It's early and I'm bored, so here are five way-too-early predictions for the upcoming SEC football season, aight.
I've been to the future and seen what's up. And now, I'm not going to help you navigate the stock market, bro…
About four months from now, the only college football that really matters will be back in our lives. I'm talking about good, old-fashioned SEC football. Whether it be the tribalism, the pageantry or the rampant shenanigans associated with it, I'm here for it. There is nothing quite like pumping gas on a fall Saturday morning while simultaneously barking at walking passers-by. I never feel more alive.
So with that in mind, here are five things that will absolutely happen this SEC football season.
SEC football: 5 way-too-early bold predictions for 2023 college football season
5. Iowa solves its nepotism issues by hiring one of its own away from Kentucky
After seeing how great Brian Ferentz is at his job for so many years now, Gary Barta is going to do what has seemingly been seen as impossible and send the Ferentz men off into retirement. Kirk's Dawgs may win 10 games every four years, but their days of having a semi-stranglehold on the Big Ten West will soon be over. If only there was another Hayden Fry protege out there to be had…
While he could have stayed in Lexington longer than John Calipari will have allowed him to, who says you can't go home if you're Mark Stoops? He may hail from Youngstown, but the money's too damn hot for a Penguin to make the most sacred Arby's pilgrimage back home. Stoops will make a mighty fine replacement for Kirk Ferentz at Iowa. This is the only job he would leave Kentucky for.
Although places like Auburn, Florida State and Miami may have been interested, you simply cannot top the Kinnick Wave. Assuming Stoops can assemble a staff that isn't so reliant on his family, the Kinnick Wave may signify the number of offensive touchdowns the Hawkeyes will score in a game vs. the number of first downs Brian Ferentz could ever hope to have on Saturday.
The dollars have to make sense first, but a prodigal son returns to Iowa City full-time in December.
4. Georgia gets to Atlanta unscathed the for third year in a row, thanks to its Charmin soft schedule
Don't act like you're not impressed. For the third year in a row, the Georgia Bulldogs will be heading to their home away from home down in Atlanta with an absolutely majestic 12-0 record on the season. There are teams that lose regular-season games, and then there's them Dawgs is hell, don't they?! Tennessee fans may like to beg and differ, but y'all are so gonna be 10-2, man…
People are going to get so battery-throwing mad at Georgia, once again, being on the precipice of another national championship. You take one look at their schedule and it is the antithesis of a gauntlet. I mean, there are a few good teams on it because they do play in the SEC. However, we can only blame the SEC for making the Dawgs' non-conference slate softer than a roll of Charmin.
Georgia was supposed to commence a home-and-home with Oklahoma, but that got pulled off the schedule on account of the Sooners joining the SEC full-time in 2024 with Texas. While UGA probably would have beaten OU anyway, the Dawgs' toughest non-conference game this year is … Georgia Tech. I wish I was kidding, but maybe the Ramblin' Wreck won't be awful under Brent Key?
By beating Tech once again, Georgia will be 12-0 and will have clinched yet another playoff berth.
3. Brian Kelly has an all-time meltdown after LSU narrowly misses out on College Football Playoff
I don't know if it will be sadder than Nick Saban going through the five stages of grief in real time on Big Noon Saturday, but we are going to see Brian Kelly in rare form come Selection Sunday. Had they have beaten Georgia in Atlanta, the LSU Tigers would've made the four-team field, no matter what. But let's just say that maybe they are on the outside looking in at being Dawg food in 2023.
They may have one loss, they may have two, but all I know is LSU is going to end up somewhere in the No. 5 to No. 7 range in the final playoff rankings once the four-team field is set. Sure, they will welcome the opportunity to play USC or someone else in the Cotton Bowl, potentially facing the traditional rival Greenies for that old rag of theirs. But anywho, Kelly will make his presence felt…
This will be at least 10 times worse than him grinding up on Walker Howard to get him to commit, maybe three times as bad as his fake Cajun accent. He is just getting started at LSU, but for the first time in his coaching career, the SEC bias will not be in his favor. I don't know who LSU is losing to that they could not afford to do so, but they did, and there is not a lot that Kelly can do about it.
We are all going to look bad on that one bad loss LSU had this season and wonder why it occurred.
2. Yes, it goes as badly as you thought it would for Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M this season
There are only two ways I want for this to go at Texas A&M. Either the Aggies emerge as one of the 12 best teams in the country or it goes to hell in a handbasket faster than you can say Sliced Bread. Texas A&M has recruited marvelously under Jimbo Fisher's watch, but the Aggies won a grand total of five games last year. They were the first SEC team to fail to achieve bowl eligibility.
So with D.J. Durkin and now Bobby Petrino on staff, we could see a snake oil grease fire of epic proportions down in College Station. I'm not saying it'll be a bonfire, but things are going to be hot over there for sure. The last thing we need to see is for the Aggies to go 7-5 and drag this thing out for another year. Go big or go home. 10-2 and 2-10 can yield similar levels of entertainment.
Not to say A&M will be worse than Vanderbilt, but I am fully anticipating the Aggies being this year's version of Auburn. We're not going to see it end as abruptly as it did for Bryan Harsin down on The Plains, but Gig Em Nation might be running out of patience with their fast-talking head coach. For the first time since COVID, Fisher needs to put his money where his mouth is and win.
No matter how you slice the bread, we are in the interesting business, and Texas A&M will be that.
1. It doesn't matter who the quarterback is, Auburn is winning the got dang Iron Bowl, dammit?!
It's going to be an Iron Bowl for the ages, alright, just not like anyone of us ever intended. The game is being played at Jordan-Hare this year, so Auburn has a puncher's chance. Given how unsettled the quarterback position is at both schools, it will be a hoot and a half this Thanksgiving Weekend. Truth be told, you or I could play quarterback for Auburn, and it won't even really matter.
That is because Auburn is going to win the Iron Bowl and make it incredibly difficult for Alabama to make the College Football Playoff. This will be the surprising loss that could keep Alabama from getting to Atlanta, or knock them out of the SEC West race entirely. Even though Nick Saban is the best coach to ever do it, Hugh Freeze came back to the SEC for a reason: To win games like this.
Frankly, this will not be a visually appealing game for the masses. Weather may be a factor, but whatever the weather, whenever weather, whether we like it or not, take the got dang under! Look for this one to play out eerily similar to the 2021 Iron Bowl where Bryce Young's late-game heroics propelled the Tide past the Tigers. The only difference is Freeze will talk to the media afterward.
Not that we didn't expect for this to happen, but this will be Freeze's first signature win at Auburn.