SEC Football Unfiltered – Details, episodes & analysis

Tennessee’s mid-April quarterback swap damaged the Vols’ chance of making the College Football Playoff, but did the Nico Iamaleava for Joey Aguilar swap make the Vols one of the SEC’s weakest teams? That’s what one preseason publication thinks.

Lindy’s magazine picked Tennessee 11th in the SEC in its conference picks. Might want to take a peek at that schedule, though, before predicting such a freefall for the Vols.

On today’s episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams wade through Lindy’s SEC hierarchy and identify a few underrated and overrated teams.

Several SEC coaches enter this season facing an inflection point in their tenures. That doesn't necessarily mean each of these coaches is on the hot seat (not yet, anyway), but this projects as a defining season for coaches like LSU's Brian Kelly, Florida's Billy Napier and Auburn's Hugh Freeze.

Kelly says he's got his best LSU roster to date. No argument here. Napier's Gators finished last season on a hot streak. Auburn hasn't shown much bite yet under Freeze, but he's got a new quarterback.

On today's episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams play a round of buy, hold or sell on 10 SEC coaches. They share an opinion on Kelly and Napier but take separate paths on Freeze.

They also consider the buy-or-sell case for other SEC coaches like Alabama's Kalen DeBoer and Kentucky's Mark Stoops. 

Cinderella went home before curfew, and true madness never appeared this March. That’s fine by the SEC. The relative lack of chaos in this NCAA Tournament proved good for the conference that qualified the most teams.

The SEC advanced a record seven teams into the Sweet 16, and the conference retains an opportunity to sweep the Final Four spots.

In today’s basketball-themed episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams grade the SEC’s performance so far, and they project the winner of each region, plus refresh their national championship picks.

Toppmeyer offers a theory as to why Cinderellas took a downturn this season, and the hosts debate whether Arkansas or Kentucky won the coaching carousel last spring.

Finally, they revisit their initial Final Four picks and decide whether to buy or sell those holdings.

The SEC has taken March Madness by storm, and the conference enjoys a strong chance for multiple Final Four berths due to its sheer volume of qualifiers and the lofty seeding of several of its teams.

It’s not all that far-fetched to consider the possibility of the SEC claiming every spot in the Final Four. Among the SEC’s top teams, which faces the toughest path to San Antonio? That might be Auburn. The No. 1 overall seed received a brutal bracket draw.

On today’s episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams offer their bracket breakdown, including spotlighting a few SEC teams that might be in danger of suffering an early upset.

They also provide their Final Four picks. Adams picks a championship game featuring two SEC teams, while Toppmeyer only puts one SEC team in his Final Four, with a Big 12 team capturing the championship.

The conversation of best active coaches without a national championship begins with Gonzaga's Mark Few. You won't get very far down that list, though, before arriving at Auburn's Bruce Pearl and Tennessee's Rick Barnes.

They're career winners. They've been great for their respective universities. Each owns a Final Four appearance. But, they continually come up short of the top prize. This could be the year one of those two coaches gets off that list.

On today's basketball-themed episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams reveal their Mount Rushmore of best active coaches without a national championship.

They also make their picks to win this week's SEC Tournament. Neither host picks a sleeper team, but they disagree on which favorite will win the conference crown in Nashville.

We’re doing this again. SEC brass are debating whether to go to a nine-game conference schedule, up from eight, for the 2026 season. The SEC has considered adding a ninth conference game for more than a dozen years but never before made the move.

Commissioner Greg Sankey wants an additional conference game, but some within the league are hesitant, wondering if adding another tough game is worth the risk of a loss that could damage postseason hopes.

On today's episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams go inside the debate and offer the upsides and downsides of an additional conference game.

Toppmeyer offers a bold scheduling idea that involves the SEC staying at eight conference games.

Later in the episode, a ranking of the SEC's top four national championship contenders in men's basketball.

Pressure’s on the football coaches in the state of Alabama, but for different reasons.

Kalen DeBoer knows the Alabama standard creates a playoff-or-bust mentality. That means his debut season ranks as a bust and ratchets up the pressure on his second season.

At Auburn, the Tigers last tasted a winning season when Gus Malzahn coached the team. Hugh Freeze’s buyout offers insufficient protection. He’ll be in win-or-be-fired mode in his third season on the Plains.

On today’s episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams debate which of the two coaches in the Iron Bowl rivalry faces more pressure, with the hosts offering diverging opinions. Toppmeyer has questions about each team’s quarterback situation, while Adams believes in Auburn transfer Jackson Arnold, but he’s not sold on Alabama’s trigger man.

Earlier in the episode, the hosts examine the SEC’s basketball uprising, highlighted by Auburn, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee. Toppmeyer lists two of those four among his favorites to win the national championship.

A great annual offseason debate hinges on whether college football would benefit from an overarching commissioner – and whether Nick Saban would be the prime choice for the job, if ever created.

We agree that a college football commissioner could enact some meaningful, widely popular changes within the sport, but we're not ready to cede this responsibility to Saban, who likely would foremost look out for coaches. In fact, we're ready to accept the job ourselves.

On today's episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams share the role of college football commissioner, enacting sweeping change that includes forcing Notre Dame into a conference, expanding the College Football Playoff but stripping away automatic bids and restoring some old rivalries.

As many as 10 or more SEC football teams might be ranked in the preseason top 25, but the playoff chances of those teams are far from equal.

Take, for instance, Texas and South Carolina. While they might be about 10 spots apart in the rankings, their playoff outlooks are dramatically different. Some SEC teams enjoy schedules built for playoff qualification, while others face doomsday schedules.

On today's episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams evaluate the playoff chance of each SEC team, putting the teams into one of four buckets: great chance, good chance, some chance or no chance.

Only two teams earn "great chance" ratings, but many more are assigned some hope, while multiple teams that are expected to be ranked nonetheless fall into the "no chance" category.

Also in this episode, now that Jalen Hurts is a Super Bowl champion, who gets to claim him? Alabama, or Oklahoma?

No SEC quarterback is more proven than Garrett Nussmeier, but if you're building a depth chart, would you go with the LSU quarterback first, or gamble on the upside of Texas' Arch Manning or Florida's DJ Lagway? 

Our annual SEC quarterback draft is back!

On today's episode, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams go head-to-head trying to build the best four-deep roster of SEC quarterbacks.

Adams makes a safe choice with his No. 1 pick, then gambles with a couple of quarterbacks who haven't yet proven themselves in the SEC. Toppmeyer counters with a barrage of sophomore quarterbacks, headlined by a new starter with his top pick.

Later in the episode, the hosts debate whether spring football games are on the verge of extinction.