and Bolden anchoring the backfield–and most importantly they don’t have to face the revengeful Gators in the regular season. I recognize they don’t have a lot of depth on the O line and their defense needs improvement, but their offense should take them all the way to the promised land.

Most exciting team to watch: Auburn. They have a new coach in Chiznik, a very difficult schedule, questions at QB, untested players, but one heck of a defense. They won’t win the West but they sure will make it entertaining.