Greg McElroy isn’t just sorting SEC teams into playoff and non-playoff buckets this year. He’s drawing a harder line than that.
On his Always College Football podcast, McElroy broke the conference into five tiers and put only four teams on the top shelf as legitimate national championship threats: Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss and Oklahoma. His point was simple enough.
As he put it, this is not a "can they make the playoff question. This is a can they win the whole thing?"
That stance comes with a bigger backdrop. The SEC sent five teams to the College Football Playoff last year and still watched every one of them fall short of the final. That makes it three straight seasons without an SEC team playing for the crystal, while Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana have taken the last three titles.
McElroy’s next tier - the group he sees as playoff contenders - includes Texas A&M, Alabama and LSU. Tennessee, South Carolina and Florida landed in Tier 3. Missouri, Auburn and Vanderbilt were grouped as bowl-eligible teams in Tier 4, while Kentucky, Mississippi State and Arkansas were placed at the bottom in Tier 5.
The top tier is where the real debate starts.
Texas was preseason No. 1 a year ago and never came close to matching that billing, missing the playoff despite a third straight 10-win season. McElroy still put the Longhorns at the top of his SEC list, and the case starts with Arch Manning, who returns for a full season as the starter after finishing 2025 on a heater.
Steve Sarkisian also went shopping in the portal. He landed Cam Coleman from Auburn to join Ryan Wingo at receiver, then added running back Hollywood Smothers from NC State.
The question, though, is whether the offensive line can hold up. That unit was a problem in both losses that mattered last season.
If it gets fixed, Texas looks like a title team. If it doesn’t, the Longhorns could be staring at the same frustration all over again.
Georgia is the team McElroy trusts most, and the reason is continuity. Gunner Stockton is back for his second full year after throwing for 2,894 yards with 24 touchdowns and just five interceptions while adding 10 rushing scores. The Bulldogs also bring back a heavy load of starters on a defense that already shuts down the run.
Still, there’s room for more. Georgia needs Stockton to stretch the field more often, and it needs the pass rush to improve after producing just 20 sacks a year ago.
The talent is there, as it always is in Athens. McElroy’s view of the program was blunt: when Georgia loses a starter, the next guy is "probably going to be okay."
Kirby Smart’s challenge is ending three straight seasons without a playoff win.
Ole Miss is the wild card that could make the whole conversation look obvious in hindsight. The Rebels lost Lane Kiffin to LSU, promoted Pete Golding and still reached the national semifinals.
Now they bring back Trinidad Chambliss, the former Division II transfer whose only other offer was Temple, and he enters 2026 as a real Heisman favorite after nearly 4,000 passing yards. Kewan Lacy is back as well after leading the SEC with 24 rushing touchdowns and piling up 1,567 yards.
McElroy’s line on the Rebels was the kind of quote that sticks: "Ole Miss reloads. Ole Miss does not rebuild."
The receiver room did turn over, and that’s the biggest concern. But Golding used the portal to strengthen the defense, and McElroy clearly believes the Rebels’ formula can travel. They already proved last season that they belong in the national picture.
Oklahoma may be the most intriguing of the four. McElroy is higher on the Sooners than most, and the numbers back up why.
They led the country in tackles for loss and posted 45 sacks on the way to their first playoff berth since 2019. Seven starters are back on that defense, including four All-SEC picks.
Everything, though, comes back to John Mateer. He dealt with a hand injury for half of last season and now gets a full offseason healthy.
McElroy’s view is that a defense this strong "does not need a ridiculous amount of help." It just needs an offense that avoids the costly mistakes.
Oklahoma’s 23-6 loss to Texas last season is the clearest example. The Sooners turned it over three times, fell from 5-0 to a stretch that ended with two losses in three games, and finished 12th in the SEC in turnover margin at minus-0.23 per game. If Mateer gets back to the form that produced 44 total touchdowns two years ago, or even recaptures the early-season spark he showed before the injury, Oklahoma could be more than just a playoff team.
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For the Sooners, the issue is especially notable because several players on the 2025 roster could fall into that window and suddenly have a choice to make after the 2026 NFL Draft. If any of those players decide college is still the better move, Oklahoma could be dealing with a fresh wave of roster decisions well after the usual offseason business is supposed to be settled. [Read more 🡒]
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For Oklahoma, this is about more than just shoring up one phase of the offense. The Sooners have returning players mixed with new additions, and the challenge now is turning that blend into a line and backfield that can hold up over a full season. The identity they are chasing is a more dependable, more physical attack, and fall camp will reveal how close they are to getting it before the spotlight tightens in September. [Read more 🡒]