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Georgia Bulldogs: Favorites to Win SEC East?

By John Buhler

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The Georgia Bulldogs enter the 2015 Season with a great deal of promise after finishing 2014 #9 in the country with a 10-3 (6-2) record and a Belk Bowl victory over the Louisville Cardinals.  UGA returns a top-tier rushing attack led by Heisman hopeful Sophomore RB Nick Chubb and arguably the deepest LB corps in the nation led by Senior OLB Jordan Jenkins.  Even with the usually high expectations set on Georgia football, are the Dawgs the favorite to win the SEC East in 2015?

-= Related: UGA’s Better Playmaker in 2015: Michel or Mitchell? =-

According to a panel of researchers at Weekend Predictions, Inc., they believe that there will be a rematch of the Deep South’s Oldest Rival in the Georgia Dome for the 2015 SEC Championship.  It would be the first time that the Georgia Bulldogs and the Auburn Tigers would meet in the Conference Title Game since its inception in 1992.  While it would be fantastic for both teams, it’s normally an unlikely matchup for interdivisional rivals to square off in the Dome.

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    • Many believe that Georgia’s main competition out of the East will be the two-time reigning division champion Missouri Tigers and the up-and-coming Tennessee Volunteers.  The Florida Gators and the South Carolina Gamecocks should make things interesting in the East as potential dark horse contenders.  And the Kentucky Wildcats and the Vanderbilt Commodores are both a good ways back from contention in 2015.  Both schools are just hoping to make bowl games in 2015.

    If you look at who each Eastern contender’s pair of games against the West, you will notice that Georgia has the toughest draw of anybody: @ Auburn and vs. Alabama.  Mizzou travels to Arkansas and will host Mississippi State, both quality programs but not on the same level as either Alabama State school.  Tennessee will have to go to Alabama in their cross-divisional game and host Arkansas this fall.

    So the Georgia Bulldogs will likely have to go no worse than 5-1 in the SEC East for a chance at winning the division for the first time since 2012.  Normally a 6-2 conference record puts an East team in good position to go to Atlanta.  But sometimes even that’s not enough, just look at Mizzou going 7-1 in conference play with arguably the weakest slate of games of any team in the SEC in 2014.

    At this moment, I feel that UGA will likely split their games against Auburn and Alabama.  Georgia could go 6-2 in SEC play and still make it to the Conference Championship, but the Dawgs would have to certainly beat Mizzou at home.  You don’t want to lose the tiebreaker to the Tigers again.  Losing at Tennessee wouldn’t be fun either but the Vols seem more likely to go 5-3 in the SEC than either UGA or UM.

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    I would say that the Georgia Bulldogs are probably the favorite to win the SEC East heading into the 2015 Season, but it’s by an eyelash over the Missouri Tigers.  My reasoning for this is that I do not see Mizzou going undefeated on the road in conference play this season.  Playing at Arkansas and at Georgia in budding rivalry games might be too much for the Tigers to overcome in 2015.

    So really UGA just needs to take care of business in the SEC East and the Dawgs should find themselves playing for a Conference Championship in December at the Dome.  Going 6-0 in divisional play gives the Georgia Bulldogs a leg up on their competition even with possible loses against the Tide and on the Plains.

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