SEC West Predictions Versus Actual
Way back in March, when Spring Practice was getting under way around the SEC, I decided to take a stab at what I thought would be the order of finish for the SEC West. I didn’t bother with the East since this is a Mississippi State blog, and we only had to worry about Kentucky and Vanderbilt. So how did I do? Let’s take a look.
| Predicted Finish in March | Predicted Record in March | Actual Finish | Actual Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 SEC West Prediciton: 1st Place Alabama | 11-1 (7-1) | Alabama | 11-1 (7-1) |
| 2014 SEC West Prediction: 2nd Place Auburn | 10-2 (6-2) | Mississippi State | 10-2 (6-2) |
| 2014 SEC West Prediction: 3rd Place Mississippi State | 9-3 (5-3) | Ole Miss | 9-3 (5-3) |
| 2014 SEC West Prediction: 4th Place Ole Miss | 9-3 (5-3) | Auburn | 8-4 (4-4) |
| 2014 SEC West Prediction: 5th Place LSU | 8-4 (4-4) | LSU | 8-4 (4-4) |
| 2014 SEC West Predictions: 6th Texas A&M | 7-5 (3-5) | Texas A&M | 7-5 (3-5) |
| 2014 SEC West Predcition: 7th Arkansas | 3-9 (0-8) | Arkansas | 6-6 (2-6) |
Considering everything, I came pretty close. Basically, Auburn under performing what I thought they could do allowed Mississippi State and Ole Miss to go up a spot. That kicked Auburn back down to 4th and everything else played out pretty much like I thought it would. If you click on the links, you’ll see I got some of the games wrong, but the records were pretty close to where I saw these teams falling. The one exception is Alabama. I called every single game of theirs right. I even had them getting beaten by Ole Miss.
So did I write this to toot my own horn? No, I wrote it because I think it just goes to show how lazy the national media that is paid to cover college football can get. For me, someone that blogs on the side and does this just for kicks, to be able to use common sense and see that LSU and Texas A&M might not be as good as they have been in previous years, then someone who does this for a living and gets pad a nice salary to do so should be able to do the same thing. Yeah, I missed on Auburn, but if you go back and look at what I wrote at the end of the prediction, I said it wouldn’t surprise me if they lost more games than they did.
The predicted order of finish at SEC Media days went like this.
- Alabama
- Auburn
- LSU
- Ole Miss
- Mississippi State
- Texas A&M
- Auburn
Media members and so many sports writers are all about brand names. They can’t seem to get past them. Yes, some said there might be an opportunity for Mississippi State to make a small step forward, but almost no one saw them winning more than 8 games. It won’t change, but I still thought that someone needs to point out just how lazy the media has gotten. A quick glimpse of the roster should have keyed some out there to see that there was no way Mississippi State was winning less than 9 games this year.
It won’t change, and that’s okay. I long ago stopped buying into everything the national media thinks when it comes to college football. That might be the best piece of advice I can give you.