College Football Betting: SEC East Team Win Totals

Will there be a shift of balance in the SEC East next season? If so, 2021 could look very different from 2020. We’ll explain as we go along in this examination of SEC East teams’ projected win totals heading into the summer.

Georgia Bulldogs
Over-Under: 10.5 wins

The Georgia Bulldogs might have to face Clemson in the first game of the season, which is a likely loss, but after Florida won the SEC East in 2020, Georgia is viewed as the favorite in 2021. Georgia seemed to have found the quarterback it needed last November when J.T. Daniels, a transfer from USC, came off the bench and rallied the offense. If Daniels lives up to the preseason hype, Georgia probably will be good enough to hit the over. However, if Daniels is not as strong as many people expect, Georgia will probably lose at least one game other than the Clemson game, in which case the under will hit. Here’s the thing with Georgia: The Bulldogs might still dethrone Florida as SEC East champion, but they will probably still lose twice. As long as their SEC loss – in other words, their non-Clemson loss – is not to Florida, this is a very likely outcome. At any rate, take the under.

Florida Gators
Over-Under: 9 wins

The Gators finally stopped Georgia’s run of SEC East championships last year. Georgia won the SEC East from 2017 through 2019, but Florida rose up in 2020 and earned a spot in the SEC Championship Game opposite Alabama. Now, however, the Gators lose star quarterback Kyle Trask and superstar tight end Kyle Pitts. In this year’s NFL draft, Pitts was taken with the No. 4 pick by the Atlanta Falcons. Those are two massive losses for a team which developed an elite passing game and a top-tier offense. The Gators didn’t beat Bama in that SEC title game, but they did score 46 points against a Nick Saban defense. In 2021, the Gators aren’t going to be able to field that same kind of turbo-charged offense. Georgia is likely to get the upper hand on UF after losing to Florida last year. Is nine wins the ceiling for Florida, or the floor? It’s closer to the ceiling. Nine wins seems about right for this team, so expect a push, but if you have to lean one way, probably go to the under.

Tennessee Volunteers
Over-Under: 6 wins

The Vols’ passing game has struggled for a very long time – not just for two or three years, but for the past decade. Tennessee has had a hard time finding elite quarterbacks and elite coaches who can guide them. Tennessee has had defense-first coaches. Now the Vols might have found a paradigm shift. They took head coach Josh Heupel from UCF, where the Knights had one of the nation’s better offenses. The question surrounding Heupel is if he can coach offense and quarterback play at the same high level in the SEC as he did in the AAC with UCF. Heupel might be able to do that in the future, but this season, he probably doesn’t have the quarterback he needs to make his offense sing. Take the under.

South Carolina Gamecocks
Over-Under: 3.5 wins

The Gamecocks are heading into this season under first-year head coach Shane Beamer, who has never been a head coach before at the FBS level. Beamer is probably going to need to learn on the job before he improves. This first season is likely to be extremely rough, which points to the under, not the over, being the better play for South Carolina.