SEC Teams With the Most to Prove After the Preseason Rankings

From a near-top pick to a team once again looking to surprise from the near bottom, the preseason picks of SEC media create fuel for some motivational fires.

Picked to finish near the top of the SEC, Steve Sarkisian starts the season with a need to avoid a second straight disappointment. (Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images) | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Preseason rankings-- particularly in SEC football-- can be fascinating things. They can provide high expectations that even good teams have to strain to reach. Or they can challenge underdogs to prove the experts wrong. Here are four SEC teams that have plenty to prove coming off the SEC's preseason media rankings.

Texas Longhorns

Picked to finish a close second in the league behind Georgia (and picked to win the conference by 57 voters), Texas has high preseason expectations. And if that sounds familiar, it's because a year ago, the story was the same. Led by Arch Manning, the Longhorns went into the season as the national consensus No. 1... and promptly stumbled through a disappointing season that saw them outside of the College Football Playoff.

Manning is back and coach Steve Sarkisian needs to live up to expectations or a second straight disappointment might brand Sarkisian as a coach who can push a good team to be better, but can't get a talented team over the top.

Ole Miss Rebels

For that matter, Ole Miss is picked third coming into a season when the SEC can reasonably anticipate putting three or four teams in the College Football Playoff. And yes, that's where the Rebels were a season ago. But of course, it was Lane Kiffin who got them there, and his address is now Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Can Pete Golding hold up as well across a murderous SEC slate as he did as an interim coach for the Rebels in the CFP? With a deep and talented roster, the Rebels look like a team that can prove that it belongs. But was the Rebel magic a product of Lane Kiffin or will it survive?

Alabama Crimson Tide

Kalen DeBoer likely can't afford the projected 6th place SEC finish his Tide were projected. (Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images) | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

For some programs, being picked sixth in the SEC would be a solid landing spot. That should translate to an 8-4 or maybe 9-3 season and a spot in a prime (admittedly non-CFP) bowl game. But at Alabama, that's the kind of resume that gets a coach fired.

That's why being picked sixth is not good news for Kalen DeBoer. Two seasons into this time in Tuscaloosa, DeBoer and the Tide need to prove some experts wrong or there probably won't be a fourth DeBoer season at Alabama. While last year's Tide made the CFP after missing it after 2024, a 35-point loss was about as good of news for DeBoer as being picked sixth. Time for a turn-around for 'Bama.

Vanderbilt Commodores

Vanderbilt being picked 13th in a 16 team SEC doesn't really look strange. But this isn't the Vanderbilt of the salad years of the program's mediocrity. Over the last two seasons, Vandy went 17-9. That's even more impressive considering that the Commodores were only betting-line favorites to win 10 games during that run.

Sure, Diego Pavia is gone, and that SEC stands to be even tougher than it has been. But picking against a coach who is picking up three or four underdog wins per season could be just another chip on the shoulder for the 'Dores. Last year, Vandy was picked 13th... and they finished tied for fifth in the league with Oklahoma and preseason No. 1 Texas.