At SEC Media Days in July, the league’s assemble media voted Arkansas to finish third in the SEC West. It was the highest the Hogs had been tabbed in the division in about a decade.
But the differences between the eyeball-test and data in this day and age of sports has never been farther apart.
The SEC has been college football’s premier conference for more than 15 years and that’s reflected somewhat as Arkansas, despite being 10th-ranked, is No. 26 overall.
But teams like Auburn and Mississippi State, which were both picked well below the Razorbacks as the seventh-place and sixth-place projected finishers are much higher.
It’s impossible to say what gives, considering ESPN’s proprietary algorithms spit out the data, but it shows that somewhere, Arkansas’ underlying numbers simply aren’t up to snuff. For whatever reason.
He’s a complete look at the SEC on August 1.