SEC preseason rankings by unit (biased)

[MikeDeTiger]

Let's face it, everybody is biased.  I'm just honest enough to admit it.  Admitting bias is no cure for eliminating it, though.  And at least I can admit that.  And further, I can tell you how this list came to be, so you can thoughtfully mull it over or rashly dismiss it, or anything in between that's to your liking.  

This is a handful of people, usually 3 but sometimes more, from another site, and we do this every year.  One of us weights production, specifically returning production, more heavily, one is a true football guru, a legit X's and O's guy who ranks things more subjectively based mainly on what he saw watching all the games and knowing the coaching trends, being familiar with position coaches and their careers, while yet another is a recruiting guru tasked with weighting the 247 composite evals more heavily...a sort of talent ranking, although that's just a heavily weighted component.  Everybody is free to factor in other things, the goal is just to have opinions coming from different places.  Another lady occasionally participates, and I honestly don't know what she values most, but she doesn't participate in all of them.  Some other people occasionally pitch in, with the same story, I don't know what they base their lists on.  The ranks are then averaged into a single list.  

Oh, and we're all LSU fans.  Because it's an LSU site.  Make of that what you will.  

Also, these lists are mostly ~month old or so.  If somebody on your team (or mine) got suspended or injured, or got somebody back from injury, or anything like that just recently, it's not reflected here.  

If anybody should be interested, I can provide the rankings of each ballot based on the different criteria and the comments that went with each.  But I doubt anybody here will care all that much.  

One thing I've never actually done is check the previous years to see we did.  It's just for fun anyway, to get us through the last week.  

I'll start with

QUARTERBACKS

1)  Mizzou
2)  Bama
3)  Georgia
4)  Auburn
5)  Mississippi St.
6)  Ole Miss
7)  South Carolina
8)  (tie) LSU
8)  Tennessee
10)  Vanderbilt
11)  A&M
12)  Florida
13)  Arkansas
14)  Kentucky

We completely agree on the top three of Mizzou-Bama-Georgia and in that order, so let’s skip past that and get to the fun stuff.

A big outlier on Ole Miss, mainly because Ta'amu looked so *#%@! lost in the season's final two weeks.  But maybe that's unfair to him, as he did light up Kentucky and Arkansas to an almost absurd degree.  He's got a few 300 yard games under his belt, so maybe he gets a pass for his sub 50% completion rate games.  Counterpoint:  he goes to Ole Miss.

The other big disagreement was Vandy and Kyle Shurmur.  Some believe the guy who ranks 2nd in the league in yards/game and 6th in yds/attempt and passer rating is one of the league's worst QB situations.  He also had a TD/INT ratio of 26/10, second in the league in TD passes.  One looks at his solid numbers, though willingly conceding he's not going to compete with the league's top passers.  He doesn't have the high upside, but he is closer to the sure thing of a fully developed product.  You could take the bird in the hand.  

[MikeDeTiger]

RUNNING BACKS:  
(or..."It's exactly what you think it is)

1)  Alabama
2)  Georgia
3)  Mississippi St.
4)  Kentucky
5)  Mizzou
6)  Auburn
7)  Florida
8)  LSU
9)  A&M
10)  South Carolina
11)  Arkansas
12)  Ole Miss
13)  Tennessee 
14)  Vanderbilt

Compilation notes:
There was almost no disagreement here.  We precisely agreed on the top three and only had #4 and 5 flipped.  We also completely agreed on the bottom four squads, right down to the ranking order.  All that was left was the middle tier with only one major disagreement on what to do with Florida, which I think resides on how much you believe Scarlett can come back to his former self.  But we can usually find common ground on this...Alabama is f'n awesome and Vanderbilt is terrible.  

[MikeDeTiger]

WIDE RECEIVERS:

1)  Ole Miss
2)  South Carolina
3)  Mizzou
4)  Auburn
5)  UGA
6)  Texas A&M
7)  Alabama
8)  LSU
9)  Florida
10)  Arkansas
11)  Vanderbilt
12)  Kentucky
13)  Tennessee
14)  Mississppi St.  


Buncha LSU folks unanimously voted Ole Miss #1.  I feel like we should go sit in the corner or wash our mouths out with soap or something.  But maybe it just means the Rebel fleet is really that good.

[MikeDeTiger]

OFFENSIVE LINE:

1)  Mizzou
2)  Georgia
3)  Alabama
4)  Mississippi St.
5)  South Carolina
6)  Ole Miss
7)  Vanderbilt
8)  LSU
9)  A&M
10)  Arkansas
11)  Auburn
12)  Florida
13)  Kentucky
14)  Tennessee

Some in-fighting on what to do with LSU here.  Some votes overtly bullish, others penalizing seemingly based on the past and not projected-present.  Other noticeable divide was Clanga.  One vote thinks they will sorely miss Martinas Rankin.  Another voter disagrees with the value of "that one guy" on OL.  

"Consistently, the most highly rated OL who go on to careers in the NFL have almost no bearing on the overall quality of a line.  A line isn't as strong as its most powerful part, it's only as strong as its weakest member, since that's where people will attack.  It doesn't matter that Martez Ivey will be a high draft pick so long as everyone around him stinks.  Mr. Subjectivity concedes this when it comes to Greg Little at Ole Miss (and Florida).  Probably the two most hyped OL in the conference--and deservedly so--and neither can carry the unit by themselves to the top tier.  OL play is nearly immune to celebrity."  

[MikeDeTiger]

DEFENSIVE LINE:

As the 3-4 gets more and more popular, it gets harder to tease out the contributions of the linemen from the edge-rushing LBs.  On the whole I'm looking at how the line creates TFL, which is the primary job of the line, but sometimes those pesky LBs come in and steal the glory.  So ideally you'd want to make sure it's the linemen generating the pressure or clogging the middle.  Even if you have a group without dazzling numbers but a group of very active linebackers making things happen, it's probably the line making it happen by occupying the offensive front.  Defense is more interrelated statistically than the offense, so it requires a bit more feel to rate teams based on a statistical profile.  But for a crawfish bribe, most of us can be convinced to give it the ol' college try.   

1)  Mississippi St.
2)  Alabama
3)  Auburn
4)  (tie) Florida
4)  LSU
6)  Georgia
7)  Texas A&M
8)  South Carolina
9)  Mizzou
10)  Vanderbilt
11)  Ole Miss
12)  Tennessee
13)  (tie) Arkansas
13)  Kentucky

[MikeDeTiger]

LINEBACKERS:

1)  LSU
2)  Alabama
3)  Georgia
4)  South Carolina
5)  Auburn
6)  Texas A&M
7)  Mizzou
8)  Arkansas
9)  Florida
10)  Mississippi St.
11)  Kentucky
12)  Tennessee
13)  Ole Miss
14)  Vanderbilt

Some discussion that Florida probably winds up being better than this due to some more bodies coming in, but nobody had the balls to vote on it.  Breakout players are the hardest thing to project by any metric, and just eyeballing it, there's some inconsistency here.  Hey, I said this was biased.  Everybody likes David Reese though, but he needs help.  

Disagreement on Missouri.  They got dinged in one vote for overall quality of their defense, but it has to be noted there's 3 starters and over 200 tackles returning here.  

[MikeDeTiger]

DEFENSIVE BACKS:

1)  LSU
2)  Georgia
3)  Mississippi St.
4)  Alabama
5)  South Carolina
6)  Florida
7)  Auburn
8)  Kentucky
9)  Ole Miss
10)  Vanderbilt
11)  Tennessee
12)  Texas A&M
13)  Mizzou
14)  Arkansas

Not much difference in ballots other than some quibbling over where to put Vanderbilt, but not a big deal.  There's a chance for some of the usual suspects to improve, especially Florida if the talent starts to live up to the reputation.  Those guys took it on the chin last year tho, and I think they paid for it in a pre-season poll.  Alabama is expected to take a step back after their insane safety duo departed, but they're still stacked with talent and could wind up on top again.  Lot of transition in this group....feels like a lot of new names will be known by the end of the season.  Still, plenty of recognizable names to look forward to as about half of the players with at least 10 passes defended return.  

[MikeDeTiger]

Man, we do not like Tennessee.  

[Cincydawg]

The Vols were 0-8 in conference last year, as we all know.  They are in a deep hole.  They should make progress, but they will still be in a hole.

[OrangeAfroMan]

The Florida defense wasn't up to snuff last year because the offense kept going 3-and-out.  Same thing that happened in Muschamp's last year in Gainesville.  

These rankings are cute, though.  Except that it's 2018 now...they look like mindless end-of-2017 rankings.  UF gets Ole Miss' 2nd-best WR, and OM is #1, UF is #9?  Mmmkay.  


The voters for this would be right at home as old-school AP voters...just blindly move everyone up that didn't lose this week.  But even in the preseason mags, your previous-year's record tends to dictate your position rankings.  For whatever reason, people feel have the expectation that the parts and the whole trend similarly, when in reality, they do not.  

[bamajoe]

IMHO having Auburn and Stidham at four is way too low. I believe he is the best qb in the league. Tua has a chance but one half isn't enough to over vote Stidham.

Also Alabama at seven for wrs is way too low. The three freshman from last year are back and all are excellent. They couldn't help it that Hurts could not get the ball to them. They are as good as anybody in the league sans maybe Ole Miss.

Thirdly, Alabama has already lost two lbs for the season. Ergo they are overrated considerably. The starters are very good but the depth is not there.

[MikeDeTiger]

Beg your pardon for disrespecting the mighty Florida Gators. 

[MikeDeTiger]

IMHO having Auburn and Stidham at four is way too low. I believe he is the best qb in the league. Tua has a chance but one half isn't enough to over vote Stidham.

Thirdly, Alabama has already lost two lbs for the season. Ergo they are overrated considerably. The starters are very good but the depth is not there.

The crew really likes Anfernee Jennings and appear to expect big things from Dylan Moses and Mack Wilson.  A little thin maybe, but we expect a small group of guys who are performing at an all0conference level.  It's projection, and maybe depth gets them, who knows.  There's a lot of guesswork involved with trying to forecast and we're not gonna know all the little reports that come out of camps the way a hardcore fan will.  Reputation is also a hard thing to overcome, and Alabama has earned it in spades in the LB unit.  
Stidham at QB says more about the guys ahead of him than a knock on him.  He had a really good year last year and more is expected of him.  Like I said, it's all guesswork, but here's some of the stuff I dug out of the correspondence chain.
"Lock led the SEC in yards, QB rating, ypa, and our own adjusted ypa index.  Ok, he could have had a higher completion %, but he was the SEC's best QB last season, and he's back for more."
"The starter matters more, and Drew Lock just had one of the most prolific seasons in conference history, and he returns 3 of his top 4 receivers.  Yeah, new OC--and a pretty questionable one at that--but I'd be surprised if he didn't have another top shelf season."
"Hurts had a very good last year, particularly when you consider his running ability, and he's not even gonna start this year.  Tua is the man, but Bama has the luxury of an excellent running threat off the bench.  The rich get richer."
"Here's where the big picture comes into play.  Alabama probably could win 10 games without completing a single pass, and they still get to have (I hope) a QB controversy this August.  Hurts has somehow become so maligned he's arguably underrated.  Yeah, he's a limited passer, but one hell of a dynamic runner.  And limited as he might be, he still threw just one pick last year.  And there's the national title game hero Tua, who probably wins the starting job, and has much more upside as a passer."  
"Jake Fromm State Farm was pretty much everything the Bulldogs needed him to be, yet he still ranks just third.  That speaks more to the strength of the position in the conference, not on Fromm.  He's only going to get better."
"Fromm improved consistently across his freshman season, and seemed to even be ready for Bama in the title game.  And then there's Justin Fields, one of the more impressive QB recruits in recent memory.  It wouldn't surprise me if things get awkward as Kirby Smart tries to keep both happy.  Still, that's what you call a good problem." 
"Stidham was another guy who lived up to every bit of the hype.  His numbers were slightly more pedestrian than the other top QBs, but he still played at a near-elite level.  There is a small concern with the off-season surgery, but nothing to get hung up about."  
"Stidham is for real, and he proved it last season.  He passed for over 3k yards and had the highest completion % in the SEC at 66.5%.  Expect him to continue to play at a high level in 2018 as well."  
and while these aren't all, he took a small ding in one ballot:  "I'm not as sold on Jarrett Stidham as others are.  He's good, no doubt, but the running game, particularly Kerryon Johnson, made that offense go last year, and when he was out in the last two games, that became very obvious.  Call me skeptical he takes some big step this year without that constraint."  
So it's mostly not that we didn't like Stidham, more than we liked some other guys/units better.  The biggest thing to remember is it's all just pissing in the wind.  It's all for fun and like any other pre-season ranking it will all be meaningless in a month, and is just a pleasant way to kill some time.  

[Cincydawg]

"Reports" are that Fromm and Fields are looking good in camp.  I think it likely UGA goes to a dual QB system early in the year, and Fields will get significant PT against Austin Peay (duh), and perhaps after two series by Fromm.

This is always a handful to juggle and a lot depends on how they get along personally and with the team.  The Dawgs did it a while back with DJ Shockley, though some fans think he lost us a Florida game.

DJ I think does pretty well as an "analyst" on SECN.  Good for him.

The UGA OL appears to be the best they've ever had (to me).  A lot of returning starts and talent and depth.  Given their running back strengths, that suggests again the QB will have opportunities to throw often as not with defenses crowding the line.

If you don't crowd the line, back things will happen.  I don't see any concerning holes on this team anywhere.