Scout.com: Harbach - 11 SEC Predictions for 2011 Brian Harbeck's column at College Football news. You'd think Alabama and Auburn have disappeared in the SEC West.
Mississippi State? I must be missing some sarcasm...........we still have West Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, and Alabama after that. I think several of those are bigger challenges than Miss State.
I'm much more worry about playing Mississippi state at Starkville then I'm worried about playing Florida (brand new coaching staff) and Auburn (losing their offense with Cam)at our house. West Virginia is not going to be the team that they were last year, they will have the talent to beat us, but I think that LSU will dominate that game in the second half. Now, Tennessee at Rocky Top will be a challenged...but I still think State has a better chance to beat us. They are going to be a good squad next year. They were a 9-4 team last year with the majority come back.
JMO, but I don't think Auburn's offense is going to drop that much, while the defense will improve significantly. Regardless, it is Auburn's schedule that will prevent us from challenging in the West in '11 .... better outlook for AU in '12.
As a Auburn fan, you wouldn't. I think you are underestimating how big of a factor Cam was for the AU offence last year, he single handily won several games that could of easily (without his legs would of) gone the other way. BTW...how does losing Farley = significant improvement. Not trying to argue, just wondering why? Ours is toughest in the nation. Their schedule looks like this: Mississippi State @ home Clemson Florida Atlantic @ home South Carolina Arkansas Florida @ home LSU Ole Miss @ home Georgia Samford @ home Alabama @ home 3 of the 5 SEC WEST gmaes are at their place, huge advantage IMO. And their out of conference games are not as tough as ours.