SEC expert picks 2024: Most overrated and underrated teams, projected order of finish, bold predictions

With legendary coach Nick Saban gone from the sidelines, Georgia facing one of its toughest schedules in years and teams such as Missouri and Ole Miss yearning to build on breakthrough seasons, the SEC is primed for parity in 2024. Oklahoma and Texas are in, the old divisional structure is out and the group of teams that view themselves as College Football Playoff contenders is vast.

The league is particularly strong from a quarterback perspective, even after the loss of Jayden Daniels, who won the Heisman Trophy leading LSU last season. New Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer is a QB guru, and he's got a great one to work with in Jalen Milroe . Familiar names such as Carson Beck (Georgia) and Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss) also return to lead teams ranked in the top-six of the AP Top 25 preseason poll.

Meanwhile, first-year starters such as Garrett Nussmeier (LSU), Nico Iamaleava ( Tennessee ) and Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma) are also poised for breakout seasons as they take command of teams ranked inside the top 16.

Michigan snapped the SEC's run of four straight national titles last season with a win over Washington in the first national title game since the 2014 season that didn't involve an SEC team. It marked a rare down moment for the conference. Now, with nine of the preseason top-20 teams coming from the SEC entering the 2024 season, the league is poised for a return to the top of college football.

Let's have a look as our CBS Sports college football experts have provided their picks and predictions for the SEC ahead of the 2024 season.

Most overrated team

Oklahoma : Oklahoma is breaking in a pair of new coordinators and a new quarterback, all while facing a daunting league schedule during its first season in the SEC. Six of OU's eight league foes are beginning the season ranked in the top 15 of the AP Top 25 poll, and projected SEC bottom-feeders Vanderbilt and Mississippi State are both absent from the slate. OU has enough talent to hang with anyone, but odds are this ends up being a transition season as the Sooners acclimate to a new league, new quarterback and new coordinators. -- David Cobb (Jerry Palm)

LSU : The Tigers lost their top passer, top two rushers, top two receivers and offensive coordinator from a team that finished outside of the top 10 last season. Defensive coordinator Blake Baker will help improve the defense, but flipping playcallers on both sides of the ball and relying on a host of unproven options to take on starring roles makes it difficult to see LSU seriously landing in the College Football Playoff discussion like a preseason No. 13 ranking might assume. A road slate featuring Texas A&M , Florida and Arkansas could also present some unexpected landmines. -- Shehan Jeyarajah (Will Backus)

Missouri : I've heard a lot of talk this offseason about Missouri as a playoff contender, and they begin the season ranked No. 11 in the AP Top 25. It all feels like a bit much. The Tigers had a great season last year, finishing with 11 wins, but that included four one-score wins against Middle Tennessee , Kansas State , Memphis and Florida, all of which were at home. They also benefited from a favorable road schedule that included Vanderbilt and Arkansas. While the schedule isn't overly difficult, I still expect the Tigers to fall back to Earth a bit. -- Tom Fornelli (Richard Johnson)

Ole Miss : My issue here is less with the preseason projections in the SEC or even the Rebels' win total -- I do have Lane Kiffin's group going over 9.5 wins in the regular season -- but more with how Ole Miss has been rated nationally. Starting at No. 6 in the national polls, Ole Miss has entered the conversation of being a top-five team capable of winning a national championship. But to this point, the best Ole Miss teams overwhelm lesser opponents but fall short in the games against Alabama, or just last season against Georgia. If we're going to talk about the Rebels as a top-five team, I'd like to see that next step first. -- Chip Patterson

Auburn : Maybe I listen to too much SEC radio, but Auburn is the most overblown, overrated program since Kirby Smart made Georgia relevant again. I keep hearing about the Tigers' receiving corps, but the same quarterback is throwing to them ( Payton Thorne ). Auburn was dead last in the SEC in passing last season. The running back room is loaded, but this team has 6-6 written all over it. And we still don't know if Hugh Freeze is the coach to lead this program out of the wilderness. Freeze is the fourth coach since Gus Malzahn was run out of town in 2020. In a stronger-than-ever SEC, the Tigers' road back to relevance just developed a lot more potholes. -- Dennis Dodd

Most underrated team

Texas A&M : There's a negative image swirling around Texas A&M after the whole Jimbo Fisher fiasco, which is understandable. It was a very public, messy situation that saw some prolific players leave the program in the aftermath. But the Aggies nailed the rebound hire. As a rookie head coach, Mike Elko won nine games in his first year at Duke -- mind you, that was one fewer win than Duke had in the three years leading up to his hiring. He still managed to win seven games in 2023 with a revolving door at quarterback and a list of significant injuries a mile long. So, yes, he should do very well with a Texas A&M program where he inherits one of the SEC's best young signal callers in Conner Weigman and a roster still buoyed by some solid recruiting from the Fisher era. Don't be surprised if he matches Fisher's top regular season win total (eight) in Year 1. -- Backus (Patterson, Cobb)

Tennessee : Do teams with the best offensive player and defensive player in their leagues tend to do well? The Volunteers have James Pearce Jr . on defense, and he could be the No. 1 player in the draft next spring. They also have Nico Iamaleava at QB, who was a five-star recruit and has the potential to be one of the best signal-callers in the country. Iamaleava's talent combined with Josh Heupel's offense combined with a defense that projects to be pretty solid is a very intriguing combination. This is a Tennessee team that will not only compete for a playoff berth but could be in line for a first-round bye. -- Fornelli (Dodd)

Missouri : This is more of a response to those who think the Tigers do not deserve their preseason ranking than that ranking being too low. Mizzou is coming off an historic season in which it won 11 games including a demolition of what was left of Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. This year's Tigers team will still be pretty good and has been gifted a relatively soft SEC schedule.  Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss are not there, and while there are road trips to Alabama and Texas A&M, those games should be the only times this season they take the field as underdogs. Another 10-2 season would not at all be surprising. -- Palm (Jeyarajah)

Florida : The most popular refrain in preseason analysis this summer has been that Florida's schedule is the hardest in college football history. But ... what if it's not? In a sport where top 15 teams finish unranked every single year, the odds are that we will not consider Florida's schedule as much of a murderers row in December that we think about it as in September. Florida will also be improved enough on the line of scrimmage to be dangerous in at least some of its hardest run. They aren't a 10-win team, but the Gators aren't a five-win team either. -- Johnson

Bold predictions

• Dennis Dodd: Ole Miss will break the school record for combined wins over four seasons (39). Last year's Rebels tied the school record with 29 wins over a three-year period -- last set in 1962.
• Tom Fornelli: The biggest upset of the 2024 season is the SEC getting only three teams into the playoff. It turns out that when you add two new programs capable of winning national titles to a league already full of programs that compete for national titles, it leads to parity and a few too many losses for top contenders.
• Chip Patterson : There will be a five-way tie for third place with Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU and Tennessee all finishing with a 6-2 conference record. It's only thanks to a massive 16-team league that we get such disparity across the schedules, but the SEC's top tier is poised to flirt with double-digit wins thanks to their respective draws.
• Shehan Jeyarajah: The expanded level of parity in the SEC with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma means that every single team in the conference will finish with multiple regular-season losses. Even champion Georgia will drop two of the three road games against Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss. Ultimately, it won't affect CFP chances at all.
• Richard Johnson: Trevor Etienne will lead the nation in rushing behind one of the five best offensive lines in the country with an increased number of carries as a workhorse back. Not even Oklahoma State star Ollie Gordon II will best UGA's RB1.
• David Cobb: The SEC will send at least two quarterbacks to New York as Heisman Trophy finalists from this group -- Quinn Ewers (Texas), Carson Beck (Georgia), Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss), Jalen Milroe (Alabama), Garrett Nussmeier (LSU), Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee) and Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma).
• Jerry Palm: The rankings will be kind to the SEC, as always, and four teams will make the College Football Playoff, including the two conference members that were in last year's playoff. One will get a bye, of course, but the other three will host first-round games. That means four teams from the conference will finish in the CFP top eight.
• Will Backus: The SEC produces at least five teams with 10 regular-season wins each. This will create a severe headache for the College Football Playoff committee and some serious uproar from the schools that get left on the cutting room floor. Don't be surprised if that's the catalyst for (inevitable) further expansion.

SEC predicted order of finish

SEC champion

Georgia: I made it a habit never to bet against Nick Saban when he was still coaching. Kirby Smart has earned that benefit of the doubt. The Bulldogs recruit at a level unmatched by any program, but Smart and his staff don't get nearly as much credit for the job they do developing that talent once it actually reaches campus. Smart's defense will never be worse than top-10 nationally, and now Georgia can pair that with a potential first-round pick at quarterback in Carson Beck, a dynamic running back room paced by an electric playmaker in Trevor Etienne, a wide receiver room that's six or seven legitimate players deep and an offensive line that could win the Joe Moore Award. Georgia has a really difficult schedule, but it probably won't matter. -- Backus (Dodd, Fornelli, Patterson, Jeyarajah, Johnson, Palm)

Texas: Texas faces a manageable schedule in its first season as part of the SEC. While the Longhorns must play Georgia, that game is at home on Oct. 19. Preseason top-15 teams from the AP Top 25 such as Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, LSU and Tennessee are each absent from the slate. Meanwhile, the Longhorns have the advantage of playing projected doormats Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. With continuity at quarterback and in the head coach/coordinator spots, the Longhorns are poised to rifle through this slate and handle an SEC Championship Game test against an opponent that will have faced a more rigorous slate. -- Cobb