WEEK 6: SEC RANKINGS ARE ALL ****ED UP

I joked on Saturday night that my SEC rankings were this:

1-15: F**k knows

16: Mississippi State.

And that’s probably right.

Texas is the No.1 team in the nation and – by virtue of not playing while the unbridled carnage was happening around – would go as No.1 in my view. But are they really better than Georgia? Does Vanderbilt’s win over Alabama automatically mean that they are better than Alabama? Or Arkansas’ win over Tennessee mean that Sam Pittman’s team is better than the Vols?

If you believe those guys at the AP Poll – who have Texas first, Georgia fifth (behind Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State), Miami sixth and Alabama seventh. Tennessee is 8th, Ole Miss 9th, LSU 13th, Texas A&M 15th, Oklahoma 18=, Missouri 21st.

The AP guys are idiots. And here’s why:

1. Georgia is better than Penn State: Watch Penn State’s games against Illinois and UCLA – both at home – and tell me that the Nittany Lions aren’t better than the Bulldogs. Georgia basically has one bad half. Penn State hasn’t been great since the West Virginia win on Week One.
2.  Texas A&M is 15th, and below LSU?: I was there on Kyle Field, and it was hard not to be impressed with the Aggies, who looked like Play-Off contenders after their complete and utter destruction of Missouri. Honestly, I would have Texas A&M ahead of Tennessee and Ole Miss after this performance.
3.  How is Tennessee ranked ahead of Ole Miss?: Tennessee didn’t have a Plan C against Arkansas, and it showed. Has Tennessee suddenly stopped going at teams with breakneck speed? Ole Miss went to South Carolina – meant to be a difficult place to play- and curb-stomped their hosts 27-3.
4. Missouri shouldn’t be ranked: Missouri is a (paper) Tiger. Their offensive line is AWFUL. Brady Cook cannot throw the ball away and live for another day. Noel is no Schrader. And the defense can’t tackle. And this wasn’t just an A&M problem, either. They’d done with stuff against Vanderbilt, too.
5. Why isn’t Vanderbilt ranked? I don’t think the AP guys watched a Vanderbilt game this season. And here’s why: Vanderbilt has wins over Virginia Tech and No.1 Alabama on their resume. They also went to No.21 Vanderbilt and took them to double-overtime. The Georgia State loss was a stunner, but surely Notre Dame’s stunning loss against Northern Illinois must rank alongside it. Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt will continue to make fun waves in the SEC this year. They might not win a lot, but they’ll be box office viewing. And right now, they should be ranked.

Anyway, with all that, I’m going to have to go into some long explanation for my SEC rankings:

1.  Texas (5-0): The wins might have been against absolutely no-one this season, but there aren’t any so far this year. The Quin Ewers ‘thing’ will be exciting to watch against Oklahoma on Saturday. God only knows how it will all work out!
2.  Georgia (4-1): The Dawgs played with their food against Auburn for about three quarters, but the 31-13 victory was an easy one in the end.
3.  Texas A&M (5-1): The Aggies served notice today that they are going to contend for a play-off place, and also for a SEC Championship spot. And the schedule lines up really well for Elko’s men, too….
4.  Vanderbilt (3-2): There is no more impressive win this weekend than Vanderbilt’s. Diego Pavia’s a livewire. They outplayed the Crimson Tide.
5.  Arkansas (3-2): Should be 5-1, had it not been for some awful reffing decisions against Oklahoma State (something we’ll bang on about for years). They are capable for winning ugly. Oh, and they are this high because they beat Tennessee.
6.  Ole Miss (4-1): Rebounded nicely from an awful performance against Kentucky to slap the Gamecocks in Williams-Brice. Kept Carolina to 5 of 16 on third downs. Oh, and their 325lb nose tackle JJ Pegues ran in two TD, which showed invention of playcalling by L-Kiff, too.
7.  Tennessee (4-1): Failed on their second big road test, blowing an 11-point lead, and looking pretty clueless in the process.
8.  Alabama (4-1): The funniest loss of the year so far by the meme crowd, but let’s be honest: Alabama’s defense looked like a typical DeBoer-at-Washington defense, in which they couldn’t really stop anybody with a pulse. You should be worried, Tide fans.
9.  LSU (4-1): The Tigers are very, very flawed. They’ll need to beat two of Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Oklahoma to get into the play-off. And we can only see the one win against them, honestly (Oklahoma).
10.  Oklahoma (4-1): The offensive line is awful, but at least the Sooners have worked out a competent quarterback now and a far, far better defense than they ever did under Lincoln Riley.
11.  Kentucky (4-1): We’re showing to some recency bias despite the Wildcats’ loss to South Carolina in Week 2, but UK did win in Oxford last week, and hammered Bye Week this week. South Carolina? See below for details. So there you go. Mark Stoops For President!
12. South Carolina (3-2): Ole Miss looked vulnerable after the Kentucky loss. Williams-Brice was amped. The upset was there for the taking….And they laid an egg.
13.  Missouri (4-1): The last time Missouri looked this bad was when they played Tennessee and a lost 66-24 in 2022. They looked utterly clueless throughout the game. They were indisciplined, second to almost everything, missed 400 tackles, and somehow couldn’t understand that the ‘scheme’ of playing soft coverage against a poor quarterback in Conor Weigman (repeatedly) simply wasn’t working.The offensive line was a joke, and Brady Cook’s decisions not to throw the ball out of play and live again had Missouri fans around me just giggling. If things don’t improve, this train could fly off the track in a hurry.
14. Florida (3-2): Billy Napier’s ovation by The Swamp on Saturday night showed everyone that the Gators aren’t giving up on their coach quite yet. They outclassed UCF 24-13 in comfortable win, where the offense did the work in the first half and the second half it was the defense that was brilliant, sacking KJ Jefferson five times and throttling UCF’s running game. But from now until the Florida State game at the end of the season, the schedule becomes evil.
15.  Auburn (3-2): Hugh Freeze is going to blame this latest banal loss on failed phonecalls to escorts.
16.  Mississippi State (1-4): The great news for Mississippi State fans is that Mississippi State did not play this week.