Like It Is

Preseason selections yield few surprises

Nick Saban has won three BCS national championships in seven seasons at Alabama. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

No one was surprised when Alabama was picked to win the SEC West and SEC Championship by the media last week.

Tide Coach Nick Saban chastised us for only picking the winner four times in 23 years, and it is an inexact poll to say the least.

For instance, someone, allegedly a student intern at the University of Arkansas who went to media days and therefore got the email allowing him to vote, picked his Razorbacks to win the West and the SEC Championship.

Unfortunately, votes like that are not thrown out, but by far, his would not have been the only geographically biased vote.

Still, the Tide prevailed as they should have, with or without Sir Nick's approval.

Alabama has seven preseason first-team All-SEC players, almost a third of the 22 selected. Auburn was second with four first-teamers, but the Tigers led all SEC teams with 13 players named to the first, second or third team and Bama had just nine.

Just to be clear, we are not discussing punters, place-kickers or any of the other so-called specialists today. Just the guys who will be on the field the majority of the snaps.

Eight of the 14 schools had a first-team selection, and Vanderbilt was the only school to get shut out of all three teams.

Ole Miss and Georgia followed Auburn and Alabama with 8 players selected, LSU had 7, Mississippi State and South Carolina had 4 each, Arkansas and Missouri had 3, Florida, Texas A&M and Tennessee had 2 each and Kentucky had 1.

The Aggies' two picks were first-teamers on offense and defense.

Georgia was the only Eastern Division school to crack the offensive side of the first team, and if Todd Gurley, the Bulldogs' phenomenal running back hadn't made it, the whole poll should have been trashed.

If you are trying to break down the conference and how the standings should look at the end of the season, then the Rebels should finish ahead of the LSU Tigers, although the Tigers were a solid third pick behind Alabama and Auburn and finished fifth in the poll for overall champion with South Carolina and Georgia joining the Tide and Tigers.

Ole Miss had three first-team players, three on the second team and two third-teamers while LSU had 1, 2 and 4.

It may be time for the Rebels to make some noise, although it is never easy when you are in a division with Alabama, Auburn and LSU; plus arch-rival Mississippi State may be surging with 16 starters back.

Granted Arkansas and MSU got one vote to win the championship, but the overall voting had the Tide clearly the favorite with 154 points, Auburn second with 75 and then a drop to South Carolina, which got 32 points. Every team in the Western Division but Texas A&M got a vote to win the championship.

Sometime in the next week my vote will be revealed here, but this might be the time to go ahead and explain why the Hogs were picked sixth by yours truly, ahead of Texas A&M.

Sixth out of seven will never be confused as a homer vote, or shouldn't; the logic was it may be impossible to improve when you lose the most dynamic player in school history.

Johnny Manziel was the heart of the Aggies the past two seasons, and whether he can play on the NFL level doesn't matter. What he did was make Texas A&M a winner.

No, not single-handedly, but the Aggies also lost their top running back and three of their top four receivers, including Mike Evans.

So they were picked seventh in the West.

Sports on 07/27/2014