Greg McElroy picks Texas over Alabama in SEC Championship game

The 2025 football season will officially kick off in two days with the meeting of Iowa State and Kansas State in Dublin, Ireland. So the final chance to get preseason picks in — say, for the winner of the SEC — is now.

ESPN analyst Greg McElroy provided his conference championship picks, and he’s got two fairly prominent teams in the SEC going head to head. Alabama versus Texas.

“In the championship, I’m taking the Texas Longhorns over the Alabama Crimson Tide to win the SEC,” McElroy said on the Always College Football podcast. “I just think with some of the youth that Texas has, particularly at quarterback, particular at wide receiver and some of the guys that will be rolling in on defense, they’re a little bit deeper and have a slightly higher ceiling than Alabama at this point.”

Both teams have been among the favorites, for varying reasons, of most analysts this season. McElroy provided the argument for Texas winning the SEC.

“I look at Texas and I do think, even though they’re the favorite, understandably so, they have question marks,” McElroy said. “The offensive line is a question mark. The schedule is brutal. We’ll get to that kind of over the course of the next few minutes. The schedule is really challenging.

“But I look at their upside, I look at their ceiling, I look at the star power that they have defensively. I look at Arch Manning and what he could be for this Texas team. I look at his weapons, the depth they have at wide receiver, the depth they have at running back. And the emergence that they have, possibly a star or two, in their receiver corps, that could very easily take over a game. They were just overshadowed a year ago with some inconsistent moments in the passing game. I think Texas is in a great spot.”

If the Longhorns can reach the SEC title game, McElroy thinks it’ll be a little bit of a war of attrition. That’s the nature of the SEC this year.

Few teams are going to make it through relatively unscathed. McElroy doesn’t expect Texas to be among them, despite picking the Longhorns to win the league.

“I also think Texas is going to have two losses, at least, in the regular season,” McElroy said. “Is that going to be at Florida, is that going to be at Georgia, is that going to be against Ohio State, could that be against Oklahoma in a neutral site? I’m not 100% sure just yet. I think Texas, though, at 10-2 will find themselves in the SEC Championship Game to face one of the few teams that are remaining.”

We’ve already revealed that McElroy believes Alabama will be the team that Texas faces in the SEC title game. But it was a close call.

McElroy said he wrestled with possibly picking Georgia or LSU to represent in the title game, too. In the end, he went with Alabama.

“I look at a team like Alabama, a team that had to deal with tremendous inconsistency last year, in large part due to inconsistent quarterback play,” McElroy said. “But their quarterback was the guy that kind of ran the show last year. I think Kalen DeBoer now has complete buy-in with this roster. I think they’re deeper and more talented than people probably realize.

“And I think Ty Simpson, their new starting quarterback, is a great fit for what Kalen DeBoer wants them to be. He’s going to be a distributor, he’s going to get the ball out of his hands quickly, he’s going to make great decisions, he’s not going to put the defense in harm’s way by turning it over. I think Alabama is poised to make a run this year in a lot of different areas.”

So, can Alabama actually win the SEC Championship Game against Texas? McElroy isn’t picking it, but he explained that’s more about Texas than Alabama.

“They have to make sure that their offensive line is as good as they’re capable of being,” McElroy said of the Longhorns. “If they’re not, Alabama could definitely pull this upset in the SEC title. But I will take Texas right now over ‘Bama for the SEC Championship.”