Who’s the favorite to win the SEC? It’s not Alabama.

It’s the SEC, so of course the talk must begin with Alabama. But before you assume that the talk also ends with Bama, it’s easy to forget that the defending national champions not only didn’t win the SEC championship game last year, but didn’t even play in it.

The Crimson Tide didn’t even win its own division, but still made the college football playoff. So, any bettors last year who thought they were taking the “easy money” on Alabama winning the SEC instead of making the riskier play on the Tide winning the national title – well, they got burned!

Having said that, Alabama is the -180 favorite to win the SEC title game with SEC East favorite Georgia at +250. There’s a huge drop to Auburn at 7-1 and every other team is double digits.

Live ‘dogs

Florida has a new coach in Dan Mullen and Texas A&M made a big splash by signing Jimbo Fisher to a big contract, but if you ask me, the new coaches who could have the biggest immediate impacts on their programs are Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State and Chad Morris at Arkansas.

I don’t expect Arkansas to improve enough to contend for the SEC title, but Mississippi State might be worth a play at 15-1. But beyond that, I think both will have a lot of ATS success, especially when getting big points from the upper-echelon teams (in addition, if there was a “Live Over Team” category, I would put Arkansas there as a team with a wide-open team and a non-existent defense that should be in a lot of shootouts).

Dead money

There are three SEC teams in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee (the two “University ofs” and Vanderbilt) and it’s going to be hard to back them in many cases against their conference brethren as they’re a cut below them talent-wise and that’s also demonstrated by the precipitous drop-off from Ole MIss at 50-1 to these two teams at 300-1 or worse.

Big games on the board

LSU at Auburn, Sept. 15: This is early in the season, but it should determine who is seen as Alabama’s biggest competition in the SEC East. Auburn is a huge 12-point home favorite in the Games of the Year at the South Point.

Florida vs. Georgia, Oct. 27: The “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” takes place at this neutral site game in Jacksonville, Fla., and it should go a long way toward determining the SEC East champ as these should be the two top teams. The early line at the South Point is Georgia -13.

Auburn at Alabama, Nov. 24: The Iron Bowl always has national title implications, even moreso when Auburn is among the contenders. Alabama is home this year and a 7-point favorite at the South Point.

SEC Championship Game, Dec. 1: This game isn’t on the betting boards yet (except for the futures), but it merits being circled on the calendar as it decides the SEC’s de facto automatic bid to the College Football Playoff.

Odds and ends

Why Mississippi State will go over the season win total of 8: As mentioned in the “Live Dogs” section, I believe the Bulldogs could make some noise in the SEC West and have a long-shot chance at the title, so I obviously love them to go over.

New coach Joe Moorhead should bring cheers of “Moor Cowbell” as he inherits one of the best defenses in the SEC with Jeffery Simmons and Montez Sweat holding down the line. On offense, which is Moorhead’s specialty as he was offensive coordinator at Penn State, Nick Fitzpatrick is reportedly recovering fine from dislocating his foot in last fall’s Egg Bowl, and while Aeris Williams is no Saquon Barkley, he should rack up tons of rushing yards behind one of the SEC’s best offensive lines that returns four starters.

The only potential stumbling block on the non-conference slate is a road game at Kansas State. In the SEC, MSU does have to travel to LSU and Alabama, but gets Auburn at home and doesn’t have to face Georgia, the best team the East division.

Why LSU will go over the season win total of 7.5: At first glance, this Tigers team doesn’t like like anything special and coach Ed Orgeron isn’t the kind to get anyone excited, so this is probably the year to look at LSU to stay under its total, right? Well, I’m not so sure about that.

Even though the program has dropped off from its glory days under Les Miles, it’s still LSU and still gets tons of talent, including LB Devin White Jr. and CB Greedy Williams on a strong defense.

In addition to the homegrown recruits, the Tigers might be getting big help from two transfers, QB Joe Burrow Jr. from Ohio St. (where he didn’t get enough playing time) and WR Jonathan Giles Jr. from Texas Tech (where he had 69 catches for 1,158 yards and 13 TDs in 2016).

LSU should outclass most of its opponents while protecting its home turf to get at least 8 wins. Besides, the last time LSU won fewer than 7.5 games was 1999.

Why Ole Miss will go under the season win total of 6: It wasn’t that long ago that Ole Miss was battling atop the SEC, but NCAA sanctions have put a damper on the program and while the cupboard isn’t bare, it won’t fully recover until recruiting rebounds.

Matt Luke, an Ole Miss lifer as a player and now coach, is working on that, but it’s a slow process. The offense is in good hands with QB Jordan Ta’amu and a deep receiving corps, though the Rebels did lose Van Jefferson to Florida.

The Rebels did manage a 6-6 record last year (and would have been bowl-eligible if not for a bowl ban), but that looks like the best-case scenario this year even though Ole Miss should have a winning non-conference record (Texas Tech, Southern Illinois, Kent State and Louisiana-Monroe) as the wins against SEC competition will be few and far between.