The pick is in and it’s the same as it ever was.
To the surprise of nobody, defending national champion Alabama was the media’s pick to win the SEC (and SEC West) according to the conference’s annual media poll that was released on Friday morning. While that’s obviously following conventional wisdom given how often Nick Saban has his team in Atlanta for the annual title game, the league office notes that the media has successfully predicted the SEC champion only six times since 1992.
Such was the case last year with Alabama being picked to win the conference but Georgia emerging as the SEC champion. Overall, the Crimson Tide received 193 votes to be crowned champion, while the Bulldogs came in second with a very nice 69 votes. Auburn received 14 votes to win the league, followed by four for South Carolina, two for Florida and one each for Mississippi State and Missouri.
Alabama was also picked to win the SEC West with 263 first place votes, followed by Auburn (19), Mississippi State (2), Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss and Arkansas.
Georgia is considered top dog (or is it dawg?) in the SEC East with 271 first place votes. South Carolina (8), Florida (4), Missouri, Kentucky (which got one first place vote), Tennessee (also a singular first place vote) and Vanderbilt rounded out the order of predicted finish.