The college football season is about three months away, so that means it is time to take a look at where things stand with all 16 SEC teams and see who has the best chance of being the champion of the conference this year. While ranking the 16 teams in the SEC is difficult, it isn't as hard to put them in tiers of who can contend for the conference and who can't.
When looking at the conference in that lens, there are six teams who jump out that are much better than the bottom of the conference while also not being quite good enough to seriously contending for the SEC Championship this season.
6 SEC teams that can do damage, but will fall short in the SEC
1. Missouri Tigers
2. Auburn Tigers
3. Texas A&M Aggies
4. South Carolina Gamecocks
5. Oklahoma Sooners
6. Florida Gators
What to expect from these teams this season
These six teams will all be solid in the SEC this season that are capable of beating anyone on their schedule. But at the same time, they also could lose to most teams on their schedule as well. Knowing this, there is a chance they could catch lightning in a bottle and rattle off a lot of wins to contend for one of the two spots in the SEC Championship game.
That however is unlikely to happen.
The one team out of this bunch that on paper is the best is Florida. The Gators are talented enough to be one of the two teams to make it to Atlanta, but their schedule is far too difficult for anyone to be confident in that actually happening. Florida has to travel to LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss while also having Tennessee, Texas and Georgia on their schedule as well. Now that is too difficult for a team like Florida to be able to make it to the SEC title game. Florida also plays Miami (FL) and Florida State as well, so that only adds to how difficult their life will be this season.
As mentioned, all six of these teams are capable of beating the favorites in the conference on any given Saturday, so don't be surprised if one of these teams makes a surprise run and is in contention in the final weeks to make it to Atlanta.