SEC Daily: Reactions to 2025 Walter Camp Preseason FBS All-America Team
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Earlier this week, college football released the 2025 Walter Camp FBS All-America Team. This season, the 136th edition, features players from 35 different schools and eight different conferences.
It may not come as a surprise, but the SEC has by far the most conference representation among players recognized on the list. The SEC boasts of 16 different players, nearly comprising half the entire list.
On the list, 11 SEC schools have at least one player. Alabama and Texas both have three players, the most of any school in the conference. Texas A&M have two players on the list in offensive lineman Ar'maj Reed-Adams and linebacker Taurean York.
The other schools with representation include Vanderbilt, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU and Tennessee.
With all that being said, it is time for some reactions. Did they get this list right?
To start, it is worthy of note that it is not an easy task to create and rank this list in the preseason, much less do so a little under two months ahead of the season.
But let’s do some takeaways from the offense and the defense.
Offense
1. Give the committee some credit for including Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers. Stowers is coming off a season where he was named First Team All-SEC as he was second in the league for tight ends in receptions (49), yards (638) and touchdowns (5). He was a Mackey Award Semifinalist, named a Phil Steele All-America Third Team and Associated Press All-SEC Second Team.
Texas tight end Gunnar Helm was the only one who put up better numbers and he left for the NFL. If Stowers takes the next step and does even better than last season, he is primed to follow in Helm’s steps and play on Sundays.
2. No quarterbacks or skill position players from the SEC are named to the second team. I feel as though guys like LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier got snubbed from the list. Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt getting the nod over Nussmeier does not make sense. While Leavitt put together a great run that led the Sun Devils to an automatic bid in last season’s College Football Playoff, Nussmeier put up far more yards and touchdowns than Leavitt did.
Not to mention, in the preseason Heisman Trophy odds via Circa Sports, Nussmeier has the second best odds to win college football’s most coveted award. Nussmeier comes in at 8-1 odds while Leavitt is at 35-1, which ranks 14th best.
Defense
1. Texas’ defense will be a force if the committee gets their defensive list anywhere close to correct. The Longhorns have defensive lineman Colin Simmons and linebacker Anthony Hill on the first team and defensive back Michael Taafe on the second team. What makes this so impressive is the fact that Texas just lost five defenders to the NFL in April. This Texas team has potential (and likely will be) one of, if not, the top defense in all of college football
2. For the depth of defense Alabama has, only getting one defensive player listed is a little bit of a surprise. Defensive lineman Tim Keenan III is listed on the second team, the only Crimson Tide defender mentioned between first and second teams. However, the Alabama defense will have plenty of depth on the back end with Domani Jackson and Zabien Brown at corner and Bray Hubbard and Keon Sabb at safety.
The Crimson Tide also have Utah transfer cornerback Cameron Calhoun and five-star safety Zavier Mincey sitting in the backup position. The Crimson Tide’s defense is good enough to have one more player on the list, whether it be a safety or corner.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.