Ole Miss Rebels Football

Here's how unpredictable the SEC has been over the last decade

We compared the media's preseason predictions to the full standings from each season.

By Jeff Gray@Jeff_GraySBN Jul 16, 2016, 12:26pm EDT

On Thursday, the assembled media in Hoover wrapped up the week by releasing its annual preseason predictions for the SEC standings. If you've read literally anything about those predictions, you already know that they're almost always wrong — since the SEC introduced a conference championship game 24 years ago, the media has accurately predicted the winner just five times.

Year	Preseason pick	Result	Actual SEC champ
2015	Auburn	7th (West)	Alabama
2014	Alabama	SEC Champs	Alabama
2013	Alabama	t-1st (West)	Auburn
2012	LSU	t-2nd (West)	Alabama
2011	Alabama	2nd (West)	LSU
2010	Alabama	4th (West)	Auburn
2009	Florida	SEC runners-up	Alabama
2008	Florida	SEC Champs	Florida
2007	LSU	SEC Champs	LSU
2006	Auburn	t-2nd (West)	Florida
2005	Tennessee	5th (East)	Georgia
2004	Georgia	2nd (East)	Auburn
2003	Auburn	3rd (West)	LSU
2002	Tennessee	3rd (East)	Georgia
2001	Florida	2nd (East)	LSU
2000	Alabama	t-5th (West)	Florida
1999	Tennessee	2nd (East)	Alabama
1998	Florida	2nd (East)	Tennessee
1997	Florida	t-2nd (East)	Tennessee
1996	Tennessee	2nd (East)	Florida
1995	Florida	SEC Champs	Florida
1994	Florida	SEC Champs	Florida
1993	Alabama	SEC runners-up	Florida
1992	Florida	SEC runners-up	Alabama

That table is from SB Nation's Christian D'Andrea, who also notes...

In fact, just spamming "Alabama" or "Florida" every year would have a better success rate (5-19) than the media's current picks. Since 1996, only four of the league's favorites in July went on to play in the SEC Championship Game. In four other instances, the preseason favorite failed to finish in the top half of its division.

So yea, we know the media ain't great at forecasting the championship game. But what about the rest of its picks? How much stock, for example, should we put into this year's projection of Ole Miss finishing third in the West behind Bama and LSU?

To get an idea, I went back and pulled both the full predictions and the final standings for each of the last 10 seasons. Here they are: