SEC Review: The good and the bad

January 2, 2023 Alex Haddon

It’s 2023 and Georgia’s going to the National Championship, facing off against little-fancied TCU for the Big One.

But the SEC has had many other games. To save the embarrassment of (deep breath), Florida, Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, Ole Miss (and nearly Arkansas), we won’t be talking about the bowl losses. We also won’t be flapping our hands about Tennessee’s Orange Bowl win over Clemson despite being down two of the best wide receivers in program history, because we are focusing on the REGULAR season, when everyone hadn’t gone off in a huff and headed into the transfer portal (Shane Beamer’s refusal to have players who had put themselves in the portal play the bowl was F***ING AWESOME, BY THE WAY) or gone to seek NFL riches (We see you, Kayshon Boutte!), or even stayed around to bludgeon Kansas State (we see you, Bryce Young and Will Anderson).

Our Final SEC Power Rankings

Georgia (SEC Champion): The machine continues.
Alabama: (This team really should have been unbeaten this season, but could well have been 8-4, too).
LSU: Getting whooped by Texas A&M on the final day of the season plus the SEC Championship splattering by Georgia made you think about how good the Tigers actually were).
South Carolina: One of the best stories/biggest shocks of the season: Snoring their way through to the final weeks of the season, the Gamecocks pull out two absolute shockers by thrashing Tennessee and then beating arch rival Clemson.
Tennessee: The Hendon Hooker injury didn’t make any difference to Joe Milton, who can launch the ball to North Carolina. The awful pass defense was finally found out against South Carolina.
Mississippi State: I don’t what quite to say about Mississippi State apart from the fact that we want to give every Mississippi State fan a hug right now.
Ole Miss: Loved Quinshon Judkins who was the best running back in the SEC, and maybe the country. Absolutely electric. But Zach Evans was a disappointment, and the transfer portal use for QB Jaxson Dart wasn’t the best. Lane Kiffin’s gameplan to try and beat Alabama with three straight runs with an exhausted Judkins on the sideline was laughable. Oh, and they lost to The Egg Bowl.
Kentucky: The line that made us laugh all the way through this season was the one about Will Levis being a first round quarterback and a Heisman candidate.
Missouri: The most genius thing Eli Drinkwitz pulled off was getting a contract extension in the middle of doing a mediocre job in Columbia. Brady Cook was a liability almost all season long, and Drinkwitz’s decision not to pass to Luther Burden was laughable. You could enscapsulate it all with Harrison Mevis. No preperation. Hits a few field goals. Misses some shockers – including one against Georgia. Ironically, the Wildcats could have been 8-4 if they’d actually done their job and beaten Auburn and then Georgia (they had the latter on the ropes for most of the game). The win against Arkansas brought the program exploded joy (they got to a bowl game), but my God it was hard to watch.
Arkansas: Fun(ish) on offense, but defensively they were poor – especially against the pass. When they were laughably poor. The fact they’ve got Rocket Sanders for another year is a great thing. The funniest thing after the season? Sam Pittman firing the Strength and Conditioning Coach after the Missouri loss. Maybe he should have fired Barry Odom, too. But Barry Odom went off to be the head coach of UNLV, avoiding that bullet.
Vanderbilt: How are they so high? They beat Florida and Kentucky folks! They might be a (sort of) pariah in the SEC, but the 5-win season showed how Clark Lea’s got a good thing going.
Florida: It was all looking fun and games when Anthony Richardson beat Utah in Week 1, wasn’t it? The rest of the season was a wash, with Florida beating who they were meant to beat, and losing to teams they weren’t. The loss to Florida State got us thinking about a power shift in the State, but this was Billy Napier’s season. And the Gators got to a bowl game.
Texas A&M: Regardless of the win against LSU, the Aggies were trash for a lot of the season. The fanbase was miserable. Will good things happen in 2023 with the talent they’ve got coming back? We don’t know. With Jimbo Fisher in charge, we just don’t know.
Auburn: Auburn was always going to be a trainwreck after the treatment of Bryan Harsin in the 2021 season. But sweet Jesus. This was awful. Had Missouri managed not to fumble in the end-zone in overtime, Auburn would have finished the season 4-8.They brought in Cadillac Williams after Harsin’s mid-season firing, and it ignited the fanbase. It gave us something to talk about. Jordan-Hare was electric again. And then? They hire Hugh ****ing Freeze.

OUR AWARDS

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR: Alabama: EVERYONE had Alabama winning the SEC and the National Championship. The Crimson Tide was returning everybody, and there were high times to be had. And then the Crimson Tide struggled with Texas but committed holding highway robbery to win. They were a not-given pass interference call away from losing to Texas A&M. They eventually lost in a shoot-out to Tennessee (after missing a clutch kick), and then to LSU with one of the ballsiest two point conversion’s you’ll ever see. Will Anderson wasn’t discussed this year. If Jahymr Gibbs hadn’t played for the Tide on a transfer, the Tide could have been 7-5. We are serious. And yet they placed second on our SEC rankings because they pulled their heads out of their ass for the last 3 games of the season. Still, Nick Saban missed a ton of wide receiving talent this year, and it showed.

SEC COACH OF THE YEAR: Shane Beamer (South Carolina): OK, so you could fight this out between Josh Heupel and this, but we’re giving it to Beamer. Tennessee may have beaten Alabama, but the pass defense was so laughably awful that they were going to get unstuck somehow. And boy did they…against South Carolina. Beamer’s a fun coach. He’s ignited the fanbase, he’s ignited his players, and made Spencer Rattler better again.

SEC NOT COACH OF THE YEAR: Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M): Apart from the LSU game, Texas A&M has been utter shite this season. They lost – and were outplayed – to Appalachian State (a loss that looked worse and worse as the season went on). They were bad on both sides of the ball. They hadn’t a clue who the quarterback was. Jimbo Fisher’s still looking for an offensive coordinator for God’s sake!

PLAYER OF THE SEASON: Hendon Hooker (Tennessee): Hooker put the Vols on his back and propelled them into the National Championship Conversation for the first time since 1999. Yes, the team got steamrolled by Georgia, but so did most teams. Hooker was a joy to watch with his legs and arm, and we’re sad it had to end with his massive injury at Tennessee.

DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE SEASON: Will Levis (Kentucky): Wait, wasn’t this his Heisman year?

SEC FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Quinton Judkins (Ole Missy): 274 carries. 1,567 yards. 16 TDs. 5.7/rush. Judkins caused havoc every time he touched the ball, and we loved it. I’m sure there are others we could talk about, but Judkins was incredible.

SEC DISAPPOINTING FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Luther Burden (Missouri): When he arrived on campus, everyone was talking about Burden as the Second Coming. Drops and a lack of playing time later, people were talking about Burden maybe transferring. As we don’t trust a word that comes out of anyone’s mouth anymore, we’re still on the fence until after the Spring.

FUN OFFENSE OF THE YEAR: Tennessee: Playing at blistering speed, the Vols were a must-watch this season. It was a travesty that Hendon Hooker wasn’t even invited to New York for the Heisman Trophy celebrations (And yes, we know he was injured for the last 1 1/2 games). It was also a travesty that Jalin Hyatt wasn’t more talked about as the best wide receiver in the land, because he was definitely up there with USC’s Jordan Addison and Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr.

GOUGE MY EYES OUT OFFENSE OF THE YEAR: Auburn: All year long, it was dreadful to watch. The quarterback player with TJ Finley was bad, and Robbie Ashford (and yes, we know he’s a freshman) wasn’t a whole lot better. It was odious to watch.

WOW…JUST WOW….DEFENSE OF THE YEAR: Georgia: The Bulldogs lost 600 players to the NFL on the defensive side of the ball, and still absolutely rocked it. True, their performance against LSU in the SEC Championship Game was pretty revolting, but that was after the game was far in hand and they had taken out most of their D in preparation for the semi. For most of the season, no team scored over 22 points on the Dawgs. And the sheer anger that they seemed to play with was a joy to watch.

LAUGHABLE DEFENSE OF THE YEAR: Tennessee’s secondary. Quarterbacks threw on them for 289.5 yards per game and 8.7 yards per attempt. What confirmed us in the award was their abhorrent performance at South Carolina, where they gave up FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE YARDS passing in a losing effort. This was the third time they had given up 450+ yards in a season. The only offense that struggled against them were Kentucky and Vanderbilt, which says more about how crap their opponents’ offenses were.

And finally….

WE’LL MISS YOU…..Mike Leach (Mississippi State): It’s going to be weird world in the SEC – let alone the college football world – without one of the game’s true fun weirdos gone to football heaven. The endlessly quotable coach, who brought with him a more skilled version of Joe Moorehead’s offense the years before, gave the conference a joi de vivre not usually found in the SEC. Now, we’ll have to go back to self-serving rants from Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher and cheap shots from Eli Drinkwitz.

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