Talk about a bad start for this league! Horrendous quarterback play has led to the Southeastern Conference starting off 3-6 in Power Five play, and before late Saturday night they were 1-6. Here are our SEC Power Rankings following a bad weekend. Nobody really deserves to be near the top just yet.
14. Vanderbilt
Losing in convincing fashion to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons dropped the Vanderbilt Commodores back down to last place. There’s no way anybody could look at Clark Lea’s team and think otherwise. So much for the idea of them taking a step forward this year. We have to throw that aside.
13. Missouri
After a 35-10 win over an FCS school to open the season, the Missouri Tigers beat the MTSU Blue Raiders 23-19. They still belong over Vandy for right now, but honestly, it’s hard to pick who would win that game. We’ll have a better idea when Mizzou faces the Kansas State Wildcats this weekend.
12. Florida
Rebounding from a hideous loss to the Utah Utes, the Florida Gators dominated McNeese Cowboys 49-7. However, Billy Napier’s team still has plenty of issues as they begin league play this week, and nothing about that game suggested the team has solved any of them, so they’re still near the bottom.
11. South Carolina
At least the South Carolina Gamecocks got a tune-up game, beating the Furman Paladins 47-21 after losing to the North Carolina Tar Heels to open the season. However, they are part of a collection of bad East teams that belong at the bottom of our SEC Power Rankings, and Shane Beamer’s team looks in trouble.
10. Kentucky
There’s still plenty of reason to believe in Liam Coen with the Kentucky Wildcats, but a 28-17 win over the Eastern Kentucky Colonels was a bad look. We had to drop them way down in our SEC Power Rankings because of that. Mark Stoops should have one of the better teams in the East, but it’s questionable.
9. Arkansas
A 28-6 win over the Kent State Golden Flashes isn’t much to celebrate, but the Arkansas Razorbacks and Sam Pittman are 2-0, and they may have the best quarterback in the league in K.J. Jefferson. They at least didn’t look absolutely horrid in their win over a bad program, so this is the first of a new tier.
8. Mississippi State
Staying in that second tier of our SEC Power Rankings, the Mississippi State Bulldogs stopped the league’s bleeding with a win over the Arizona Wildcats Saturday night, and Zach Arnett still hasn’t lost. However, that win was due to a questionable call, and the game was at night, so they have more to prove.
7. Texas A&M
A 48-33 loss to the Miami Hurricanes was a snap back to reality for the Texas A&M Aggies, and the Jimbo Fisher experiment is once again in question. Losing to a Power Five team, though, isn’t enough to push them too far down the league, and they still look better than teams in a similar tier right now.
6. Tennessee
This was the biggest drop of the week. All of a sudden, Joe Milton III looks like an issue at quarterback, as the Vols beat the Austin Peay Governors 30-13. The passing game was off-target all game, as receivers dropped way too many passes, and there was a bad fumble. Is UT back to middle of the pack?
5. LSU
Despite that blowout loss to the Florida State Seminoles, the LSU Tigers did look great in a rebound game, albeit against the Grambling Tigers. Still, them winning 72-10 while the Vols struggled with APSU was enough for us to leapfrog LSU ahead of UT in our SEC Power Rankings for right now.
4. Auburn
You can’t ignore Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers winning a late Saturday night game against the Cal Golden Bears thanks to elite defensive play. They beat a solid team 14-10 and have probably the most impressive win of anybody in the league right now. That vaults them up these rankings for a moment.
3. Ole Miss
A close second to Auburn’s win is the Ole Miss Rebels beating the Tulane Green Wave on the road. This is the best Group of Five team, and while they were playing without Michael Pratt, it was still impressive for Ole Miss to dominate the game the way they did. Lane Kiffin may have something brewing in Oxford.
2. Alabama
Yes, they lost to the Texas Longhorns, but nobody is going to pick anybody to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide in the league outside of one team. Losing to a ranked team, even at home, won’t change that. As a result, for now, Alabama is still among the top two teams in our power rankings, but they have a lot to prove.
1. Georgia
Although by default, the Georgia Bulldogs have at least blown out both teams they faced. Still, Mike Bobo and Carson Beck had 10 legitimate first half points against the Ball State Cardinals on Saturday and none in the first quarter, so while they sit atop our SEC Power Rankings for the moment, they still don’t look good.
