By: Drayton Hogarth

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

When anyone begins to preview college football, the best place to start is the strongest division in the country which would be the SEC West.

The West has earned its reputation valiantly by winning 8 of the last 10 BCS or college football championships.

The upcoming 2016 season will very likely end up with the Southeastern Conference champion representing the conference in the college football playoff, and the odds are that program will come from the SEC West. Let’s take a look at which teams will challenge for the division title and predict who will come out on top.

There are three teams that are a tier above the rest of the division, Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss.

The Alabama Crimson Tide is coming off their third national title in five years and have earned the honor of being the standard to which other teams compare themselves.

Coach Nick Saban has a proven process, but that process will be tested this season. There are definite viable reasons why the Tide should have a slight slide in this 2016 season.

Saban will have to replace his Heisman trophy winning workhorse at running back in Derrick Henry. Massive sophomore Bo Scarborough looks to step up in the Bama backfield.

The team’s signal caller, Jacob Coker has graduated and, yet again, a new field general must be found; that replacement may very well be Cooper Bateman. Bateman enters the season as the only quarterback to have actually taken a live snap in college.

While there were losses on the defensive side of the ball, the talent on that side is still better than anyone else in the country.

However, Saban’s long time right hand and defensive coordinator, Kirby Smart, is now the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. Jeremy Pruitt is the new defensive coordinator, and while Pruitt is very good in his own right, it remains to be seen if he can maintain the level of excellence that Smart demanded from his defense.

The rejuvenation of the Ole Miss Rebels has been well underway since the hiring of Hugh Freeze.

The Rebels have recruited as well as anyone in the country and are the only team that can say they have beaten the mighty Alabama two consecutive seasons.

Chad Kelly is the top returning quarterback in the conference and will look to build his legacy in Oxford.

The Rebels will have to replace their deepest draft class in the school’s history, they but were able to replace the outgoing Laremy Tunsil, Robery Nkemdiche, and Laquon Treadwell with names such as Greg Little, Benito Jones, and AJ Brown.

Not to mention, they now have the next quarterback on campus in Shae Patterson to take over for Kelly when he moves on to the next level. The Rebels may be just too young to overcome a brutal schedule, in particular early on in the season.

However, by the end of the season they may set up very nicely for the following two seasons.

This season’s SEC West champions will be the LSU Tigers.

The Tigers bring back the most dominant player in the country in running back, Leonard Fournette. Wideouts Malachai Dupre and Travin Dural lead the playmaking corps on the outside, and look for 6’6” freshman Stephen Sullivan to contribute in the red zone as well.

Quarterback Brandon Harris has to step up his play on the field, and he has all of the weapons to do so.

The defense should take drastic improvements this season as former Wisconsin coordinator Dave Aranda takes over. Aranda inherits ten returning starters on his defense.

The way Miles survived a mutinous attempt by the LSU boosters to remove him as head coach actually will be the inspiration that his players need heading into the season; that, along with the Aranda hire, is what will take the Tigers over the top.