Football season arrives with annual SEC Media Days gathering

Birmingham — I’m here at SEC Football Media Days with AJC colleagues Jeff Schultz and Tim Tucker. We’ll be providing you online coverage all afternoon. Schultz already has posted one of his infamous “Digi-Blogs.”

The actual event doesn’t get started until 1:30 p.m. EST when Commissioner Mike Slive gives the state of the SEC address — they take this stuff very serious — but the Wynfrey Hotel is already abuzz with activity. According to the SEC, more than 1,100 media professionals have been credentialed for this year’s festivities, which is a record.

Of course, foremost on the agenda this year is the expansion of the league to 14 teams. New members Missouri and Texas A&M will both meet the press today. I wrote a story that you can LINK TO HERE previewing this year’s event and reviewing all the work that has gone into adding these two programs over the last nine months.

One of the highlights of this event is the annual polling of the media, who pick a preseason All-SEC team and predict the order of finish. Don’t go running to Las Vegas to put money on our projected champion.

Since the last expansion in 1992, the media is 4-16 at predicting a champion. We got two in a row right in 1994-95 (Florida) and back-to-back in 2007-08 (LSU, Florida). Otherwise we’ve whiffed, including 11 consecutive misses from 1996-2006.

Following is a list of predictions provided by the SEC. Thanks for keeping track guys:

Year—-Projected Champion—–Eventual champion

1992—–Florida—–Alabama
1993—–Alabama—–Florida
1994—–Florida—–Florida
1995—–Florida—–Florida
1996—–Tennessee—–Florida
1997—–Florida—–Tennessee
1998—–Florida—–Tennessee
1999—–Tennessee—–Alabama
2000—–Alabama—– Florida
2001—–Florida—–LSU
2002—–Tennessee—–Georgia
2003—–Auburn—–LSU
2004—–Georgia—–Auburn
2005—–Tennessee—–Georgia
2006—–Auburn—–Florida
2007—–LSU—–LSU
2008—–Florida—–Florida
2009—–Florida—–Alabama
2010—–Alabama—–Auburn
2011—–Alabama—–LSU

So who do you think we should pick this year?

Remember to check back right here all day as we’ll be providing blogs after each school’s turn at the podium. Today’s agenda in order of appearance is:  Commissioner Slive, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Missouri and Vanderbilt.