Texas A&M will have plenty of chance to disprove disrespectful preseason SEC polls

As it does every year, SEC Media Days yielded a predicted order of finish for the conference as voted on by those credentialed reporters who are assembled in Atlanta for the event. While these are never polls that end up batting 1.000, sometimes they're pretty accurate— and sometimes, they're not.

Famously, the predicted order of finish in the conference had a decent streak of whiffing on the champion for several years in a row. While the predictability of Georgia's run helped remedy that somewhat, it was still a little shocking that, even during the Saban years, the media had such a tough time picking who would win the conference each season.

The Aggies come in at 8th on this poll, the final team in the top half of the conference. While it's obviously better to finish in the top half than the bottom half, I don't think this is a result that would cause A&M fans to be particularly pleased if it came to pass. Luckily, they'll have plenty of chances to prove the media wrong.

Texas A&M will have to outstrip media expectations to have successful year in SEC

You can view the entire poll below:

Something that's not displayed on this graphic, but something that is really head-scratching, is the number of first-place votes that each team received. Every team above the Aggies received a first-place vote, as did Tennessee, OU, Auburn, and Vanderbilt— but the Ags received zero.

For a team that controlled their own destiny in the middle of last year, and one that— by all accounts— should be markedly better in 2025, this doesn't make much sense. It testifies to just how slept-on the Aggies are in the conference this year, which is something that they'll have to undo by simply notching wins.

Looking at this poll, for this to be the correct order of finish, A&M would most likely have to lose to both South Carolina and Florida as well as Texas and LSU. While those two latter games will be tough road contests, it would be disappointing to finish a relatively light home slate with two losses in Kyle.

I can't help but feel that this would mean a five-loss regular season, which would in all likelihood mean a regression from last year's team. Given the amount of experience returning, I don't find that to be a scenario that is very plausible outside of major injury.

We'll have to see— and the real test will be week three against Notre Dame— but I'm bullish on a prospective year-two jump under Mike Elko. If that happens, there will be a lot of media eating crow about this poll in particular.