There are two clear favorites within the SEC forward of the 2026 faculty football season.
Georgia and Texas acquired the overwhelming majority of first-place votes within the league’s annual preseason media ballot that was launched Friday. The Bulldogs simply took the top spot with 88 of the 164 first-place votes. Texas was voted second with 57 different first-place votes.
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No different group acquired greater than six votes to complete first.
Georgia and Texas performed one another within the 2024 SEC championship sport earlier than each teams made the College Football Playoff. The Bulldogs received that sport 22-19 as beginning QB Carson Beck suffered a season-ending elbow harm earlier than halftime. That backed up Georgia’s regular-season win in Austin earlier within the season.
The Bulldogs confronted Alabama in final season’s SEC title sport and dominated the Crimson Tide after Alabama received 24-21 in September. Georgia beat Alabama by three touchdowns within the rematch earlier than losing to Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff.
The Rebels had been the group with six first-place votes within the preseason ballot and completed third forward of Texas A&M (5 first-place votes) and LSU (two) in fifth. Alabama was voted sixth with three first-place votes and Oklahoma, who acquired two first-place votes, was seventh.
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This season’s outlier first-place vote went for Kentucky.
The SEC had 5 teams within the College Football Playoff a season in the past however Ole Miss was the one one to advance to the semifinals. The Rebels, who performed the postseason with out head coach Lane Kiffin, lost to Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.
Kiffin, after all, left Ole Miss for LSU. His arrival together with the addition of QB Sam Leavitt and gamers like former Colorado OT Jordan Seaton are an enormous motive why LSU is larger than Alabama and Oklahoma within the ballot this season.
Three of the 5 teams that made the playoff from the SEC a season in the past had been outdoors the top six within the 2025 preseason ballot, whereas two teams within the top six — LSU and Florida — every made teaching adjustments after disappointing seasons.
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The full ballot is under.
Trinidad Chambliss named first-team QB
A yr after he was picked as the preseason third-team all-conference QB, Arch Manning begins 2026 on the second group.
Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss was voted the first-team QB after he emerged as among the best QBs in faculty football in 2025. Chambliss, a former switch from Division II Ferris State, started the season as Ole Miss’ No. 2 QB earlier than taking up as the starter after Austin Simmons — now the starter at Missouri — suffered an ankle harm.
Manning was voted the No. 2 QB within the convention forward of Georgia’s Gunner Stockton. A yr in the past, LaNorris Sellers was voted the first-team QB forward of LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier. Both Sellers and Nussmeier had disappointing seasons. Sellers, seen as a possible first-round NFL Draft decide earlier than the season, opted to return to highschool whereas Nussmeier was a seventh-round decide of the Kansas City Chiefs after coping with problems from a cyst in his midsection for many of the season.
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Ole Miss RB and Missouri RB Ahmad Hardy had been voted as the 2 first-team operating backs. The two had been the second and third-leading rushers in faculty football a season in the past. Hardy had 1,649 yards and 16 TDs, whereas Lacy had 1,567 yards and 24 dashing touchdowns. Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz introduced at SEC media days that Hardy (*2*) as he continues his restoration from a gunshot wound suffered in May.
1. Georgia (88 first-place votes)
2. Texas (57)
3. Ole Miss (6)
4. Texas A&M (5)
5. LSU (2)
6. Alabama (3)
7. Oklahoma (2)
8. Tennessee
9. Florida
10. Missouri
11. South Carolina
12. Auburn
13. Vanderbilt
14. Kentucky (1)
15. Mississippi State
16. Arkansas
