Dan Mullen makes bold prediction on Georgia, College Football Playoff
Less than a week after sharing his SEC predictions, former Mississippi State and Florida coach Dan Mullen is back with post-Week One College Football Playoff predictions. After seeing Georgia beat Oregon 49-3 on Saturday in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, Mullen has the Bulldogs beating Ohio State for a second straight National Championship.
Interestingly enough, Mullen’s predictions put two teams from two different conferences – the Big Ten and the SEC – into the four-team playoff. Alabama appears to be the No. 1 seed, insinuating that Mullen believes the Crimson Tide will win the SEC Championship over Georgia, while Michigan is the No. 2 seed with fellow Big Ten East Division rival Ohio State as the No. 4 seed – suggesting a second straight win for the Maize and Blue in The Game over the Buckeyes. Georgia falls in as the No. 3 seed and would play Michigan in the semifinals, a rematch of last year’s Capital One Orange Bowl semifinal game.
Dan Mullen shares SEC predicted order of finish
Mullen is out of coaching for the time being after having been a head coach in the SEC for the last 13 seasons and working with ESPN during the 2022 College Football season. Prior to the start of SEC games last Thursday, he shared his preseason predictions for both of the SEC divisions.
As suggested above, Mullen fully expects to see a familiar Georgia-Alabama matchup at the end of the season, but how he thinks other things will shake out might be more interesting.
In the SEC East, it’s the Dawgs on top in Mullen’s eyes. Not too surprising considering that was the pick for most of the media at SEC Media Days. The Bulldogs have won the Eastern Division four out of the last five years. The only time they didn’t, it was Mullen’s Gators that made the trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game in 2020.
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Like many, Mullen believes that Kentucky and Tennessee are Georgia’s toughest competition to take home the Eastern Division title. Interestingly, he’s got the team that he coached last season at No. 4, now led by Billy Napier.
South Carolina, Missouri and Vanderbilt round out Mullen’s predicted order of finish in the SEC East.
In the SEC West, it’s Alabama’s world and everybody else is just living in it. Nick Saban has led his team to the SEC Championship Game nine times since coming to Tuscaloosa including appearances in six of the last eight years.
After Alabama, the West would seem to be wide open. Texas A&M enters the season ranked the highest by both the AP and Coaches. Arkansas and Ole Miss are certainly on the rise while LSU looks to return to greatness under Brian Kelly. Meanwhile, Auburn is going through some tough times with Bryan Harsin on the hot seat.
