In a new-look SEC, two of the league’s most old-line football powers will prevail

For fans of Southeastern Conference football teams, 2024 is bringing a world turned upside down.

Consider:

▪ For the first time since 1991, SEC teams are not divided into East and West divisions.

▪ After the SEC went the past 12 seasons as a 14-team league, the arrivals of former Big 12 powers Oklahoma and Texas mean it has reached a sweet 16 of members.

Rather than matching division champions, the SEC Championship Game will feature the teams that finish No. 1 and No. 2 in the 16-team standings.

▪ For the first time since the start of the 2007 season, Nick Saban will not be calling the shots on the Alabama sideline. Arguably the greatest college football coach of all-time, Saban took his seven national championships into retirement after the Crimson Tide fell to Michigan in last season’s College Football Playoff semifinals.

He will work this season as a studio analyst for ESPN.

▪ The best SEC game of each week will NOT be broadcast by CBS for the first time since 1995.

Starting this fall, the Disney-owned ESPN and ABC have exclusive rights to carry the entire inventory of games distributed by the Southeastern Conference.

▪ Though not SEC specific, the path to the national title will be very different in 2024, as the four-team College Football Playoff is giving way to a 12-team bracket.

To be determined is how many playoff bids — Three? Four? Dare one dream, five? — a 16-team SEC can garner.

In this season of profound SEC football transformation, here are some key storylines to watch:

New kids on the block

Texas and Oklahoma are both entering the SEC at relative high ebbs.

Coach Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa last season en route to a 12-2 season that ended with a loss to Washington in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

At Oklahoma, coach Brent Venables’ Sooners upset then-No. 3 Texas in the final Big 12 rendition of the Red River Rivalry and put up a double-digit win season of their own at 10-3.

In their SEC debuts, Texas appears to have been granted a far more manageable league schedule than Oklahoma.

With the Longhorns and Sooners continuing their tradition of playing each other on a neutral field in Dallas, it is Texas that only has three true league road games in 2024, while Oklahoma only has three conference home games (that will reverse next season, of course).

Oklahoma opens with Tennessee, has Texas in the Red River Rivalry, plays at Mississippi and finishes with a killer three-game stretch of at Missouri, Alabama and at LSU.

Texas, meanwhile, plays only one team, No. 1 Georgia, that was ranked among the SEC’s top seven teams in the league’s preseason media poll.

The Longhorns will also play all three of the lowest-rated teams in the preseason poll, No. 14 Arkansas, No. 15 Mississippi State and No. 16 Vanderbilt.

It is hard to imagine how the SEC schedule-makers could have been any more hospitable to the Longhorns.

The history of new SEC teams

The coming season will be the third Southeastern Conference expansion in the past 32 years.

Below is how the previous teams that entered the SEC via expansion have fared in their initial seasons in the league:

In 1992, Arkansas and South Carolina joined the Southeastern Conference.

Arkansas: The Razorbacks went 3-7-1 overall and 3-4-1 in the SEC in their debut season of 1992. Arkansas followed that up by going 6-4-1 (4-3-1 SEC) in 1993 and 4-7 (2-6) in 1994.

South Carolina: The Gamecocks put up a record of 5-6 overall and 3-5 in the SEC in their league premier in 1992. South Carolina then proceeded to go 4-7 (2-6 SEC) in 1993 and 7-5 (4-4) in 1994.

It was 2012 when the SEC next expanded by adding Missouri and Texas A&M.

Missouri: The Tigers struggled in their initial SEC season, going 5-7 overall and 2-6 in league play in 2012.

However, coach Gary Pinkel’s Tigers thrived over the next two seasons, winning the SEC East in back-to-back years by going 12-2 (7-1 SEC) in 2013 and 11-3 (7-1) in 2014.

Texas A&M: The Aggies came into the SEC with a flourish, going 11-2 (6-2 SEC) in 2012 behind the magic of Johnny Manziel.

Texas A&M followed up that boffo debut by going 9-4 (4-4 SEC) in 2013 and 8-5 (3-5) in 2014.

A&M remains one of four incumbent SEC football programs that has never played in an SEC Championship Game. The other three are Kentucky, Mississippi and Vanderbilt.

Coaches on the hot seat

One way in which the SEC is not changing is in its unforgiving fan stance toward coaching imperfection. At least three Southeastern Conference head coaches enter 2024 on scalding-hot seats.

▪ Sam Pittman, Arkansas: In four seasons as boss Hog, Pittman is 12-2 against nonconference foes and 2-0 in bowl games.

The problem is, Pittman is 11-23 in SEC contests and is coming off a horrid 2023 in which the Razorbacks lost seven of eight league games and finished 4-8 overall.

In what was either the last act of a desperate head coach or an inspired bit of coaching ingenuity, Pittman has brought in Bobby Petrino — whose previous stint (head man from 2008-2011) coaching at Arkansas ended in infamy — to run the Razorbacks offense in 2024.

▪ Billy Napier, Florida: After a stellar run (40-12 from 2016 through 2021) as coach at Louisiana, Napier has endured an all-out slog in his first two seasons as the Gators’ head man.

Under Napier, Florida is 11-14 overall, 6-10 in SEC games and has won only twice in 12 away or neutral-site games.

In what is the epitome of a must-win year, Napier has drawn what, on paper, appears to be one of the toughest schedules in college football history.

Among its four nonconference games, Florida is playing three power conference foes — No. 19 Miami (ACC), Central Florida (Big 12) and at No. 10 Florida State (ACC).

In its league schedule, Florida drew four of the teams ranked in the top five of the SEC preseason media poll — No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Texas, No. 4 Ole Miss and No. 5 LSU.

The Gators are the only team in the SEC playing as many as four of the preseason top-five teams in the league.

UF also has a road game at Tennessee and home games with Texas A&M and a Kentucky team that has beaten Florida three straight and four out of six.

▪ Clark Lea, Vanderbilt: Vandy had gone 3-19 in the two seasons prior to Clark Lea’s arrival, so the former Notre Dame defensive coordinator inherited a major rebuild.

Problem is, Lea’s three-year tenure has, so far, shown scant signs of building. Lea is a woeful 9-27 as Commodores head man, and an even worse 2-22 in the SEC.

Given the historical difficulty of winning in football at Vanderbilt, Lea should likely get more time. Thing is, Vandy is in the midst of a $300 million investment in athletics that includes a major renovation of the FirstBank Stadium (nee Vanderbilt Stadium).

The risk for Lea if he doesn’t get something going this year is that Vanderbilt will feel compelled to seek the new hope that comes from a coaching change to go along with its upgraded facilities.

Predictions

▪ Georgia will survive a brutal schedule — road games at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss — to make the SEC Championship Game.

▪ Awaiting the Bulldogs there will be a familiar foe. Alabama, in its first season under Kalen DeBoer, will take advantage of a manageable league schedule — at home vs. Georgia and at LSU are the only games with preseason top-five league foes — to make its first post-Sabanic trip to the SEC title game.

▪ Georgia will win the SEC Championship Game.

▪ The Bulldogs, Alabama, LSU and Texas will give Greg Sankey’s league four of the 12 teams in the College Football Playoff.

▪ Joining the SEC quartet in the playoff will be Iowa, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State from the Big Ten; Utah from the Big 12; Clemson from the ACC; independent power Notre Dame; and the Mountain West Conference’s Boise State, representing the Group of Five.

▪ At the end of the first 12-team playoff, Ohio State will be the national champion.

Now, let’s play ball.

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