They'll stumble from that position, probably, but preseason rankings (despite being completely meaningless) are built on past performance more than anything else.
Nice work, Mav. Only thing I'd add is the number of road vs neutral games played in the SEC and relative distance from home. Alabama, for instance, generally plays their big OOC game at a neutral site in the south rather than home and home like we see in the Big Ten.
I believe Penn St in 2011 was the last true non-con road game that they had, and I'm not sure when the last time before that was.I believe it's been a long time since Alabama has played a regular season game outside the SEC foot print. They refuse to go to another P5 home stadium in an OOC game. So, they basically just sit in the SEC foot print.
BlitzFirst said:Far worse than that...the entire SEC follows suit:
https://sports.yahoo.com/alabama-taught-rest-sec-game-scheduling-system-211001807.html
Georgia’s non con is awful this year but they played @ Notre Dame and they are playing @ UCLA in the future.