Editor’s note: This article was adapted from Phil Steele’s college football preview magazine, which is available here.
Alabama and Georgia both have national title aspirations, but there are plenty of talented teams in the SEC.
Here is how I project each team in the conference will finish.
West
The Tide rolled through the regular season last year, beating every team by 20 or more points despite taking their foot off the gas in most fourth quarters. They narrowly got past Georgia in the SEC title game, and shockingly lost 44-16 to Clemson in the National Championship. That loss should have the Tide playing with a chip on their shoulder, and they look stronger on both offense and defense. They have 12 starters back, including quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (3,966 pass yards, 43-6 TD-interception ratio in 2018), who will be a contender for the Heisman again this season.
