Five bold, crazy, stupid, daring, wacky SEC college football predictions for the 2020 season.
5 (Potentially) Stupid SEC Predictions
As if everything we’re going through in the college football world – and in real life – isn’t stupid enough, let’s take it all down a few levels.
What if you were told last year at this time that Lane Kiffin would be at Ole Miss and Mike Leach at Mississippi State?
What if you were told that Lynn Bowden would turn out to be a star quarterback at Kentucky, and Tennessee would end up winning a bowl game after starting 1-4 with home losses to Georgia State and BYU?
What if you were told last year at this time that LSU would come up with – arguably – the greatest season in college football history, and Joe Burrow would win the Heisman and be the no-brainer No. 1 overall pick in the draft?
They’re the wild and wacky curveballs that make each season fun. Enough safe and sane, it’s time for dumb and dangerous with five (potentially) stupid predictions thrown at the wall to see if they stick.
To keep this fun, this entire Stick To Sports piece is in a safe, COVID-19-free bubble – for the most part.
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
2020 SEC Team Previews
East Florida | Georgia | Kentucky | Missouri
South Carolina | Tennessee | Vanderbilt
West Alabama | Arkansas | Auburn | LSU
Miss State | Ole Miss | Texas A&M
– 2020 CFN SEC Preview
– SEC Week 1 Instant Predictions
– CFN All-SEC Team & Top 30 Players
– CFN SEC Team-By-Team Predictions
– SEC Schedule, Most Interesting Games
5. Texas A&M at Auburn is going to be massive
We’re getting (potentially) stupid here, but no, the insanity hasn’t crept in yet to make the call that Texas A&M at Auburn on December 5th will be for the West’s spot in the SEC Championship.
Buuuuuuut …
No. No, no, no. Even with Texas A&M getting to host LSU and Florida, it’s still asking way too much to expect it to be 8-1 – assume a loss at Alabama – before rolling into Jordan-Hare.
Auburn has to go to both Georgia and Alabama. Even if it splits those, beating LSU at home is still a tall task. However, win two of those three games, annnnnnnnd …
NO. No, no, no. I can’t make that leap. It’s still going to be the Alabama at LSU game on November 14th that turns out to be the biggest deal in the SEC West, and there are plenty of other landmines for both teams along the way.
However, the scheduled regular season finale will still be huge, but for other reasons.
This year, merely having a winning record will be a tall task for most schools. Just six – Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee – were able to come up with a winning campaign in SEC play last year, and now it’s all SEC games all of the time. So Auburn and Texas A&M being above .500 really will mean something.
However, when it comes to grouchy fan bases, the loser of this game will have to deal with a whole lot of guff.
Unless some sort of scandal pops up – let’s just see where this Derrius Guice thing goes at LSU – or someone leaves for another gig or retires, Will Muschamp at South Carolina and Derek Mason at Vanderbilt are the two SEC coaches in the most danger of losing their jobs with a bad season.
There’s no possible chance Jimbo Fisher gets fired at Texas A&M – two words: buyout clause – but another underwhelming campaign would put the pressure on in Year Four to at least make some sort of a move to be a factor in the SEC West.
In his third season after going 17-9 in the first two years, this is when the program is supposed to rise up and rock. It might happen, but lose at Auburn and it’ll likely be a pedestrian 6-4/7-3 campaign.
Gus Malzahn took his team to a BCS Championship game, has beaten Alabama as often as could reasonably be asked for – going 3-4 – and he has two SEC Championship appearances in his seven years.
And it never seems to be enough.
He hasn’t lost fewer than four games since his first season, and his job security – media creation or not – always seems to be on a one-bad-game-away alert.
The loser of A&M-Auburn is going to have the pressure on in the offseason, and the winner might just end up playing for the SE…
NO. I can’t do it.
NEXT: Florida and Georgia will be good, and …
4. Florida and Georgia will be the only teams in the East that finish with a winning record
No, this year’s SEC schedule isn’t any sort of a new normal.
It’s possible the league realizes the benefits of a ten-game conference slate, but going forward there’s no way everyone will ditch the layup games against Group of Five and FCS programs.
The financial side will work once the fans are allowed back in full. More to the point, teams are going to quickly be sick of pushing for 5-5 every year.
And this season will expose that.
Missouri isn’t bad. Stick it in the Big 12 and it might be pushing for the top four or even a spot in the conference title game. It wouldn’t be there with Clemson or Notre Dame, but it would certainly be a factor for a top five spot in the ACC.
Check out the Tiger schedule – find three wins, much less six.
Forget about Vanderbilt getting to six victories to have a winning season. Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee are all 7-5ish teams in normal times with their normal non-conference schedules, but this year all three will be fighting just to get to five wins.
– 2020 CFN SEC 5-Year Program Rankings
Florida and Georgia will be superstars, and while they could each be nailed on the wrong day – like the South Carolina game last year for the Dawgs, or the clunker against Mizzou for the Gators in 2018 – they should get through their East slates without too much of an issue.
And that’s the (potentially) stupid call.
Florida and Georgia will have winning records with ease, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee will all do enough to get to 5-5, and Missouri and Vanderbilt will fight the good fights to prepare for 2021.
NEXT: KJ Costello and Mississippi State
3. KJ Costello will be a THING in the 2021 NFL Draft
I’m going to ballpark my lifetime giant NFL pro prospect quarterback calls at a robust .384.
For every Jordan Love Will Be A 1st Round Pick declaration, there’s a whiff on DeShone Kizer.
For every Colin Kaepernick Can Be A Dangerous NFL Starter type of analysis, there’s a misfire on the thought that Dak Prescott was going to be Tim Tebow at the next level.
Every time I puff my chest out on the calls that Lamar Jackson would be awesome and Johnny Manziel absolutely wouldn’t, some friend will cheerfully point out that I went hard on the idea that Danny Wuerffel would win as many Super Bowls as Peyton Manning – which was more about thinking Manning wouldn’t win anything big than Wuerffel being great, but there’s no redeeming that one.
I’m sticking with my core belief that it was absolutely ridiculous that Baker Mayfield and Joe Burrow each went No. 1 overall.
And here’s my big one for 2020, which I was in on from the moment the marriage of right coach-right player transfer was complete.
Forget (potentially) stupid. I’m going full-on, batspit-crazy, QAnon-level whack job off-the-rails
KJ Costello is going to be this year’s superstar high-riser in the NFL Draft world.
He won’t go ahead of Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields, and the guy first has to secure the gig at Mississippi State, but he’s 6-5 and 225 with the Stanford-smarts, big deep arm, and the tools to put up astronomical numbers in the Mike Leach system.
At least as a head coach, Leach will have his most talented NFL-caliber quarterback ever – and yes, that includes Gardner Minshew.
The SEC defenses Leach’s offense will roll against are far better than the Pac-12 and Big 12 versions it dealt with, but this is going to work. Expect high-tempo, full-throttle, throw, throw, throw with Costello leading the SEC in passing on the way to being the No. 8ish or so pick.
NEXT: The craziest day on the SEC schedule will be …
2. December 12th is going to be crazy
Forgive the breaking of the no-COVID-19 bubble to all of this, but to keep it hopeful and fun, let’s hope and assume that everyone is fine and healthy and the SEC gets its full season of football in without any major hiccups.
But what about 2020 would suggest that this is all going to be smooth?
– 2020 SEC Predictions For Every Game
Dog the Big Ten all you want for how it handled its football business over the last few weeks, but its schedule was smart. It had the big games early, with the idea that if they had to be played later, they could be fit into any one of the open dates built into the overall plan.
The SEC doesn’t have that.
Every SEC team has just one open date, and they’re all in the middle of the campaign. Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are off on October 24th, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee are off on October 31st, and Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss and Missouri are off on November 7th.
Those open dates in the middle of the year can be used in case any of the games over the first half of the campaign have to be moved, but overall there’s not a whole lot of wiggle room with ten games jammed into 11 weeks.
But here’s the real problem – Auburn vs. Alabama is on November 26th. So are LSU vs. Texas A&M and Kentucky vs. Florida. If for any reason any of those can’t go off as normal, there’s only one shot left at a make-up date, and that’s the open date of December 12th – the week before the SEC Championship on December 19th.
Also missing any possible rescheduling until December 12th? Florida vs. Georgia, Alabama vs. LSU, Auburn vs. Texas A&M, and Florida vs. Tennessee.
Long story short, there’s almost no flexibility. That means the potential for two things, and both could happen. 1) December 12th is full of big games that couldn’t be played earlier, and/or 2) the SEC Championship gets moved to the day after Christmas so the conference can fit in needed make-up games on the 12th and the 19th.
NEXT: The SEC and College Football Playoff
1. Three SEC teams will make the College Football Playoff
If we’re really doing this, the most likely scenario will either be the three Power Five champs and UCF finally getting a cookie, or two SEC teams and the other two P5 champions, but driving with a 3-wood is for squares …
Three SEC teams are going to make the College Football Playoff.
The CFP has already stated that it’s business as usual. If there are college football games, the CFP will end up ranking the top four at the end of the fun, even if it’s more difficult this year.
– 50 Most Interesting Games of 2020
So here’s the (potentially) stupid call.
The ACC champion will be in. It’s almost certainly going to be Clemson, but don’t be so shocked if it’s Notre Dame, or someone else if the Tigers lose in South Bend and drop the regular season finale at Virginia Tech.
The Big 12 will be a really, really fun mess. Oklahoma is still the star, but Texas and Oklahoma State are fantastic, and everyone other than Kansas is good enough to beat anyone else on the right day.
For the most part, assume the same unwritten CFP rules still apply. Win your Power Five conference and do it with one loss or none, and you’re almost certainly in. This year, you’re absolutely in.
Also assume that the top Group of Five champion – AAC, Conference USA and Sun Belt are the ones still playing – has to go unbeaten to at least be in the discussion.
The Sun Belt and Conference USA champs wouldn’t have enough juice – for most, no giant non-conference games to hang their hats on – to make the final four no matter what, but UCF, Memphis, Cincinnati, or anyone who could go unbeaten in the AAC might have a shot.
Don’t expect the AAC champ to go unbeaten.
– CFN 2020 Preseason Rankings 1-76
Remember, the College Football Playoff’s job is to pick what it things are the four best teams. The SEC won’t be tested outside of its own conference, so for this one year, the idea of going 8-2 and finishing third might not be the dream-killer it normally is.
Let’s say Georgia loses to Alabama on October 17th, but beats everyone else. The Alabama-LSU winner goes off to the SEC Championship, the loser finishes 9-1, and then the winner and Georgia both end up being considered good enough to be among the final top four no matter what happens in the SEC Championship.
And maybe it’s Florida.
If the Gators beat Georgia, the LSU game matters. Maybe Georgia beats Alabama. Or maybe Georgia goes 8-2, and its two losses are to the Gators and the Crimson Tide, who square off in the SEC Championship with each at 10-0.
There are a ton of other ways to do this, but to cut to the chase, there will be one team outside of the SEC Championship that will be worth of the top four, and the two teams in Atlanta on December 19th will certainly be worthy.
2020 SEC Team Previews
East Florida | Georgia | Kentucky | Missouri
South Carolina | Tennessee | Vanderbilt
West Alabama | Arkansas | Auburn | LSU
Miss State | Ole Miss | Texas A&M
– 2020 CFN SEC Preview
– SEC Week 1 Instant Predictions
– CFN All-SEC Team & Top 30 Players
– CFN SEC Team-By-Team Predictions
– SEC Schedule, Most Interesting Games
