Breaking down the top odds to win the SEC
· Yahoo Sports
We’re one week out from the season kicking off in earnest, and the Texas Longhorns have high hopes for the 2026 season. Based on their portal activity in the offseason, this is clearly a chips-all-in year for Texas, hoping to capitalize on Arch Manning’s final year in college. Despite that, they currently sit with the second-best odds to claim the SEC title according to FanDuel, behind defending champion — and their constant road bump — Georgia Bulldogs.
Visit michezonews.co.za for more information.
Georgia has become a mainstay in the SEC Championship over the last decade, appearing in nine of the last 10 iterations of the game, claiming four titles. That run includes the last two titles, with wins over the Longhorns and the Crimson Tide, bringing their title count to 16. You can’t normally count on last year’s results to be an indicator of future success, but they return 68 percent of the production from a team that was No. 3 in the country in opponent-adjusted efficiency.
Add to that the most-favorable schedule in the conference, and that should almost guarantee an appearance in the conference championship game.
The Longhorns aren’t much longer odds to play for the conference championship, but have a much tougher road ahead than the Bulldogs. Texas has the third-hardest schedule in the country, a ranking buoyed by the Week 2 tilt against Ohio State that won’t impact the SEC race. That doesn’t make the finish to the conference schedule Texas spends three of the last four weeks of the regular season on the road, playing Missouri, LSU, and Texas A&M all away from Austin.
Texas does have a high ceiling, with the talent they’ve brought in to supplement homegrown stars like Arch Manning and Colin Simmons on both sides of the ball. Because of the nature of the SEC, Texas can likely drop a conference game and still make its way to the title game, but there is once again a chance that the Lone Star Showdown against Texas A&M has a big impact on what teams play for the conference title.
Ole Miss has longer odds on FanDuel, but makes an intriguing case for relevance in the title race. While there is a new face calling the offense, they return one of the most exciting players in the conference in quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. They were active in the portal in the offseason, both coming and going, and seemingly restocked the cupboard in the wake of Lane Kiffin leaving and taking players with him to Baton Rouge. If the Rebels do manage to take the title, it would be the first time since 1963, when Johnny Vaught was at the helm, a man whose name now adorns the side of their home stadium.
It should, once again, be an interesting year in the SEC, with Oklahoma, LSU, and Alabama all expected to be in the mix for the title as well. But now, talking season is drawing to a close, and we’ll have real football to discuss as Texas prepares to kick off the season against Texas State next Saturday.