ESPN FPI projects another dominant year for SEC Football

(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

SEC football has been the cream of the crop in the college game for years. The latest ESPN FPI projections confirm that trend is likely to continue in 2019.

The SEC won National Signing Day. More than likely, they’ll win the NFL Draft again in April, too. And if the latest predictive models are correct, the nation’s most despised conference will produce the best results on the field next season as well.

ESPN released their preseason FPI, a measure of a team’s expected scoring margin above average for the upcoming season. Clemson, the defending national champion, is No. 1 with an FPI of 29.0, just a smidge better than Alabama’s 27.6. After the champs, though, the rest of the upper end of the projections lean heavily toward the SEC.

All told, the SEC has three of the top four teams and 10 of the top 20. Five schools from each SEC division are represented and each division has at least a pair of Top 10 teams,

TeamFPIRank
Alabama27.62
Georgia223
LSU21.54
Florida17.48
Auburn16.69
Texas A&M15.911
Tennessee13.715
Mississippi State13.516
South Carolina12.119
Missouri11.920

Yes, these numbers were generated by a computer. They’re not a perfect predictor of how the 2019 season will turn out. These teams will play each other several times and losses will be incurred. Still, the sheer volume of strength from any one conference is stunning.

The Pac-12’s highest-rated team is Oregon at No. 10 and the next-best ACC team to Clemson is Florida State, who checks in at No. 22. There are entire divisions trying to grasp one piece of the nation’s elite status. The SEC isn’t sharing. And if the math is right, it’ll be Clemson vs the best of the SEC for the national championship once again following the 2019 season.