2023 SEC Football Media Day 3 Preview: Alabama Underdog? Say What?

SEC Football Kickoff Media Days are ongoing until Thursday at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville, TN. It is the first time the event is held in Nashville and the third time it will be held outside of the Birmingham, AL metro area. It was in Atlanta in 2018 and last year.

No school has won three straight major poll national championships and despite losing 41% of its overall production, according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Georgia Bulldogs seek to become the first to accomplish the feat.

As for winning the SEC Football championship, ESPN Analytics gives Georgia the highest chance of winning the conference title. The Bulldogs are seeking their second straight league crown and third since Kirby Smart took over in 2016 (2017 & 2022).

The ESPN Analytics numbers align fairly closely with Caesars Sportsbook, which has Georgia as the odds-on favorite to win the conference (-115) with Alabama (+240) and LSU (+450) the only other schools with better than 10-1 odds.

The 2023 season will be the final one with divisions for the SEC as the conference will eliminate them in 2024 with the arrival of the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns to the league.

Georgia and Alabama are the ESPN Analytics favorites to win the SEC East and West, respectively, and reach the conference championship game.

Seven SEC Football teams are in the FPI top 25, the most of any conference.  Twelve of the SEC’s 14 teams have a better than a 50% chance of reaching bowl eligibility according to ESPN Analytics.

As for recruiting, Alabama and Georgia have the top-2 ranked signing classes for this season with LSU coming in at No. 6. Oklahoma and Texas, which will join the SEC in 2024, also have top-5 classes.

Monday: LSU, Missouri and Texas A&M
Tuesday: Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt
Wednesday: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Kentucky
Thursday: Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee

I will be doing previews all week for every team.  Today I will preview Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Kentucky.  More on this later on Shemon and Sheppard.

Alabama fell short of the national championship game last season for just the third time since the Playoff was introduced nine seasons ago. The previous two times – after losing in the semifinal in 2014 and missing the Playoff in 2019 – the Crimson Tide bounced back to win the title.

With Pete Golding and Bill O’Brien leaving for new opportunities, Nick Saban was once again tasked with replacing his coordinators this offseason.

Leading the defense this year will be a familiar face in Kevin Steele, who returns to Tuscaloosa for his third stint on Nick Saban’s staff and his second as defensive coordinator.

He also previously served as the defensive coordinator for a variety of major programs in Clemson, LSU, Auburn and most recently Miami.

Pete Golding took over the Crimson Tide defense in 2019 after serving as co-defensive coordinator in 2018. In the four years since, the identity of the Crimson Tide has shifted from a defensive powerhouse to an offensive juggernaut.

Taking the reins on offense is former Notre Dame assistant Tommy Rees. The Fighting Irish made the College Football Playoff in 2020 in his first year as offensive coordinator. Under his guidance, the Irish were one of 16 teams in FBS to average at least 31 points per game in each of the past three seasons.

Just a hunch, but something tells me that Alabama will be in the hunt for a CFP spot when it's all said and done.  This team will also thrive this year as an alleged "underdog".

After four straight losing seasons from 2017-20, Arkansas has finished each of the past two seasons with bowl wins under Sam Pittman. The Razorbacks have won nearly as many conference games in three seasons under Pittman (10) as they did in seven seasons under Bret Bielema and Chad Morris (11).

KJ Jefferson is back for his third season as the Hogs starting quarterback. He’s gone 16-8 as a starter over the past two seasons. He’s passed for over 5,300 yards, rushed for over 1,300 yards and accounted for 60 touchdowns over the past two seasons.

Jefferson is one of five SEC players with multiple seasons with 2,500 passing yards and 500 rushing yards over the past 25 years. With another 2,500/500-yard season this year he’ll match Tim Tebow for the most in SEC history.

Jefferson started every game for Arkansas in 2021, leading the Hogs to a 9-4 record, their most wins in a season since 2011 (11-2). Last year, Jefferson was 7-4 as a starter and helped the Razorbacks offense take another step forward. But he did miss two games to injury (Arkansas lost both), and the offense nose-dived, as the team averaged just 13.5 PPG without him.

The Gators are coming off their second consecutive 6-7 season after losing 30-3 to Oregon State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

It could have been a 30-0 shutout but Adam Mihalek kicked a 40-yard field goal with 37 seconds left to extend Florida’s streak of 436 consecutive games without being shut out, which is an FBS record.

It’s the second time since 1950 that the Gators finished under .500 in consecutive seasons. They went 4-17-1 across the 1978 and 1979 seasons. Florida hasn’t had *three* straight losing seasons since 1945-47.

Billy Napier became just the fourth Florida coach to post a losing record in his first season since the SEC was founded in 1933, and the first since Charley Pell went 0-10-1 in 1979. The Gators bounced back to finish 8-4 in 1980, Pell’s second season.

The biggest question for Florida will try to answer this offseason is who will replace QB Anthony Richardson, who was selected by the Colts with the No. 4 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. He was just the second Gators QB to go in the top 10 picks of the NFL Draft in the Common Draft Era (since 1967).

The way is now clear for redshirt junior Graham Mertz, who transferred from Wisconsin after going 19-13 in three seasons with the Badgers.

Mertz took some steps forward as a passer in 2022, posting a better TD-Int than his previous two seasons and pushing the ball down the field more often.

The Gators defense has to improve if they want to make noise in what is often regarded as the toughest conference in the nation this year. Patrick Toney is off to the NFL as the Cardinals defensive backs coach.

He was replaced as co-defensive coordinator by Austin Armstrong, who spent the last two seasons as defensive coordinator at Southern Miss after serving as linebackers coach for Billy Napier at UL Lafayette in 2020.

On the plus side, Florida did generate 22 turnovers on defense, tied with Mississippi State and Tennessee for 2nd most in the SEC behind only South Carolina (23).

After recording the fourth 10-win season in program history in 2021, the Wildcats regressed slightly last season, finishing 7-6 overall and finishing the season with a 21-0 loss to Iowa in the Music City Bowl to snap a four-year winning streak in bowl games.

Mark Stoops did pick up seven wins to bring his total to 66 wins in 10 seasons as the Wildcats’ head coach. That broke the program record of 60 victories set by Bear Bryant in his eight seasons in Lexington.

Stoops was eager to welcome Liam Coen back to his staff as offensive coordinator. Coen teamed with quarterback Will Levis to score their fair share of points in 2021, but Coen departed for the then-Super Bowl champion Rams last season to become their offensive coordinator.

Former 49ers offensive staffer Rich Scangarello took over as OC in 2022 but was fired following a disappointing season.

Quarterback Devin Leary transferred in from NC State after a pectoral muscle injury cut his 2022 season short.  Leary will have plenty of options to chose from as the Wildcats return three receivers who finished with at least 400 receiving yards last season:

Barion Brown (628, 4 TD), Dane Key (519, 6 TD) and Tayvion Robinson (497, 3 TD). Chris Rodriguez Jr. is no longer in the backfield, but incoming transfer Ray Davis finished fourth in the SEC with 1,042 rushing yards last season at Vanderbilt.

The slow college football offseason drip is about to be opened up into a full flow. College football can't get here soon enough. But this week we get some soundbites to react to with SEC Media Days. This got me thinking; what is the biggest question for each of the SEC teams? 2023 will be the final season of the SEC as we've known it for the last 15 years. This is the final season with an East and West division before Oklahoma and Texas come into the conference in 2024.. There have been two coaching changes in the conference this off season. Hugh Freeze is back in the SEC, now with Auburn. And Zach Arnett takes over in Starkville after Mike Leach tragically passed away following the 2022 season.

Programs at the top of the conference are breaking in new quarterbacks. Alabama has serious question marks. Georgia is replacing the only quarterback to win a national championship in Athens in the last 40 years. And will a change of scenery help former 5-star Graham Mertz match his skillset with results. Will Tennessee keep their offensive production up with Hendon Hooker gone and Joe Milton taking over. I'm going to stay away from quarterback question marks for SEC programs. That's always going to be the biggest question mark when the position is unanswered. Ahead of the SEC Media Days let's look at the biggest question for each SEC team heading into the 2023 season.

The first decade of Alabama's dominance under Nick Saban was predicated on  elite defense. College football has changed to where you can't win exclusively with defense, but a good one makes like a lot easier. Georgia has flown by Alabama on the defensive side of the ball. I think that's been the biggest difference between the two programs the last couple of years. I wonder if Nick has looked at what Kirby has done with his defense and is going to try to push his program back towards a defensive dominant force.

Last season the pass defense was atrocious in Fayetteville. The Hogs ranked dead last in the the nation in pass defense last season. Last season's Freshman All-SEC CB Quincey McAdoo is rumored to miss the season with injuries from a car crash this spring. They went transfer portaling to bring in a pair of corners to help fill the void. The defense needs to improve if Arkansas is going to push for a middle of the pack finish in the West.

The last couple of seasons have been tough on the plains. Last season there were only 2 conference wins (both 3-point wins at home). Hugh Freeze knows how to win in the SEC and I have no doubt Auburn will be much better after a few years in charge. But was the problem in Auburn a coaching problem or a talent problem? Freeze will get the best out of the roster, but I don't know what that means.

The Bill Napier era in Gainesville got off to a great start with a win over Utah opening night. Close losses to Kentucky and Tennessee dampened to mood around the program. The rest of the way the Gators beat who they should have and lost to who they should have. Until the last SEC game of the year when they lost at Vanderbilt and the trashing from Oregon State in the bowl game. There was a lot of circumstance around the program that led to the late season dip. But the Gators have the most difficult schedule in the country this season, and will have one of the most difficult next season. The Gators need to get some early season wins if they want to have some momentum going into the back half of the schedule which is very difficult.

There are not any real questions in Athens this season. They are in that upper echelon of programs that just replace NFL draftee with 5-star prospect. Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State have all been on this level at some point in the last decade. The Dawgs have a really easy schedule by SEC standards in 2023. Every other team in the East has serious question marks, and their crossover opponents are Auburn and Ole Miss. I have no doubt they will be playing in the SEC title game for a 3rd straight year. Their opponent (LSU or Alabama most likely) will be the most talented roster they will have played all year. Will their lack of elite opponents come back to bite them when it matters most?

When Kentucky is playing it's best football under Mark Stoops, the offensive line is playing at a really high level. That was not the case in 2022. They've brought in two transfers for the offensive line, and running back Ray Davis from Vanderbilt to help reestablish the running game.

LSU won the SEC West in Brian Kelly's first season in Baton Rouge. I think that came as a surprise to most non-LSU fans. It was not a perfect season for the Tigers though. They lost SEC games to Tennessee and Texas A&M before getting spanked in the SEC Championship Game. LSU loses Tennessee and replaces them with Missouri this year. If LSU can get back to Atlanta, they'll be going into the new look SEC with all the momentum in the world.

Unfortunately this is the biggest question around the Bulldogs this offseason. Mike Leach was one of the greatest characters in college football. But he was also one of the best offensive minds in the game. The Bulldogs promoted DC Zach Arnett from within to take over for Leach. I really want Will Rogers and the Mississippi State offense have a season for the record books as an homage to the former coach. But it's impossible to know what the offense will look like for an entire season without Leach.

Go back and look at the Tigers 2022 season. They had 6 losses, but fumbled the game at Auburn away late, was the only team to stay in a game with Georgia in the regular season, and lost by 1 possession to Florida and Kentucky. Mizzou was really close last season but could not figure out a way to win games. The Tigers bring back 13 starters from last season- tied for second most in the conference.

Only Colorado has brought in more transfers the last two offseason than the Rebels. And that's because they brought in 51 new players this year alone. Ole Miss has been the one program to embrace the portal in the SEC the most. They have 25 transfer portal players coming in for 2023. Ole Miss has never been able to "legally" compete with recruiting high-school talent against the blue bloods of the conference. But they have shown an ability to go after, and land, big fish in the transfer portal.

Not the Virginia Tech version that was dominated by special teams. The South Carolina version of winning close games. 2022 ended with a loss, but there is still a ton of momentum around the Gamecocks program. They blasted Tennessee at home, followed it up with their first win over Clemson since 2013, and lost a close bowl game to Notre Dame. Can South Carolina take the momentum from 2022 and springboard themselves to a successful 2023.

Since Josh Heupel showed up in Knoxville, the offense has been humming. The defense has had issues at timed though. Alabama was on the ropes last season early on and the defense let them back in the game. The offense scored 38 at South Carolina and they got blown out because the defense allowed 63 points. And an early season game against Pitt last season was pushed to OT because the defense couldn't come up with a stop at the right time. If Tennessee wants to take the step from fun team who can beat anyone because of their offense to elite program with national championship expectations, that side of the ball will need to improve.

Since Josh Heupel showed up in Knoxville the Vols offense has been rolling. But when looking at the best offenses in the SEC Alabama has been the most consistent team on that side of the ball

The Aggies were the most disappointing team in all of college football last season. The offense looked stale for most of the season. The program decided to bring in Bobby Petrino for some new thoughts on that side of the ball. But both the offense and defense were problems last year. Texas A&M has been recruiting at the level of Alabama and Georgia, and should be competitive with them on the field. If 2023 is another down year, the momentum will be gone in Aggieland.

Clark Lea has been at Vandy for a few years now and we are starting to see the fruits of his labor. The Commanders ended 2022 with wins in 2 of the last 3 games with the wins coming against Kentucky and Florida. They lost a close game against Missouri as well. If they get the right breaks the Commodores could be looking down at someone in the East.