A much too early forecast for 2025 Southeastern Conference football

Jadan Baugh (13) is a reason why the Gators will contend in 2025 (Photo by Chris Spears)

The 2024 college football season is in the books with the Ohio State Buckeyes crowned as champions, the second consecutive year a Big Ten team has won the national championship. The expanded College Football Playoff benefitted Ohio State, which became only the second team (LSU 2007 was the first) in the Associated Press top 25 poll era to win the national championship with two losses.

Southeastern Conference fans will be hearing Big Ten superiority at least for another year, at which time perhaps an SEC team can make a successful national championship run. This is not the end of the world although you would find it difficult to talk to a rational Alabama or Georgia fan. Bama hasn’t won a national championship since 2020 and Georgia, despite expectations that it would at least make the national championship game in each of the last two years, has rolled snake eyes since going back-to-back in 2021-22.

Not only was the 2024 season the first for an expanded CFP, but it was also the first for a 16-team Southeastern Conference. Going through an SEC schedule unscathed was already one of the tougher feats in all of college football, but the additions of Texas and Oklahoma only made things more difficult. Georgia became the first SEC champion since 2007 LSU to win the SEC title with two losses. Texas and Tennessee each had two losses, but both made the playoff. Alabama lost three games in the regular season and finished with four losses, its first season with fewer than 10 wins and four losses since Nick Saban’s first year in Tuscaloosa in 2007. Ole Miss, when healthy, was probably the best team in the country, yet the Rebels lost three times. At the end of the regular season South Carolina was on a 6-game winning tear but three losses in the first half of the season doomed the Gamecocks’ CFP chances.

Any way you slice it, this was a down year for the Southeastern Conference. We can theorize that expansion to 16 teams has had the effect of weakening the league’s chances of winning another national title. We can theorize that because of the transfer portal, players who used to give the SEC next man up quality depth have moved on to become starters somewhere else. We can also theorize that it was a down year for SEC quarterbacks. When the season began Carson Beck (Georgia), Jalen Milroe (Alabama) and Quinn Ewers were all projected as No. 1 draft picks. Beck has transferred to Miami. As for Milroe and Ewers, if either one is drafted first two rounds it might be a major surprise.

There was plenty of talent in the SEC. No doubt about that, but it wasn’t concentrated on the Georgia and Alabama rosters like before and that might not be a bad thing. Looking ahead to the 2025 season, there is reason to believe some of the teams at or near the top might not be among the usual suspects.

Based on rosters as they are January 21, here is a too early look at the SEC for 2025:

1. Texas: The long-awaited Arch Manning era will begin. Does Archie’s grandson live up to the hype? Can Steve Sarkisian (a) put an offensive line together so that the Longhorns can (b) run the football with any consistency? The defense returns a lot of moving pieces and that will carry the Longhorns.

2. Georgia: Can Georgia win a national championship with Gunner Stockton at quarterback? Probably not unless Kirby Smart puts together a beastly offensive line and a smash mouth offensive approach to take advantage of Nate Frazier. The defense has to be better than it was in 2024 but Kirby has a ton of former 4-star and 5-star recruits who will be on the field. Shaky pick at No. 2.

3. FLORIDA: Surprised? You shouldn’t be. The Gators have one of the two best quarterbacks in the league -- and perhaps the entire country -- in DJ Lagway to go with stud running backs like Jadan Baugh and Ja’Kobi Jackson, an offensive line led by first team All-America center Jake Slaughter and left tackle Austin Barber, plus a defense that turned the corner in November, got after quarterbacks and turned opponents over.  

4. South Carolina: Shane Beamer has a legit quarterback in LaNorris Sellers and a stud running back from the portal in Rahsul Faison, who gained 1,198 yards at Utah State. If the Gamecocks can find some explosiveness at wide receiver the offense will be dynamic. The defense will be solid, led by pass rusher Dylan Stewart and safety Jalon Kilgore.  

5.Alabama: Kalen DeBoer has explosive talent on the outside in wide receivers Ryan Williams and Germie Bernard, but unless the second year coach can find someone who can get the ball to them, the offense could be very, very average. Jalen Milroe has gone to the NFL and right now the only replacement is Ty Simpson. He doesn’t scare anyone. The defense will have to carry the Tide or else it will be a very long year by Bama standards.

6. LSU: Brian Kelly has a quarterback who can fling it in Garrett Nussmeier and he added a serious deep threat from the portal in former Kentucky wide receiver Barion Brown. The Tigers still can’t run the football and they have to rebuild an offensive line that was exposed by Florida (six sacks allowed for -44 yards). Defense has never been the strong suit for LSU since Kelly became the head coach. LSU will have to outscore people. Again.  

7. Tennessee: Nico Iamaleava is a very good quarterback, but $8 million good? There is a lack of speed on the outside and no running back capable of filling Dylan Sampson’s shoes. Not only that, four-fifths of the offensive line is gone. Is the defense good enough to buy time for Josh Heupel to find playmakers? It better be.

8. Oklahoma: Brent Venables came up with the coup of the transfer portal in Washington State’s John Mateer, the best available quarterback. He is the cure or an anemic offense. The defense is going to be much improved.

9. Ole Miss: The revolving door continues in Oxford. Out with a slew of former transfers, in with their replacements from the portal. Lane Kiffin teams will always score points and Austin Simmons will be the right triggerman. Finding replacements for Chris Paul, Walter Nolen and Princely Umanmielen on defense will be the big issue.

10. Texas A&M: The Aggies went heavy into the portal to replace outgoing defenders. How well Mike Elko can turn them into a functional unit will determine 2025. Marcel Reed is a legit dual threat QB but he will be without electric wide receiver Noah Thomas, who transferred to Georgia.

11. Vanderbilt: The Commodores won seven games in large part because Diego Pavia is a QB who inspires teammates to play out of their minds. Clark Lea went heavy into the portal to load up on both lines of scrimmage. If the Commodores can run the football, they’ll win seven or eight in the fall.

12. Missouri: Eli Drinkwitz landed Penn State backup QB Beau Pribula in the portal. Now all Eli has to do is find some receivers and running backs. He needs a front seven too. Missouri will benefit from the easiest schedule in the SEC.

13. Auburn: Stanford transfer Ashton Daniels and Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold will duke it out for the starting QB job. Either one should be an upgrade from Peyton Thorne. Hugh Freeze brought in an electric wide receiver in Eric Singleton from Georgia Tech. If the defense comes through Auburn will be the surprise team in the SEC.

14. Arkansas: The Hogs have a QB in Taylen Green and they went a season without HBC Sam Pittman divorcing OC Bobby Petrino. What they don’t have are playmakers on the outside and experience on the back end of the defense. They will have to win games in shootout fashion.

15. Kentucky: Wasn’t it only August when everyone was proclaiming Mark Stoops as one of the top ten coaches in the country? Funny what a 4-8 record will do for you. Now the QB the Wildcats banked the future on -- Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff -- has retired from football and Gavin Wimsatt, who had 17 starts at QB at Rutgers prior to Kentucky, is in the portal again. The two stud wide receivers (Barion Brown and Dane Key) have transferred and their two best defensive players (NT Deone Walker and LB Jamon Dumas-Johnson) have declared for the NFL. Long, long season in the forecast.

16. Mississippi State: Now that Vanderbilt has gone respectable, someone has to be the SEC’s favorite homecoming opponent. The Bulldogs went 2-10 last year. With some luck they could win four this year.