Joel Klatt updates his prediction for SEC Championship Game

Through a month of the season, the Southeastern Conference has been wide open with 11 teams with one loss or less and 10 teams currently ranked in the Top 25. That’s caused Joel Klatt to reconsider his picks for who will be in the SEC Championship in Atlanta.

Klatt shared those updated predictions on his show on Wednesday, where he provided his new bracket for the College Football Playoff. He did admit that he could see several different matchups happening at this point as far as projections for the SEC Championship.

“This is wide open, man,” Klatt said. “Like, this was very difficult, and I think that you could put a lot of different combinations in this championship game. Again, this could be anybody. This could be one of six or seven different matchups. I think this league is very balanced at the top, is how I’ll say it. I don’t think there’s a great team in the SEC. I do think that it’s balanced at the top.”

First, though, Klatt did keep Texas (3-1) from his original prediction back in August. Much of that hinges on a win in The Swamp on Saturday, but he still expects the Longhorns to be in their second consecutive trip to the conference title game in as many seasons as part of the league.

“I think that Texas is going to right the ship,” Klatt said. “I think this weekend is going to have a lot to do with that. They’re on the road at Florida, in what looks to be a very precarious game – and I know that sounds crazy because of Florida’s struggles so far this year, but more on that a little bit later in the program.”

Then, as for their opponent, Klatt did replace Georgia (3-1, 1-1) in the championship game with Ole Miss (5-0, 3-0), who is undefeated so far this season, entering their bye at 5-0. He thinks they’ll continue to win, too, based on their schedule, to the point where the Rebels will be in Atlanta for the first time in program history.

“And then another team that, you look up and their schedule is just built in order to succeed this year,” Klatt asked. “Their SEC schedule is not as difficult as other SEC schedules, and you look at the win that they had last weekend over LSU? It’s Ole Miss.”

Again, you could go with multiple potential matchups as far as who will be playing in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 6th. These were the picks for Klatt, but Oklahoma (4-0, 1-0), Missouri (5-0, 1-0), Texas A&M (4-0, 1-0), Vanderbilt (5-0, 1-0) are all still undefeated overall.

Alabama (3-1, 1-0) is unbeaten in conference play, and Georgia, LSU (4-1, 1-1), and Tennessee (4-1, 1-1) have just one loss within the league. That leaves a lot left to determine in those standings over the next eight weeks, with more updates certain to come to predictions like this one over the course of conference play.

Still, entering the first weekend of October, Klatt is now going with Ole Miss vs. Texas for the SEC Championship. He’ll be taking the Longhorns to take it too, with where he thinks they’ll be by the postseason in December.

“I think Texas and Ole Miss have really good chances to go to the SEC Championship Game,” Klatt said. “This would be my guess right now, Ole Miss-Texas, and I think Texas would win that game as the SEC Champ. They still have an elite defense, folks, and that’s going to mean something in these types of games. And I think Arch will continue to get better as the season goes along. So I’m still going to hitch that wagon to Texas.”