Alabama and Georgia make statements: SEC Week 8 Power Rankings
Both Alabama and Georgia made statements on Saturday. Alabama by shutting down Texas A&M’s offense, Georgia by going to Arkansas and picking up the Win That No-One-But-Vegas-Who-Had-Them-Favored expected, striking a monster blow for SEC East. The dumpster fire in Florida continued as they lost 42-12 to Missouri at home on Homecoming Night, while Ole Miss shut down Tennessee at home.
Anyway, here are your SEC rankings:
1) MISSISSIPPI STATE
It’s rare for us to keep a team at No.1 despite only playing Bye Week, but there we go. We saw Ole Miss’ performance, and while we love their defense, we’d still take MSU in The Egg Bowl. Right now.
2) OLE MISS
Ole Miss’ defense by damn!! Another rock of a performance against Tennessee, for whom their punter was the busiest player of the game (that and their QBs picking themselves off the turf). As predicted, Ole Miss’ D-Line ate Tennessee’s young O-Line alive. And with Bo Wallace doing just what he needed to do (ie be accurate and not cause turnovers), Ole Miss won comfortably in front of a happy, suddenly expectant Rebel crowd.
3) ALABAMA
Alabama effectively had a bye week this week by playing Texas A&M’s defense, which didn’t bother to tackle anyone all game long. 59-0 could well have been 80-0 if Alabama had kept the heat up instead of being a little more conservative in the second half.
4) AUBURN
Stayed on bye week, flapping their wings happily. And yes, this is still a very good Auburn team. But the Ole Miss, Georgia and Alabama games still loom large on War Eagle’s schedule. We can’t wait.
5) GEORGIA
Nick Chubb. Nick. Freaking. Chubb. Another storming performance by the freshman wonder and another solid first half performance by Georgia’s defense effectively put the game out to reach in the first half, but UGA’s second half (and in particular the third quarter) – where they seemed to completely relax and Mike Bobo’s offense looked hell-bent on being conservative – will be a worry for UGA fans, but this team is flying right now.
6) LSU
With a bunch of people thinking LSU would get upset at home to Kentucky, LSU turned it on on Saturday night, giving the ball to Terrence Magee, who had 127 yards and 2 TDs in the Tigers’ 41-3 mauling of the ‘Cats. If we’re honest, the best line of the night was Brent Musberger’s: “Death Valley at night folks, when every Saturday night in Hallowe’en”. He’s obviously seen some of the tailgating that goes on.
7) TEXAS A&M
Such is the tire fire known as A&M defense right now – they’ve lost heavily in three straight games – I’m not sure that the Aggies won’t lose to LSU at the start of the season. Seriously, defensive co-ordinator Mark Snyder needs to go. And a word for Kevin Sumlin: You might well blame the players for their lack of effort in their shellacking by Alabama, but they needed a motivator. And you weren’t it.
8) ARKANSAS
Arkansas was pretty great in the second half against Georgia, but by then they’d committed enough errors to put them into a hole that they really weren’t going to get out – especially with Brandon Allen as the QB and a wide receiving corps that’s young. There’s a lot to like about this Razorbacks team, but it’s going to take time.
9) MISSOURI
The defense? Two thumbs up? The offense? Two thumbs down. Maty Mauk (You remember him? You know, the guy who people were talking about as a possible Heisman hopeful?) had TWENTY yards passing, no TDs and one INT on an offense that created just one rushing touchdown and 119 total yards of offense. The D? Oh, it ‘only’ caused 6 turnovers, and special teams had 2 touchdowns (Marcus Murphy took a kick off and a punt return to the house).
10) KENTUCKY
Whooped at LSU, which was a timely reminder that maybe South Carolina wasn’t all that good, and maybe they were a little overrated.
11) SOUTH CAROLINA
Carolina got a morale-boosting win against Furman, and that’s about all it was. A morale-booster. The attendance was pitiful, and so was the game.
12) FLORIDA
Fired Will Muschamp yet? There are problems all over the Gators, from heads to tail. Nothing is going right for the coach, who some UGA fans are already calling “Agent Muschamp”. We laughed. Well, at least it’ll make The Cocktail Party interesting, when all anyone will talk about is his job, and maybe Todd Gurley.
13) TENNESSEE
A young O-Line was eaten alive by Ole Miss on Saturday night. When they DID get a bit of room, Justin Worley hardly helped his tall, talented wide receivers by throwing every ball too high. The defense did a pretty good job in the first half, but looked exhausted from living on the field. The loss wasn’t a surprise, and the bad news for the Vols is that they host Alabama next.
14) VANDERBILT
Yeah, so anyway….