The SEC currently has 8 teams in the AP rankings:

1---TEXAS (6-0--Preseason #4)---So far their ranking appears legit. Nothing to complain about.
5---GEORGIA (5-1--Preseason #1)---Lost to Alabama. Beat Kentucky by 1.
7---ALABAMA (5-1--Preseason #5)---Lost to Vanderbilt. Barely beat South Carolina by 2.
8---LSU (5-1--Preseason #13)---Lost 27-20 to Southern Cal. Beat South Carolina by 3.
11---TENNESSEE (5-1--Preseason #15)---Lost to Arkansas. Nearly lost to Florida.
14---TEXAS A&M (5-1--Preseason #20)---Lost to Notre Dame by 10. Beat Bowling Green by 6.
18---MISSISSIPPI (5-2--Preseason #6)---Lost to Kentucky. Lost to LSU.
19---MISSOURI (5-1--Preseason #11)---Lost to Texas A&M 41-10. Beat Vanderbilt by 3. Beat Boston College by 6.

So, every SEC team that is currently ranked was ranked in the preseason poll, none lower than #20. Only 1 of the 8 ranked SEC teams (Texas) is undefeated.
Mississippi with 2 losses still cracks the top 20 (being ranked #6 in preseason sure helped!). If they stub their toe early, they drop a bit in the polls but have plenty of time to recover because of their high preseason ranking. And once they get into conference play, every loss is a "good" loss so they don't drop much. It's also interesting that 4 of the 8 ranked SEC teams are currently ranked higher than their preseason rankings, even with a loss.

It's really hard to compete against this kind of bias.