Greg McElroy Names SEC Program That Could Play Spoiler In 2024

The SEC has always been the premier college football conference, and it somehow reached new heights heading into the 2024 season.

The conference was able to poach the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners, the Big 12's two biggest brands, in what was a very sudden announcement back in 2021. The two remained in the Big 12 through this past season, and 2024 will officially mark their first season in the SEC. While the Longhorns historically are the bigger brand in college football, it was actually Oklahoma that was running the conference on the gridiron up until Lincoln Riley left for USC.

Now that they are heading to the SEC, Texas is the program that is contending for titles, while Oklahoma is still working on returning to that level—a reason that ESPN's Greg McElroy named Texas a tier 1 team in the SEC while calling Oklahoma a tier 3 team on a recent episode of Always College Football.

While this may sting a bit for Oklahoma fans, McElroy did offer some praise for the Sooners. He put them as his top tier-3 team and said that they, along with other teams in this category, can derail anyone's season given the chance.

"Tier 3—these are the spoilers. The floor should be eight wins. Understand that? The floor should be eight wins, and they can spoil anyone's season that I've listed up to this point. Tier 1, Tier 2, championship contenders, playoff contenders, now we get into the spoilers. I don't know if they can quite make the playoff, but they can ruin anyone's season at any one given point."

Before diving into how the Sooners can play spoiler, he did express why he has them in this tier, citing major losses on offense.

"Let's start with the Oklahoma Sooners. Ton of dominance in the Big 12—tons. 13 Big 12 titles in the last 20 years—basically from 2001 to 2020—they had 13 Big 12 titles. Alright, so they have been incredible. Now, offensively, there's some turnover. There's a lot of turnovers offensively. Totally new offensive line, new slot receiver since Drake Stoops is gone, you also lose Dillon Gabriel. I don't feel like we spent enough time on the turnover that Oklahoma has experienced offensively."

However, McElroy acknowledged the fact that there had been a ton of buzz around quarterback Jackson Arnold and what could be one of the more underrated receiver units, headlined by Nic Anderson and Purdue transfer Deion Burks. The offense will have to grow into its own a bit, but unlike in years past where defense was an issue, McElroy revealed that Oklahoma could have one of the best in the country.

"Defensively, they got a real chance to be a top 10 defense. Yeah, you lose a couple of guys in the trenches, you lose a few there. But you bring in a couple too, from the portal that you feel pretty good about. You look at the second level, you know their linebackers are going to be rock solid, those guys are all back. Everyone's back in the secondary."

The reason that McElroy has Oklahoma in tier 3 and not as a contender is their schedule, which he called "very difficult." The Sooners will have to travel to Auburn, play against Texas, which is always a coin-toss, travel to Ole Miss, and also take on three other playoff contenders in three of their final four games with meetings at Missouri, against Alabama, and at LSU to close the year.

If their offense can mesh quickly and the defense can hold up in what will be the deepest conference in college football, when they play so many playoff-hopeful teams, they are bound to throw off someone's season.

Related: Greg McElroy Names One CFB Power That Is 'Primed' To Be A Title Contender