This is an article version of the CBS Sports HQ AM Newsletter, the ultimate guide to every day in sports. The SEC might be the deepest conference in college football and college basketball this year. How do you pick a league champion when seemingly all 16 teams have at least some redeeming qualities, if not nationally renowned traits?
We put our experts up to the task, and they delivered with football superlatives, quarterback rankings and picks for the regular-season basketball title. Our six-man panel picked the conference's order of finish in football. All but one of them have both Texas and Georgia in the top two, and the Bulldogs have the edge in first-place votes.
Just as interesting as the championship picks are the teams our experts selected as the most overrated and underrated. While Alabama picked up two fourth-place votes, Chris Hummer says the consensus is too high on the Crimson Tide. Speaking of Russell, he is one of five new starters to be announced thus far.
Our Brad Crawford is betting on his pedigree as a former five-star recruit, because he has the Alabama signal caller at No. 7 in his SEC quarterback rankings. Here's where he landed: SEC football is less than two weeks away, but don't forget that basketball is right around the corner, too. There are four squads at the front of the preseason race with Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas carrying stacked rosters into 2026-27.
But our Cameron Salerno says not to count out the field. It was always going to be nearly impossible to match 60 home runs and contend for the American League MVP again. But to bat a measly .167 with 17 round-trippers?
That is beyond disappointing. Cal Raleigh simply has not come even relatively close to living up to the high expectations he set for himself in his breakout 2025 season. He even regressed defensively, too.
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