With the 2026 college football season less than two weeks away, SEC fans are already living in that strange preseason space where hope and panic show up together. The schedules are mapped out, the rosters are taking shape, and for the league’s College Football Playoff hopefuls, the range of outcomes is wide enough to make anybody sweat.
For Georgia, the dream version is simple and brutal for the rest of the sport: Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs take control back from the Big Ten and snap the league’s three-year run of dominance. That path includes a win over Alabama for a second time this season and ends with Georgia beating Ohio State in the CFP national title game. In that scenario, the Smart-DeBoer dynamic flips, and suddenly Kalen DeBoer is the one under the heat lamp.
The nightmare version looks a lot less familiar in Athens. Georgia’s recent slide from untouchable to merely very good turns into something much uglier, with a shocking three-loss season that leaves the Bulldogs outside the playoff field. The consolation prize is a Cheez-It Bowl win, but that would hardly soften the sting of three losses in 2026.
Texas has its own ceiling that feels enormous. In the best-case world, the Longhorns finally cash in on everything they’ve been building over the last few seasons and win their first national championship in 21 years. Arch Manning also delivers a prize the Manning family hasn’t seen from his grandfather or his two uncles: the Heisman Trophy.
The bad path for Texas is sharper and more specific. Needing a win against Texas A&M to lock up a CFP berth, the Longhorns stumble in their second loss of the season.
That not only knocks them out of the SEC championship game picture, it also ends their playoff hopes because of the new rule that says Notre Dame gets in automatically if it is ranked inside the top 12. In the final ranking, the source has it like this: 12.
Notre Dame, 13. Texas.
At Alabama, the upside centers on Kalen DeBoer finding his stride in year three. In the best case, Keelon Russell emerges as one of the sport’s rising stars, DeBoer wins his first SEC championship, and Alabama takes down Georgia along the way. The Crimson Tide still suffer a CFP semifinal loss, but the broader view is that they enter 2027 as one of the teams favored to win it all.
The downside in Tuscaloosa keeps circling the same old criticism. If the talk that Alabama is soft doesn’t go away, it’s because the losses keep piling up in painful fashion. Kentucky shocks the Crimson Tide in the second week of the season, Texas A&M hands them a homecoming upset, and then Auburn closes the book on the playoff race with an Iron Bowl win at home.
Ole Miss has one of the most interesting swings on the board. In the best-case scenario, Pete Golding keeps the Cinderella run alive and leads the Rebels to the first SEC championship victory in school history. They make it back to the CFP semifinals, where Oregon stops them, and they also get a win over LSU in Lane Kiffin’s return to Baton Rouge.
The worst case for the Rebels is a fast fade from that dream. Golding’s first season as the full-time head coach doesn’t hold up, LSU blows out Ole Miss in Kiffin’s return to LSU, and the Rebels finish 8-4 before landing in the Music City Bowl.
In Other News...
Alabama Already Faces An EJ Crowell Question It Didn't Want
A lower-body injury has put freshman Alabama running back EJ Crowell on the shelf just as the preseason competition is starting to sharpen, and the timing is less than ideal for a player the Tide have been eager to see in a fuller role. Crowell missed Thursdays scrimmage and Mondays practice, another brief setback in a stop-and-start arrival that has already included injury issues since he got to campus.
Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb has tried to keep the focus on the long view, expressing optimism that Crowell will be back soon and should be ready for the season opener. For Alabama, the hope is simple enough: get the freshman healthy, get him on the field, and find out whether the flashes he has shown when available can translate into something more meaningful once the games begin to count. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama's QB Battle May Be Reaching A Brutal Week For Austin Mack
The quarterback competition at Alabama has reached the point where the calendar may matter almost as much as the reps. Kalen DeBoer has made clear he would like to settle the job soon after the final fall camp scrimmage, with the staff trying to give the offense some much-needed continuity before the season begins. For now, the battle is centered on Austin Mack, a fourth-year player, and Keelon Russell, the sophomore who has worked himself into the thick of it.
Mack has stayed in the mix long enough to keep this from feeling settled, but the next few days could still be decisive in a fight that has already put real pressure on the veteran. Even if the answer does not come immediately, Alabama is clearly heading toward a choice it hopes will steady the entire offense, and the tension around that decision is only going to sharpen as the scrimmage approaches. [Read more 🡒]
Alabamas Quarterback Race Is Starting To Reveal Something Important
Alabamas 10th preseason camp practice offered another glimpse into how the quarterback competition is unfolding, even without the full-on offense-versus-defense setting fans usually crave. With media watching only a portion of the workout in Tuscaloosa, the session leaned heavily on group and individual work, which still gave a useful look at the rotation between Austin Mack and Keelon Russell while the staff kept sorting through battles along the offensive line.
The other notable development was the return of Lotzeir Brooks, who was back on the field and appeared to be fully involved after missing the previous scrimmage. Kalen DeBoer also spent a significant stretch working with the defense, a reminder that camp remains a broad evaluation process rather than a single-position showcase, and this one wrapped up after the seventh period with more questions than answers still hanging in the air. [Read more 🡒]