Will Alabama kick off the season with a win? SEC Predictions for Week 1

It’s the fun bit of our job when we get to predict the Week 1 games of the college football season for SEC teams. We think we know everything after Week 1, only to see that our ‘knowledge’ is blown away by Thanksgiving that we feel miserable and inclined to douse ourselves in whiskey while we wait around for bowl season. Anyway, here are your predictions for Week 1 of the SEC season. As usual, we’re going in the order of games we’re interested in. Sorry Texas A&M vs Northwestern State, you’re not very high. The first five games on this list are being played on neutral fields. Which means that if you’re a season ticket holder of a SEC

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Alabama 2018 Preview: Will the QB dance become a mess?

January 9th, 2018. Tua Tagovailoa replaces Jalen Hurts as Alabama’s quarterback mid-game after Hurts fails to show up, and wins the game for the Crimson Tide in overtime. Tuscaloosa celebrates (again). Athens mourns (again). Nick Saban breathes a sigh of relief. After all, he’d lobbied the program ever since the Tide lost to Auburn and didn’t get into the SEC Championship Game and might not have gotten into the danged play-off. Rammer Jammer was played, sung, and chanted. A lot. Someone swore that they saw Bear Bryant in heaven, crying. Roll onto August 2018 and a controversy still reigns around Tuscaloosa. Who’s going to be the starting quarterback when the team kicks off against Louisville? Will it be ‘Tua’ or will it

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The future doesn’t look good for Jalen Hurts, either way

As much as Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts respects his father Averion, I’m sure there’s a little bit of him that wishes his Dad would have shut up. Jalen Hurts didn’t need his father to tell the world about the man-to-man conversation they had in an interview with Bleacher Report. He certainly didn’t need Averion to repeat the words that he said to Jalen after his awful National Championship Game performance: “You f–ked up, you opened the door and put yourself in this situation…”Now it’s up to you to dig yourself out”. Jalen Hurts certainly didn’t need Averion to practically threaten Alabama head coach Nick Saban LaVar Ball-style with his son’s transfer should he not get the starting job by saying: “My job

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Will Alabama or Georgia win the National Championship?

Suck it, Ohio State. Suck it, Clemson. Suck it, Oklahoma. The SEC’s got two teams playing in the National Championship game. That’s right – in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium fans all over America will tune into Monday to a game they most feared: An all-SEC Natty featuring Alabama and – to less an extent – Georgia. Listen to the pundits, and they are hoping and praying that it won’t be boring. They hope it won’t be a 9-6 slugfest. They pray that Brian Daboll or Jim Chaney will come up with some offensive invention to stop that happening. They are hoping for end-zone celebrations and while craziness. They had a lot of that in two previous National Championships – and are

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Despite Alabama’s success, where’s Calvin Ridley?

In March we said that star Alabama WR Calvin Ridley was ripe for a rebound from a disappointing 2016. Well, it doesn’t seem this is the case. Well, this season things are even worse for him. Over the last four weeks Ridley has been thrown to a grand total of 20 times, averaging just five receptions per game at an average of 13.1 yards per reception (262 yards). While that isn’t bad – his 13.1 yards per reception is much better than his averages in his first and second years – if this goes on, he’ll only be thrown to a grand total of 60 times, which will be well below his freshman and sophomore averages. Also, Ridley’s on course

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QBs in the SEC: Who’s in the best shape for 2017?

LSU always seems to have a quarterback problem, it’s been argued that Florida hasn’t had a good one since Tebow, and Georgia hasn’t won the SEC despite having good quarterbacks, while Alabama has won a lot of SEC titles without having any quarterbacks that you’d say are NFL-worthy. So for 2017, which SEC team is in the best shape at quarterback? And who is struggling? Clue: It’s probably not a team from Baton Rouge. Mississippi State: Nick Fitzgerald did wonders at Mississippi State last year. He led the SEC in total yards in 2016, throwing for over 2,400 yards and 21 TDs (and no interceptions) and rushing for nearly 1,400 yards and 16 TDs. He also beat Ole Miss, which pretty

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So Who’s Going to Win The National Championship Game?

So if you follow us on Twitter (@SECBlog), you’ll know that when we asked the simple question “Would non-Alabama fans root for Alabama in the National Championship Game?”, only one or two out of 40 replies said: “Yes”. Other answers ranged from rooting for terrorist factions before Alabama, or going through the punishment Mel Gibson went through in Braveheart before rooting for the Crimson Tide. Well, here’s the fact, Alabama haters: The Alabama Crimson Tide are unbeaten, and back in their second National Title game in a row. They’ve won over 20 games on the bounce and this year’s batch looks absolutely frightening. This year the Tide are again playing Clemson, and Vegas has made them a 6-1/2 point favorite,

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The SEC would love to have Week 1 back

Right, we here at the SEC would like to have Week 1 back. Sure, some of the schools are 1-0 and some are not, but none of our teams were particularly great, and some of them – even in victory – couldn’t seem to get their collective asses off the ground. Anyway, here’s ranking how every team in the conference did this week, in order of performance: Alabama (win vs USC)- The Alabama fans were ready to lynch Lane Kiffin, right until the USC QB threw a pick-6 and the Crimson Tide to shreds. It wasn’t a complete performance, but if this was considered as a bad performance after Week One, then the rest of college football is in trouble.

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