How good is Texas A&M? Week 4 SEC Power Rankings

After a poor game against Vanderbilt and a blow-out by Alabama, Texas A&M fans were fuming. They wanted Jimbo Fisher’s head on a plate. Some of the more racist elements of Texas A&M messageboards straight-up blamed Kellen Mond’s off-season civil rights activities for a reason why the school looked shabby. Florida was coming, and the season was going to go to the wolves.

And then Florida came to town. In a messy, fun game, Florida was beaten, 41-38. Mond was brilliant, throwing for 338 yards and 3 TDs, and didn’t do anything stupid. A week later, they stopped Mississippi State’s ‘Air Raid’ offense in Starkville, and suddenly Texas A&M fans are talking about how they could pip Georgia to the second SEC spot in the College Football Play-Off.

The answer to whether Texas A&M is very good is somewhere in the middle. Mond is obviously improved after two weeks, but then again this season his numbers will be well-improved by the fact that the rest of the competition is pretty medicore. Auburn is rocking. Ole Miss can’t play defense. Arkansas is great on defense, but pretty dismal on offense. And LSU? Oh. LSU.

 

In keeping with our remarks about Texas A&M, we decided to into a bunch of categories. It’s not power-rankings per se.

ELITE

• Alabama (4-0): The Tide’s second half performance against Georgia was fantastic. Mac Jones can pass on an elite defense, and Jaylen Waddle, DeVonta Smith and John Mechie will destroy any secondary. Hey, Najee Harris is pretty good too. Let’s not forget, though, that the defense was much better than we thought they were, pretty much silencing George Pickens all night long. Oh, and some favorable referee calls helped too, especially on pass interference. Alabama looks unbeatable in the SEC.
• Georgia (3-1): We’re not throwing Stetson Bennett out with the mail just yet, but this wasn’t a great performance. The decision to make Bennett throw 40 times (he completed 18 of them, and had 3 INTs) was weird. Why Georgia decided not to keep running at Alabama, exercise some ball control, and drive the Alabama front into the ground we’ll never know. But Georgia’s still a power, and should get its chance for revenge in Atlanta.

BETTER-THAN-AVERAGE

• Texas A&M (3-1): See above.
• Kentucky (2-2): Their secondary’s performance against Tennessee was excellent. Jarrett Guarantano may have given them the opportunities, but they didn’t make any mistakes. This Kentucky team is trending upwards, and could worry some Georgia people in two weeks’ time. We like what Mark Stoops is doing.

M’EH

• Florida (2-1): COVID cancelled the game with LSU, and it’s all the Gators’ fault. Dan Mullen’s also got COVID-positive, which is ironic, since he wanted to fill The Swamp with fans. 23 new cases on Tuesday amongst the team isn’t going to help the team going forward, either.
• South Carolina (2-2): The signature win over Auburn was helped by some awful Auburn mistakes, but Shi Smith and running back Kevin Harris has given Muschamp’s team some hope.

YING AND YANG

• Arkansas (2-2): I never thought I would put Sam Pittman’s team as high as ‘M’eh’, but their incredible defense gets balanced out by a not-particularly incredible offense.
• Mississippi State (1-3): It was noted on excellent podcast ‘Spit Zone Duo’ that Mike Leach’s first year is going true-to-form with regards to his previous jobs at Texas Tech and Washington State. KJ Costello came in and now has shown that the four-to-the-floor-throw-a-million-time doesn’t work for him. Leach has used words like ‘purge’ when referring to his team, and it’s all looking a complete mess. Which is weird, if you think that Mississippi State’s still got one of the best defenses in the SEC. If only the offense wouldn’t turn the dang ball over!

 

QB HORROR SHOWS WON’T HELP

• Auburn (2-2): How bad is Bo Nix? Very. Once again the wheels are coming off the Gus Bus, but it’s unlikely with the money that he’s making, that he’ll get fired. Auburn’s got a young offensive line, and we’re not sure about things defensively, either.
• Tennessee (2-2): How bad is Jarrett Guarantano? Yeah. Awful. And yet Jeremy Pruitt thought it a brilliant idea to fire his defensive line coordinator, instead of QB coach Chris Weinke. It wasn’t the DL’s fault that Guarantano threw two pick-6s and gifted Kentucky 17 points, was it?
• Ole Miss (1-3): Matt Corral’s SIX interceptions against Arkansas were unexcusable. Kiffin should at least changed him after the third. The Rebels can’t play defense, and we’re struggling to see where the next win will come from.

ARE THEY CLOSE TO BEING FINE?

• Missouri (1-2): Was it new quarterbacking and some excellent defense at the end that gave Missouri the magical victory over LSU, or was it the fact that LSU can’t play defense? We just don’t know. And we would have known more after this Saturday’s Vanderbilt game, had COVID not killed it.

YEAH…..DEFENSE AWFUL

• LSU (1-2): Things are pretty awful in Death Valley right now. Myles Brennan is beaten-up, LSU is reeling from losses to the NFL, Bo Pelini is not doing well as a defense coordinator, and Ed Orgeron is a little bit more under-fire. People love to convince themselves that LSU is fun to watch, but they would be if they were in, say, the Big-12, because we’d expect very little. They are better than the worst team in the SEC, but not by much.

FAR FAR AWAY

• Vanderbilt (0-3): There is nothing nice to say about this Vanderbilt team. So I won’t.