HOOVER, Ala. - It's a man's league.
Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn told us that Monday when he took the podium at SEC Media Days.
Maybe so, Coach, but this Southeastern Conference is also a wide-open one.
Every SEC team but Vanderbilt was on at least one ballot submitted from the media horde Thursday.
If that's not enough of a testament to how many options there are to win the SEC's 2015 football title, try this: Georgia got the most votes to win the East, Alabama got the most votes to win the West and Auburn got the most votes to win the conference. It means there's no way the league will get all three right. Again.
Confused yet?
Call that balloting balance or selection schizophrenia or old-fashioned conference craziness.
In truth, the league got input from more than 200 media types here. Each ranked the teams in each division from first to seventh, and the teams got points accordingly: 7 for first, 6 for second and so on. Auburn was picked by 108 of the 225 ballots cast to win the West and 96 to win the entire conference. But Auburn also was picked fourth or worse on 26 ballots, which allowed Alabama to pass the Tigers in total points in the voting.
So that's the background. For Georgia coach Mark Richt, it proved to be little more than background noise.
"The goal is to get better on a daily basis, and we have a long way to go," Richt said on "Press Row" on Chattanooga's ESPN 105.1 on Thursday. "All that is for the fans anyway."
He's right, of course. And even the most die-hard Auburn or Alabama or Georgia fan has to realize that hearing his or her team's name picked in July means little historically and even less on the field.
The media has predicted the champ correctly only five times since the league split into divisions in 1992.
SEC analyst Anthony "Booger" McFarland said this week that when trying to peg a preseason prediction, try to identify each team's biggest question rather than its biggest strength.
With that knowledge, McFarland went with Auburn to win the West and Tennessee, which finished second in the overall voting in its division, to take the East.
Neither the Tigers nor the Vols have question marks at quarterback, McFarland said, and that was the difference in his eyes.
"I feel like Alabama, Georgia and LSU are kind of in the same boat," the former star LSU defensive tackle and first-round NFL draft pick said. "If they can get even above-average quarterback play, they could win the whole thing."
But being blessed with a quarterback does not necessarily give you the blessing of the media.
Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott was a Heisman Trophy candidate a year ago, and he returns for his senior season for the Bulldogs. His presence is enough of a calming influence to land Mississippi State dead last in the high-powered West.
That's the state of the current-day SEC, a league in which a $4 million-per-season coach will finish last in the West. No matter what we think we know now, the outcomes could lead us anywhere.
Yes, Alabama was pegged as preseason pick to win it all last season - and the Tide did it - but think of the roller coaster that was Auburn in 2013.
That's the feel for the 2015 season. Which team makes three meaningful plays in three close games could be the difference between playing in Atlanta in early December and heading to Shreveport in late December.
The line is that thin. Three plays, with tens of millions of dollars at stake and the emotions of legions of passionate fans hanging in the balance.
Three plays. Or worse yet, one injury.
Tennessee's Volunteers, to a person here this week, said they are ready for the rising expectations, and with more starters returning than any other SEC team, they have the talent to support that claim.
But what if something happens to quarterback Josh Dobbs for the Vols? Or running back Nick Chubb for Georgia? Or any number of guys who carry a lion's share of their programs' hopes into a season that kicks off seven weeks from Thursday.
So July picks are fun and based on hope more than hard evidence.
Still, it's better to be the pick than the picked on.
"Great to hear people think we should win the East," Georgia linebacker Jordan Jenkins said. "I enjoy the added pressure. It makes the rivalry games more important."
Now only if it made those games get here more quickly.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @ jgreesontfp.