SEC: Georgia leads the Red Wave
Once again, Georgia found itself in the bright lights of the Nation, and once again, Georgia delivered.
No, we’re not talking about the mid-terms, where adverts for candidates became turn-on-silent-and-maybe-go-grab-a-beer-TV for a majority of college football games this season (ESPN+ was the only one not to show any), we’re talking about the absolute savages who dominated Tennessee on Saturday.
Georgia shocked the Vols by punching them in the mouth repeatedly, behind a ravenous 90-something crowd that was so ‘loud that people definitely came out hoarse, but with the added flavor of tinnitus. The 26-13 scoreline doesn’t remotely show the gulf between both sides – and Tennessee is still the second-best team in the SEC.
Elsewhere – and this was the most shocking result of the night – LSU beat Alabama on an overtime extra-point conversion in one of the best games we saw on Saturday night. Even Alex Bregman, during his celebration of the World Series, was told and looked astonished. The ‘fire Nick Saban’ chants got louder as Alabama’s disappointing season continued. It serves us right for drinking the Kool-Aid, folks.
Oh, and Auburn battled hard but lost to Mississippi State in overtime, Kentucky beat Missouri in a drab game, Vanderbilt lost comfortably to South Carolina, Texas A&M lost to Florida (although this one was excusable due to 3/4 of the team seemingly out or suffering with flu), and Arkansas failed to show up at home to Liberty, allowing Hugh Freeze to make his annual pitch for a SEC job.
So here are our SEC rankings. If they are different from Saturday’s efforts, then we apologise. We have a toddler.
- Georgia: One writer said that the Dawgs were a 75% certainty to win the National Championship. We’ll go with 90%.
- Tennessee: By virtue of beating Alabama and comfortably beating LSU, the Vols are still Second-Best on our list. But Tennessee’s secondary was badly exposed by Stetson Bennett and the Georgia receivers, and we all knew it. The Vols looked lost at time in Sanford, and it’s hardly a surprise why.
- LSU: The BALLS of Brian Kelly to go for that two-point conversion in overtime was awesome. LSU was great all night, and Jaylen Daniels is as good as any QB in the SEC on this type of form.
- Alabama: The Crimson Tide have two losses, but could quite easily have four. The disappointment has come from two things: A bad offensive line that makes Bryce Young run for his life almost all day long, and the lack of experienced wide receiving talent. Jahmyr Gibbs can’t do everything.
- Ole Miss: For ages we haven’t know what quite to think of this Rebels side. We know that Judkin and Evans are probably the best running back duo in college football, which means Jaxson Dart can ‘do his thing’ relatively easily, but the defense remains medicore. And Lane Kiffin will take ‘medicore’, after years of being ‘crap’.
- Mississippi State: Mike Leach’s side are a 7-5/6-6 side, and Cowbell Nation will live with that.
- Kentucky: Like Mississippi State, the Wildcats are a pretty mediocre side this year. Will Levis isn’t lightning up the SEC or College Football like a lot of people predicted this year, but the return of Chris Rodriguez has made life easier for Mike Stoops side. Still, the special teams play is awful.
- South Carolina: After their awful performance against Missouri, the Gamecocks rebounded by comfortably beating Vanderbilt. Not only are the Gamecocks now bowl-eligible, but Spencer Rattler looks competent.
- Florida: The Gators victory at Texas A&M was helped by a flu bug within the Aggies team, which meant that QB Conor Weigman wasn’t playing. But still Anthony Richardson had a good game, and Florida’s one game away from bowling. Which they would have taken with that defense.
- Arkansas: Losing to Liberty is one thing. Liberty isn’t a bad side. But when you get called out by your head coach for being ‘unmotivated’ is a whole other thing. Yes, KJ Jefferson is a good player, but it took a terrific comeback from 21-3 down to wake the Razorbacks up. But the 2-pt conversion call at the end of the game was terrible.
- Texas A&M: We spoke a little about last week’s flu bug, Jimbo Fisher’s decision not to run Devon Achane in the second half when he was gashing the Gators in the first one was absolutely galling. Has Jimbo given up on this season or is he just bloody incompetent?
- Auburn: The Tigers showed spectacular resilience to come back from 28-6 down in their trip to Starkville, and it’s hard not to love Cadillac Williams. You can be sure that the Tigers will be playing for their coach for the rest of this season (and we hope for next season too).
- Missouri: The defense is one of the best in the country, the offense is one of the worst. How Eli Drinkwitz persists with Brady Cook is unfathomable. And you know what else is unfathomable? Missouri giving their coach an extension and announcing it on the Saturday….when schools were hardly clamoring at his door.
- Vanderbilt: Welcome back to the basement, boys.