2023 SEC Football Media Day 4 Preview: Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee
SEC Football Kickoff Media Days are onto their last day 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).
SEC Football Fun Facts
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.
SEC Football Media Day Team Schedules This Week
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 Ole Miss, South Carolina and Tennessee. More on this later on Shemon and Sheppard.
Ole Miss Rebels
The Rebels won their first seven games last season and seemed to be well on their way to posting back-to-back 10- win seasons for the second time in program history (1959-60). Then their luck turned and they lost five of their last six games to finish outside the final AP Top 25 with an 8-5 record.
In his first season in Oxford, Southern California transfer Jaxson Dart finished with the sixth-highest Total QBR in the SEC (74.3) and his 21 touchdowns responsible for were tied for 8th-most in the conference.
Ole Miss began last season by winning its first seven games. However, the Rebels lost five of their last six. Over that stretch, they allowed over 35 points per game after giving up just over 17 per game in their first seven games.
In an effort solve the defensive woes, head coach Lane Kiffin turned to former Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding to run the Rebels’ unit.
In five seasons under Golding (2018-22), the Crimson Tide defense was one of the most efficient in FBS and ranked in the top 10 in scoring defense. On the other hand, over that same stretch, the Rebels defense was 83rd in FBS in efficiency (46 rating out of 100) and 89th in scoring defense (29.8 PPG allowed).
South Carolina Gamecocks
It’s year 3 of the Shane Beamer Era in Columbia and the first two went well. Beamer joined “The Head Ball Coach” Steve Spurrier (2005-06) as the only head coaches in program history to win at least seven games in each of their first two seasons. After inheriting a team that went 2-8 in 2020, Beamer won seven games in 2021 and eight games in 2022.
South Carolina finished the season on a three-game winning streak where it averaged 44 points and 458 yards per game. In their first 10 games the Gamecocks averaged 29 points and 355 yards.
The key to the turnaround was former four-star recruit Spencer Rattler, who transferred to South Carolina from Oklahoma looking for a new start. It was a tough transition for Rattler until his breakout game against No. 5 Tennessee late in November in which he threw for 438 yards and a school-record 6 TD passes. Rattler’s final 3 games of last season were vastly better than his start in Columbia.
Rattler and the offense will have to perform for a new coordinator as Dowell Loggains replaces Marcus Satterfield, who left for the same position at Nebraska.
Tennessee Volunteers
Tennessee is coming off an 11-2 campaign, its best since 2001. The Vols have won 11 games in consecutive seasons just once in program history – 1997 and 1998 – culminating in a national title that 1998 season.
Tennessee was carried by its offense in 2022, leading the FBS in yards per game and points per game all while going at the fastest pace in the nation, averaging 27.2 seconds in between snaps.
Josh Heupel will look to continue his reputation as a coach with impressive offensive numbers. Since he became UCF’s head coach in 2018, he’s one of 4 FBS coaches to average at least 40 PPG and 500 YPG in that span (min. 20 games). The other 3 coaches have all made multiple CFP appearances.