SEC Weekly Preview: Rivalry Week with Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn

Photo Courtesy: Sean Taylor

By Dan D’Addona.

It is rivalry week in the SEC.

There are so many rivalry meets this week it is hard to pick one that stands out.

It begins on Wednesday when Florida swims at Alabama and South Carolina hosts North Carolina.

Let’s start with Florida and Alabama.

Florida is obviously loaded with top-level talent on the men’s side, led by Caeleb Dressel, who is quickly becoming one of the most exciting and dominant swimmers in the sport. The Gators also have swimmers like Maxime Rooney and Jan Switkowski.

Alabama, on the other hand, has some top talent, but is absolutely loaded with depth. This makes them dangerous in dual meets and could make them overlooked in championship meets. This is the home opener and conference opener for the Crimson Tide.

On the women’s side, both teams have depth and a couple of touchouts could decide this one.

The South Carolina-North Carolina rivalry is not a conference meet, but is pretty intense. The Gamecocks are loaded with distance, led by Akram Mahmoud, Fynn Minuth and breaststroker Nils Wich-Glasen — and that could be the difference.

The rivalries shift to different sites for Friday’s meets as Alabama swims at Auburn and Georgia swims at Florida.

These could be the closest rivalry duals in recent history as the teams are pretty evenly balanced. Alabama and Auburn have high-end depth, while Georgia and Florida have elite-level scorers.

The Gators saw three swimmers — Kelly Fertel, Hannah Burns and Savanna Faulconer — all earn an NCAA “B” cut in the 400 IM last week. They lead Florida against the Georgia Bulldogs, led by Kylie Stewart and Meghan Raab. The Bulldogs have a ton of depth, but will be missing big-time points from the departures of Olympians Olivia Smoliga and Chantal Van Landeghem.

Put those together and that is a week crammed with evenly matched rivalries in pools across the Southeastern Conference.

In other action, on Saturday, Arkansas will swim at UCLA and Tennessee will host Indiana and Kentucky on Friday.

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