2024 SEC Media Days has come to a close, and with that, we have our media predictions for the SEC this football season. Where did Mississippi State football end up in the predicted SEC standings, and did they have any players named to the preseason All-SEC teams?
Mississippi State football picked 15th in the SEC for 2024
It was long a tradition for Mississippi State to get picked last in the SEC West at SEC Media Days. With the league doing away with divisions now that Texas and Oklahoma have joined, the Bulldogs can technically no longer be picked last in the West. But they may as well have been picked last in the West considering where the media pegged them.
Who's too high?
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) July 19, 2024
Who's too low?
The 2024 SEC football media poll 👀 pic.twitter.com/SmVftxHD7l
SEC Media picked Mississippi State 15th in the SEC, ahead of only Vanderbilt and behind all of the other traditional West teams. Georgia was picked as the league's champion with Texas as the runner-up. State will play six of the top nine teams in the media poll.
As stated, SEC media being low on State is nothing new. Since 2009, MSU was picked last in the SEC West five times. They finished last just twice, and they've outperformed media expectations on nine occasions. We'll see if that continues in the non-divisional era.
No Bulldogs picked for preseason All-SEC teams
Not only were the Bulldogs picked low in the pecking order, no MSU players were selected to any of the three preseason All-SEC teams. I was able to find preseason All-SEC selections as far back as 2002, and MSU had at least one player named preseason All-SEC each year since then. And considering the talent in Starkville under Jackie Sherrill prior to 2002, you would imagine the Bulldogs weren't going without a preseason selection during those years either.
For as largely unprecedented as it is for State to go without a preseason All-SEC player, it isn't totally surprising. The Bulldogs don't have any known commodities on the roster, at least not at the SEC level. I can understand the media going with the more proven players in the league.
That said, if State can outperform preseason expectations, as they so often have, in Jeff Lebby's first season, they'll almost certainly have multiple Bulldogs earn All-SEC honors when they actually matter at the end of the year.