College Football Future picks: “Cannibalization” is a term that is frequently associated with the Southeastern Conference and the SEC West Division epitomizes that phenomenon. With the Alabama Crimson Tide, LSU Tigers, and Auburn Tigers as the favorites, the Ole Miss Rebels and Mississippi State Bulldogs as upstarts, and the Texas A&M Aggies and Arkansas Razorbacks as potentially dangerous rebuilding teams, the SEC West is powerful, loaded, and potentially ripe for surprises. Auburn won the West last year in a dream season in which every bounce went their way and Lady Luck smiled upon them while Alabama paid the price of its hubris and LSU was down a notch on defense. All of that is likely to change in 2013.
At the Top
The great irony of the Auburn Tigers this year is that they will almost certainly be a better team in 2014 and yet are likely to lose more games than they did last year when they went 12-2 and lost the BCS championship game. A daunting schedule that includes SEC road games at Mississippi State, at Ole Miss, at Georgia, and at Alabama may be too much for any team.
The Crimson Tide is always an obvious choice in the SEC West and they get a favorable SEC schedule in which one of their four SEC road games is against a team with a winning conference record last year.
LSU has the catch-22 of always recruiting top-rated classes and then having them raided by the NFL before the players become seniors. The Tigers showed marked improvement on offense last year with offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and that should continue after one year with his pro style system.
Mississippi Burning
Both the Ole Miss Rebels and Mississippi State Bulldogs are expecting big years and could be dark horse contenders. With Bo Wallace at Ole Miss and Dak Prescott at State, the Rebels and Bulldogs feature two of the top QB’s in the SEC.
Speaking of quarterbacks, the Texas A&M Aggies now must prove that there is life after Johnny Manziel who was something of a one man team for the past two years.
Hogs Ready for Market?
Second-year head coach Brett Bielema spent last year going through the growing pains of a change from the spread to his much preferred power running attack. With 14 starters back and his system in place this is a team that may surprise.
Our Prognosis
LSU is a team that could provide a lot of board value and surprises and we’ll take a shot with them!
