After losing too many marquee games the first two weeks, the Southeastern Conference finally restored order with some impressive wins during week 3. A couple of near-upsets, though, still shook up the standings of the league, and two teams did have bad losses. See how that impacts our SEC Power Rankings for this week.
16. Mississippi State
There’s no way around it. Jeff Lebby has a much more difficult rebuilding process than I thought. Getting dominated like that by the Toledo Rockets at home requires the Bulldogs to be at the bottom of this list for now. They are probably a team that will get better as time goes on, but there’s no ignoring how bad they are at the moment.
15. Vanderbilt
Welcome back to the land of reality Vandy. This was supposed to be the Commodores’ year, as they beat the Virginia Tech Hokies to open up the season. Saturday’s loss to the Georgia State Panthers, albeit close and on the road, still reminds us all that Clark Lea’s program is a bottom-tier team in the league, and that’s not changing any time soon.
14. Florida
We don’t know when, but Billy Napier will be fired before the year is up. Not losing to a Group of Five team keeps the Gators out of the bottom two of our SEC Power Rankings, but they do have two blowout losses at home, so this program is a complete disaster. Either way, they’re still in the bottom tier of the league with Vandy and MSU.
13. Auburn
Hugh Freeze’s team looked horrendous against the New Mexico Lobos early on last Saturday, and that was a week after losing at home to the Cal Golden Bears. As a result, for right now, the Tigers are a bridge between the worst teams in the league and the middle tier teams, but you could certainly make a case for them at the bottom.
12. Arkansas
They probably should be higher, as the Razorbacks are bad clock management from Sam Pittman away from being 3-0 on the year and in the top 25. Still, that poor coaching can cost them too many times and is so bad it outweighs the talent, which is why they are right now down at No. 12 in our SEC Power Rankings.
11. Kentucky
Mark Stoops’ Wildcats still have a horrendous offensive line, and we can’t overlook their 31-6 blowout loss to South Carolina from the previous week. However, playing the Georgia Bulldogs close, only losing by one point, is enough to move them from near the bottom of our rankings, and perhaps there’s hope for this team after all.
10. South Carolina
We really held it against the Gamecocks that they struggled against the Old Dominion Monarchs to start the year, but then they blew out a UK team that just took Georgia to the wire and should have won last week. Even such a heartbreaking loss, largely thanks to poor coaching mistakes, makes Shane Beamer’s team look much better than they are.
9. LSU
Brian Kelly is looking like less and less of a fit with the Tigers. A coach with brain cells at that program should be able to win multiple national titles, but he is failing to do so. Garrett Nussmeier seems to have finally figured things out, to be fair, so maybe things will change going forward, but for right now, they are a below average team in the league.
8. Texas A&M
Mike Elko still should have won his first game with the Aggies against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and beating Florida means little, but Marcel Reed is leaps and bounds a better quarterback than Connor Weigman. As a result, this could be the start of them climbing back up the ladder in the conference.
7. Oklahoma
We have reached the undefeated teams, of which there are seven. Brent Venables has by far the worst of those teams in the league, which is why the Sooners are last among them in our SEC Power Rankings, as they had to survive the Houston Cougars and Tulane Green Wave. Now, they are seriously injured across the board, so they could be in trouble.
6. Missouri
It looked like Eli Drinkwitz’s team was going to lay another egg like they do every year, but the Tigers showed resolve and fought back to beat the Boston College Eagles. It wasn’t a pretty win, but it was a quality win, and that’s enough for us to put Mizzou in the upper tier of the league. They should be really happy with where they’re at.
5. Ole Miss
Lane Kiffin and the Rebels have played by far the easiest schedule of anybody in the league undefeated to this point, but they have been blowing out their opponents, enough to put them ahead of Mizzou and OU in our SEC Power Rankings right now. Jaxson Dart looks like a Heisman contender as well, so watch out for him.
4. Tennessee
There’s really nothing more Josh Heupel and the Vols could have done the first three weeks of the season. The problem is that similar to Ole Miss, since the N.C. State Wolfpack turned out to be horrible, they haven’t beaten anybody. At the same time, they have blown out everybody they have faced, winning games by 66, 41 and 71. Now they finally get a test.
3. Georgia
Yes, you could drop UGA below UT or Ole Miss or even Mizzou after struggling so badly with UK, but that doesn’t outweigh fully what they did to the Clemson Tigers, and none of those teams would be favored over the Dawgs on a neutral field. As a result, we’re still going to have Kirby Smart’s team in our top tier, but they did drop two spots.
2. Texas
Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns would be No. 1 if Arch Manning didn’t play so well against the UTEP Miners that he may have generated a quarterback controversy. Is this really Quinn Ewers team? Maybe that’s an overreaction, but that’s a colonel of an issue right now that could split the team, regardless of how good they have looked.
1. Alabama
Kalen DeBoer deserves a ton of credit for having a quarterback in Jalen Milroe who is not a fit for his offense and tweaking his air rad to fit what Milroe does. Blowing out the Wisconsin Badgers on the road with that strategy puts the Crimson Tide back at No. 1 in our SEC Power Rankings, and they are there without Nick Saban.
