While Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer is hoping to send a message during the Crimson Tide’s season opener against FSU next month, Texas is the preseason favorite to take home all the marbles and win the Southeastern Conference championship. The Longhorns, with quarterback Arch Manning leading the team, garnered the most votes from the media during this week’s SEC media days. Texas received ninety six of the two hundred and four votes to claim the title on December 6 in Atlanta.
Georgia received the second-most votes with 44, followed by Alabama with 29 and LSU with 20. The SEC championship game participants are determined by the best conference records during the regular season. Historically, preseason predictions rarely guarantee success, with only 10 predicted champions winning since 1992. Last year’s SEC title game drew over 16 million viewers, peaking during Georgia’s overtime win.
Since 1992, only 10 times has the predicted champion in the preseason poll gone on to win the SEC championship.
Alabama Football head coach Kalen DeBoer took the stage at SEC Media Days on Wednesday morning. He will enter his second year leading the Crimson Tide after taking over for College Football legend Nick Saban last year. During his opening remarks DeBoer said his team had to learn from last year’s mistakes, one such shortfall being their losses on the road. He said that will be tested very early when the Tide heads to Tallahassee in week one. The Crimson Tide will face off against the Seminoles on August 30th at 2:30 central time. DeBoer admitted that the team’s 9-4 record needed to be improved upon. When asked how the team won some big games last year, the coach said resilience was key.
The 2024 SEC title game averaged 16.6 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, the fourth-largest audience on record for the game. The overtime win for Georgia, which peaked with 19.7 million viewers, delivered the largest audience of the college football season.
