#MeansMoreMailbag: All-SEC playoff, preserving rivalries, best sleeper team

With SEC Spring Meetings on deck, we dive into the potential future of the conference (schedule + playoff models), as well as the league’s most interesting sleeper team and Spencer Rattler’s impact at South Carolina. 

As a reminder, each week I’ll answer your SEC questions. Be sure to fill up the mailbox via a DM or comment on Twitter @JesseReSimonton, email [email protected] or using #MeansMoreMailbag.

On to the questions…

Gamecocks fan here. Seeing all these schedule rumors. Could we really not play Florida every season? — Tom

Schedule talk — models, which rivalries to preserve, etc. — is expected to dominate SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., next week, so Tom’s question is a prescient one. 

On Monday, I’ll drop a full primer piece further detailing what exactly will be debated by the league’s 14 athletic directors and head coaches, but notably, Texas AD Chris Del Conte and Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione won’t be in attendance to have an opinion on what the schedule looks like in 2025. 

For now, let’s just take a look at which rivalries should be preserved in any potential eight or nine-game future schedule. 

Several important rivalries to protect are obvious from the jump: Alabama–Auburn, Florida–Georgia, Ole Miss–Mississippi State, LSU-Ole Miss, Tennessee–Vanderbilt, Georgia-Auburn and Alabama-Tennessee — the latter two of which is the sole reason the SEC has (currently) permanent non-divisional games. 

Others worth maintaining also include Texas-Oklahoma when they join the league, as well as reigning Texas A&M-Texas, Oklahoma-Missouri and Arkansas-Oklahoma.

This exercise becomes quite complicated though if the league chooses as 1-7 model — meaning just a single permanent opponent.

The reality of whatever scheduling model the SEC adopts, old rivalries will get cut. Auburn once played Tennessee and Florida annually, too, but expansion sapped those matchups. It’s unlikely that Alabama-LSU — perhaps the biggest annual TV draw in the SEC in the last decade — will get played every year starting in 2025. 

If the league does decide it must maintain the Tigers vs. the Tide, then another important game to other fan bases will get cut. 

South Carolina is perfect encapsulation for why this debate could get really heated in the Sunshine State next week: The Gamecocks believe they’re rivals with Florida, Georgia and Tennessee — three programs (and their fans) who don’t really view South Carolina in the same light.  So which rivalries (South Carolina-Georgia/South Carolina-Florida or Tennessee/Kentucky, Tennessee-Georgia) should prioritized? 

You think the SEC Playoff thing is going to happen? — F.W. Camari?

F.W. is referring to ESPN insider Pete Thamel’s recent report that the conference plans to explore the idea of a potential All-SEC Playoff starting in 2025 once Texas and Oklahoma join the conference. 

This is kind of like a sister question to the earlier inquiry about future rivalries. They’re all related. 

The rumored plans are a potential eight-team SEC-only playoff, but other scenarios are being discussed, too. 

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is clearly still P.O.’d he put in all those hours working on College Football Playoff expansion, only to see the talks collapse because some ADs refused to see the forest for the trees. 

It was just a few weeks ago that Sankey issued a blunt reminder to his colleagues that the SEC is just fine with staying at four — or perhaps exploring their own deal. 

For now, I think the floated plan is simply another leverage play by Sankey. The conference — and its fans — love bragging about how they’re the best. It Means More, right? Well it’s harder to puff your chest you’re no longer playing and beating Ohio State, Clemson, Michigan, etc.

Although the SEC is morphing into American football’s version of the English Premier League, I don’t see it completely walking away from the rest of the sport. 

Earlier this year, The Athletic’s Andy Stapes wrote about a potential SEC vs. All Y’all playoff and that avenue (or something similar) seems most likely should Sankey & Co., opt to blow up the system and hold their own playoff. 

Get the best of both worlds. 

Determine who is the champion of the South, and then go play the best team from The Alliance. That would be a blockbuster media rights deal for the SEC (and thereby ESPN), and make the conference gobbles of $$$.

One interesting thought about an All-SEC playoff that’s been brought up by folks in the last few days: Should mid-tier programs like Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, etc. — all of whom face incredibly long odds of ever reaching the four-team College Football Playoff — actually be in favor of the SEC holding its own postseason tournament over continuing in the current model?

Suddenly, those jobs become much more enticing when you’re not chasing a check and hoping to make the Tax Slayer Bowl. With 16 conference teams starting in 2025, if you make the eight-team playoff, there’s real stakes and competitive selling points for those schools. 

Who’s your sleeper team in the SEC this year? The team no one is talking about? — Shane

With apologies to Vandy, this is the SEC, man, almost everybody in the conference gets talked about. 

I’m on record thinking Tennessee leap-frogs Kentucky for the No. 2 spot in the SEC East. That prediction could look foolish if the Vols don’t improve on defense, especially when you compare the two team’s schedules. I’ve also beaten the drum for Sam Pittman and the Arkansas Razorbacks this offseason. 

So for a “sleeper,” what happens if all the new pieces at LSU actually make the perfect puzzle? Is everyone too low on the Tigers entering 2022?

Plenty of people have debated Brian Kelly’s potential fit at LSU, but some 22 years ago, a guy named Nick Saban was hired by the Tigers, in what many also deemed an odd marriage between school and coach. How’d that turn out?

Kelly isn’t Saban, but he’s won at every stop he’s been. Thanks to the transfer portal, Kelly took a roster of dough and added some sugar and spice. He’s at least cobbled together something interesting. What happens if the cake bakes just right in Year 1? 

This is a Jekyll and Hyde team — the Tigers could way out perform expectations (7-win over/under) if one of their quarterbacks hit and their young defense coalesces. They could also finish last in the West because the schedule is brutal, they’re starting over from scratch and their offensive line is still probably going to stink. 

It’s a fascinatingly wide variance. 

Will Spencer Rattler make South Carolina competitive in the East this year? — Jim Mayes 

Spencer Rattler will immediately raise the ceiling and floor of South Carolina’s offense — a unit that was embarrassingly terrible despite the team grinding its way to 7 wins. 

Shane Beamer was so desperate for a warm body at quarterback in 2021 he was forced to dust off the cobwebs from a graduate assistant. 

He won’t have that issue this fall. 

Rattler has the talent to be one of the best quarterbacks in the SEC in 2022. He was a preseason Heisman Trophy favorite last year for a reason after leading Oklahoma to a Big 12 Championship and throwing 28 touchdowns in 2020 as a redshirt freshman. He also wasn’t as bad in 2021 as people seem to suggest. Rattler completed 74.9% of his passes last season. He threw for 11 touchdowns to five picks. He was awful against Texas (8 of 15 for 111 yards and an interception), lost his job and transferred. 

Among many categories, the Gamecocks ranked 13th in scoring, passing yards and explosiveness last season, and Rattler should dramatically improve all three statistics with his ability to push the football vertically. 

And yet, a better offense does not mean South Carolina will win more games or even be competitive in the SEC East this fall. They could be, but this is a team that beat East Carolina by three points in 2021. They struggled to put away Troy and squeaked by Vanderbilt. 

Beamer did an amazing job in Year 1, and even with all the transfer additions this offseason, South Carolina’s overall roster still doesn’t match those at Kentucky, Tennessee and maybe even Florida. It’s not in the same stratosphere as Georgia’s. 

Rattler’s addition (and potential upside) gives Carolina at least the chance to pull-off an upset or two this season, but a schedule that now includes Arkansas and Texas A&M from the West — a pair of Top 15 teams — means competing in the East will be difficult to manage.