2024 SEC Football Projections, Updates

[jbcarol]

Initial leans on early lines for Texas at Michigan, LSU vs USC and other big non-conference matchups in the 2024 season

by:
Jesse Simonton
•

2024 college football season will feature some juicy non-conference games, including LSU-USC squaring off in Las Vegas and Texas making a Week 2 trip to the Big House to play the reigning national champion Michigan Wolverines.

FanDuel Sportsbook recently updated more than a dozen early betting lines for some big games in 2024. Dynamics can (and will) change:


Georgia (-12.5) vs. Clemson (Atlanta)
Early Lean: The Bulldogs are the preseason favorites for the 2024-25 national title, so it's no surprise they open as a big favorite over a Tigers team looking to replicate their championship success again under Dabo

LSU (-6.5) vs. USC (Las Vegas)
Early Lean: This is an incredible matchup between two programs looking to replace the last two Heisman Trophy winners —

A&M (-1.5) vs. Notre Dame
Early Lean: Mike Elko will kickstart his tenure as the Aggies' head coach going up against his former quarterback and top defensive lineman at Duke (Riley Leonard and RJ Oben) in Week 1 against the Irish.

Texas (-2.5) at Michigan
Early Lean: Two of the four 2023 College Football Playoff representatives will meet in Week 2, and what a tremendous helmet game

A lot has changed in Ann Arbor.

[jbcarol]

Analyzing Tennessee's chances to win 10 games, make College Football Playoff

by:
Chandler Vessels
•

Just two years removed from an 11-win season, Tennessee is hopeful that it can make the College Football Playoff in 2024. The Volunteers have never made the CFP since its inception in 2014, but with the expanded 12-team field will have a greater chance than in the past.

Tennessee is currently has an over/under of 9.5 wins for the 2024 season according to FanDuel. If it can reach the 10-win mark, especially while facing a tough SEC schedule, one would think that could be enough to get the Vols in the playoff.

Brent Hubbs of VolQuest joined On3's Andy Staples to highlight the areas Tennessee needs to step up this season to reach the College Football Playoff.

"Certainly you can make that case (for a playoff berth) without a doubt," Hubbs said. "That's the fun part of it. Tennessee's in a conversation that they haven't been in much over the last decade-and-a-half. There's a relevancy factor there that hasn't been there. You can get every beat writer on here for every team that's projected as a playoff team with the exception of maybe Georgia, but there's a few teams you go 'that should be a playoff team.'

"There's a lot of people with a lot of holes. The transfer portal makes those holes very fillable very fast in a lot of ways if you hit. That's why you look at this thing, in particular Tennessee, Jermod McCoy at corner is really important for Tennessee. You look at Jakobe Thomas, who's a transfer from MTSU. He's got to hit because you're replacing two safeties on the back end who had a ton of experience.

"There's no more important position for Josh Heupel's offense, outside of quarterback, than the tight end spot," Hubbs said. "They play with a tight end almost exclusively on offense. They don't go four and five-wide even though there's depth at receiver. They want that tight end in there because they can manipulate so much in the run game with the ability to flex the tight end out, move him back and move him back in. Make him an end line blocker, an H-back. Can Holden Staes handle that?

"Ethan Davis, can he be physical enough? Where are they at that tight end position? They only really have two tight ends on the roster. Cole Harrison will be a third, who arrives this summer. But I'm not sure he's gonna be able to help them after being a high school senior graduating in May. If there's one position they can ill-afford an injury outside of quarterback, it's the tight end position. They must hit with Staes and they must stay healthy there for this offense to achieve what fans expect them to achieve with Nico, the balance in the run game and what we saw two years ago that everybody wants to try to get back to."

Tennessee's matchup vs. Alabama changes without Nick Saban...

[jbcarol]

College Football Bowl Projections: Brett McMurphy's Early Predictions for 2024


Updated:
Mar 18, 2024, 01:57 PM EDT

[jbcarol]

Elko updates injury recovery of Conner Weigman

by:
Matt Connolly
•

A&M quarterback Conner Weigman missed most of last season with a foot injury. Aggies head coach Mike Elko shared recently that Weigman is still working his way back to 100 percent.

The sophomore is taking part in spring practice, but he's not yet back fully healthy after being injured last September, per Elko.

"Still battling," Elko said when asked where Conner Weigman is at from a health standpoint. "He'll be out there practicing. I don't think he's exactly where he'd like to be long-term. Not that he's behind or anything or hasn't done what he's supposed to do or there's concerns. I just think he would obviously like to be a little bit healthier."

[jbcarol]

Evaluating Florida's early-season home games vs. Miami, A&M, UCF

by:
Steve Samra
•

On3's Andy Staples and J.D. PicKell reacted to it

"There's nothing that's going to be said that's going to remedy the thing that Steve Spurrier said, that Princely Umanmielen said. What's gonna help remedy this is getting a win week one against Miami, start the season off with a bang and then we — you know, don't even think about this," PicKell said, regarding Florida's current predicament.

Staples: "It's one of those crazy games where it does not matter who wins. The opposing fan base is going to want to jump off a cliff."

"This whole game, not to go back too far to this preview. If it were played at a neutral site, I'd probably lean pretty heavily towards Miami," PicKell added. "Maybe that's me, like you just said, with the recency bias. Maybe that's me drinking the Cam Ward Kool-Aid.

"But the fact that it's played in Gainesville, in the swamp, just throws a total variable of like, who the heck knows what's about to happen in this game kind of feel."

Andy Staples on Florida's 'scary' early season schedule...

[jbcarol]

Making the case for college football's most-improved offense in 2024

by:
Kaiden Smith
•

On3's Andy Staples selected three teams that he believes will have the most improved offenses in 2024 compared to their production last season.

Auburn Tigers
Staples tabs Auburn as one of the offenses that will make a jump in the 2024 season in their second season under head coach Hugh Freeze. Believing that one particular five-star weapon in their most recent recruiting class has the potential to take their offense to another level.

"I do know that of all the recruits in the class of 2025 Jeremiah Smith, receiver at Ohio State, probably the one people are most excited about. Cam Coleman the receiver coming to Auburn, probably a close second, and Ohio State they're used to having incredible receivers all the time. Auburn? When is the last time Auburn had a truly dominant receiver?" Staples asked. "It's been a long time ... so this is a guy that should scare everybody."

Utah

Penn State

[jbcarol]

Brian Kelly shares what to expect from 2024 LSU football season

by:
Justin Rudolph
•

LSU Tigers have had two respectable seasons in Brian Kelly's first two years at the helm. In year one, the Tigers made it to the SEC title game against Georgia. In the following season, they had one of the most potent offenses in the country, led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jayden Daniels.

But as many individuals (Coach O ) know, when it comes to sports, the past is the past.

"I don't know that we'll have any one singular superstar like we had this past year, but I think the sum is going to be greater than any one of our parts. I think there's a lot of depth on this football team that we've developed over the past couple of years. I think that there is a winning culture that's developed over the past two years of winning games."

"So I think you'll find a football team that's a lot more balanced. I think on offense and defense, as you know, we were one-sided. We were an offensive football team where we needed to have better balance. So I think you'll see a better-balanced football team in all areas and a deep team where you'll see a lot of contributors."

Jayden Daniels honors LSU teammate Greg Brooks Jr. at Pro Day amid cancer battle

[jbcarol]

How many teams can win the 2024 national title?
by:
Jesse Simonton
•

It's a simple question, yet one that invariably would return multiple answers depending on who you polled.

FanDuel Sportsbook recently updated its title odd for next season, with 11 teams holding odds at +2800 or better.

Georgia (+300)
Texas (+700)
Alabama (+1300)
LSU (+1500)
Ole Miss (+1500)

How many of those teams — or even others ranked right below them like Clemson, Tennessee, Missouri or USC — can win the 2024 national title?

The fact is, in an expanded 12-team field the group of teams that can win three or four games is even smaller than a contenders list in season's past.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart laid out exactly why in a wide-ranging Q&A with ESPN over the weekend.

"It keeps your hopes alive with one loss, maybe two," the two-time national champion head coach said when asked about his thoughts on the 12-team playoff in 2024. 

"A lot of coaches have complained that once they lost a game, their kids just said that they were done. There won't be as much of that. Everybody's fighting for the same thing, and that's the beauty of making those last three or four weeks really, really eventful. I know some people say, 'It devalues the late-season games because you'll know you're in.' Well, there will be more people in the hunt now. So there will be a lot of meaningful games. That team with two losses late in the year that has played a tough schedule is going to be fighting and scratching to earn that 12th spot."

The biggest benefactors of the expanded playoff aren't the teams that suddenly get fair representation. It's the who's who that now get a mulligan — or more — only to find their footing come season's end and roll through the playoffs.

Like, say a 9-3 Alabama.

We're about to enter a season where the national title winner will play a record 17 or 18 games. Only the elite rosters stacked with blue-chip talent will withstand that much pounding.

[jbcarol]

Graham Mertz: Florida's daunting 2024 schedule providing 'urgency'
Derek Peterson | 

Graham Mertz quipped he decided on a sixth season of college football so he could make 1 more appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show. Florida's suffered through 3 consecutive losing seasons...

Gators will face what many believe will be the hardest schedule in the country. Strength-of-schedule metrics aren't available yet, but Florida could be looking at an all-timer when it's all said and done.

Florida will face each of the other 3 top in-state programs — season-opener vs. Miami on Aug. 31, UCF on Oct. 5, at Florida State on Nov. 30. The Gators have road SEC games against Tennessee and Texas.

In the month of November, they play 5 straight weeks against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, and Florida State. In Bill Connelly's preseason SP+ rankings for 2024, those teams rank No. 1, No. 4, No. 10, No. 8, and No. 12, respectively.

Napier finds himself in a make-or-break year; the program hasn't seen 4 consecutive losing seasons since 1935-38.

"This is why you come to the SEC, this is why you play at Florida, for these matchups," Mertz said. "You want to play at the highest level against the greatest competition. We know what's ahead of us, we see it every day when we walk in the locker room, and that excites us. We feel the urgency every day when we come in here, knowing we've got to work, especially in this league.

"It all comes down to execution and what you do in the offseason. For us, we know what people are saying but what happens in these walls, we know what we're striving for and we know it takes consistency and attention to detail every day. We're excited. We see that and we see it as opportunity."

[jbcarol]

O'Gara: LSU's defense struggled in the spring game

It can't be that bad again ...

Right  

At some point between watching a receiver get 17 yards of separation on the game's first play and a botched "duck, duck, goose" celebration, reality sank in.

Another LSU defense is getting cooked.

[jbcarol]

Which college football programs NEED to win a national title soon?

by: Andy Staples
•

A&M
Last national title: 1939

No one is expecting Mike Elko to win a national title in his first year in College Station. The Aggies just spent six seasons expecting Jimbo Fisher to win a national title, and all that got them was a schedule of massive buyout payments.

But Texas A&M does have a decent talent base upon which to build, and if Elko can combine the coaching/culture wizardry he demonstrated in two seasons at Duke with the kind of high school and portal recruiting Texas A&M should be capable of, national title contention should be the goal.

Texas
Last national title: 2005

The Longhorns staggered through the 2010s trying to recapture the glory of the 2000s. The program took serious backward steps in terms of development. But now Texas is... nah, we're not going to say it quite yet.

And that's why Texas needs to win a title.

Oklahoma
Last national title: 2000

The Sooners are in a strange place. They haven't won a national title in 24 years, but because they dominated the Big 12 for most of the 21st century we tend to lump them in with teams that won national titles

Tennessee
Last national title: 1998

There are a LOT of usernames on the Internet that include some form of the phrase "Feels like '98." With all due respect — and that is a significant amount of respect —

These programs and other B1G programs need a title like a fat man needs cake.

[jbcarol]

O'Gara: A&M likely won't wreck the SEC in 2024

Nic Scourton will

No. 11 was a menace on Saturday. He had 7 tackles, 3.5 sacks and he unofficially had 2.5 sacks (sic), but it felt like more. That didn't include the times he appeared to have a clear path to Conner Weigman but he threw his hands up, nor did those stats include him beating Weigman to the edge and forcing him to bury a throw into the dirt.

By day's end, it was clear that Mike Elko's best player on the field was the all-important Scourton, who could soon have Saturdays like that against SEC offenses.

Yeah, it was a spring game.

Sure.

[jbcarol]

@Hayesfawcett3

NEWS: Four-Star LB Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng has narrowed his list to 1️⃣3️⃣ Schools, he tells me for @on3recruits

The 6'2 210 LB from Manassas, VA is ranked as the No. 4 LB in '25 (per On3 Industry)

Where Should He Go ⬇️

https://on3.com/db/nathaniel-owusu-boateng-150862

[jbcarol]

Why didn't the spring transfer portal window alter the 2024 national championship picture

by: Jesse Simonton
•

So much for transfer portal Armageddon, huh?

The 2024 spring window closed Wednesday, and while a few more names may trickle out in the next day or so (schools have 48 hours to officially submit a player's name), the carousel of movement should stop until the holidays this December.

Hundreds of FBS players tested the waters over the two weeks, but while notables like Kadyn Proctor, Damien Martinez and Dylan Edwards, among others, switched teams, there wasn't some cataclysm of fireworks many anticipated.

Star players didn't start suddenly switching teams because of major NIL deals. 

Of the Top 50 transfers in the 2024 cycle, per On3, just seven have or will change teams this spring — three of whom (Proctor, Tyler Baron and Peny Boone) are on their second transfer this year.

Ultimately, the blockbuster teasers for the spring window were mostly a bust, which was great news for many of college football's 2024 title contenders.

[jbcarol]

Greg McElroy breaks down win totals for Auburn, Oklahoma in 2024
Spenser Davis | 6 minutes ago

Greg McElroy broke down Auburn and Oklahoma:

2024 campaign will be a pivotal one for both the Tigers and Sooners. Auburn is entering Year 2 of the Hugh Freeze era and is hoping to take a big step forward offensively this upcoming season. For Oklahoma, Brent Venables is entering Year 3 in Norman as OU transitions to the SEC.

Both Auburn and Oklahoma have win totals set at 7.5, according to ESPN BET. McElroy made the case for both teams.

For Auburn, McElroy praised how Freeze's staff has rebuilt the WR room this offseason with the additions of KeAndre Lambert-Smith (Penn State transfer) and Cam Coleman (5-star freshman).

"I think KeAndre Lambert-Smith is rock solid," McElroy said. "Will he ultimately be the No. 1 wide receiver? I don't know if I can go that far. But I do think incoming freshman Cam Coleman could be. That guy could be an immediate difference-maker. They really needed to bolster their personnel at wide receiver."

For Oklahoma, McElroy is optimistic about new starter Jackson Arnold.

McElroy said he'd take Auburn to have more wins than Oklahoma in 2024 — partially because of OU's difficult schedule.

"I think Oklahoma has a very, very difficult schedule," McElroy said. "And while I like them an awful lot this year, it's tough for me to have a ton of confidence in telling you right now that 'without question, they're going over the 7.5-win plateau.'

McElroy said he sees 6 "losable" games for Auburn on its schedule and 7 such contests for Oklahoma.