Is This the Year the Balance of Power in the SEC Shifts from the West to the East?

September 2, 2020 by Staff

An SEC West team has won 10 of the last 11 conference championships with Georgia as the outlier in 2017. Is 2020 the year that the East is actually better - as a whole - that the west? Let's look at the numbers.

According to the Congrove Computer Rankings at CollegeFootballPoll.com, a ranking system with 27 years under its belt and recognized by the NCAA as a national champion selector, the East has a higher cumulative power rating than the west.

The SEC East checks in with an average power rating for 78.57 for its 7 members - Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

The SEC West doesn't lag far behind with an average of 77.72 between Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Texas A&M.

However, the power at the top still resides in the west, and by a fairly large disparity. The average is a bit of a mirage for the east which has 4 teams in the mid 80's while the west has 2 teams at the top above 90.

The west is led by Alabama at 94.12 and LSU at 91.44, but the Tigers have home field advantage over the Tide in their November 14 meeting and are favored to win by a mere 0.32 points.

Texas A&M checks in at 3rd at a distant 87.44 power points, followed by an even steeper decline to Auburn in 4th at 81.24.

Meanwhile, the east is a 4-way race with Florida (86.89), Georgia (86.68), Tennessee (86.63), and Kentucky (84.89) all separated by 2 power points or less. It's even crazier that Florida, Georgia and Tennessee have no more than 0.26 points separating them. The Vols win by the luck of the draw as they get Kentucky and Florida at home, as well as cross-over home games against Texas A&M and Alabama.

Georgia hosts Tennessee, plays Florida on neutral ground (Jacksonville), and travels to Kentucky. The cross-over slate includes a road trip to Tuscaloosa.

Florida has to travel to Tennessee and gets Kentucky at home. The Gators do get LSU at home among their cross-over games.

Ultimately, the computer has LSU favored by 4.81 points over Tennessee in the SEC Championship game.

Every team in the SEC opens the season on September 26 with a 10-game schedule against its own membership with no non-conference games.

Here's how every team in the SEC begins the season in Power Rating.

East

West