Just who is the best team in the SEC?
That’s a question without a clear answer after Week 8. No. 1 Texas was easily beaten by No. 5 Georgia at home, while No. 11 Tennessee used a strong second half to take down No. 7 Alabama in Knoxville. It’s the Crimson Tide’s second loss of the season after they lost to Vanderbilt two weeks ago.
Alabama’s not going to be anyone’s answer to that question. But they also beat the Bulldogs, who put on a defensive clinic in the first half of their win over the previously undefeated Longhorns.
Texas’ loss means every team in the SEC has at least one loss, though LSU and Texas A&M are still undefeated in the conference. Through the first eight weeks of the season, six teams have one loss and another three have two losses. All nine of those teams are still in the mix for spots in the expanded College Football Playoff and there are more than that who can still harbor hopes of playing for the SEC title and a top-four seed in the playoff.
Here’s a look at how the entire conference stacks up ahead of what’s going be a hectic final six weeks of the regular season
Better luck next year
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Mississippi State (1-6 overall, 0-4 in SEC)
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Auburn (2-5, 0-4)
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Kentucky (3-3, 1-3)
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Oklahoma (4-3, 1-3)
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South Carolina (4-3, 2-3)
The surprise team in this group are the Sooners, who were humiliated by the Gamecocks on Saturday. Oklahoma turned the ball over on each of its first three possessions and South Carolina scored defensive touchdowns on two of those on the way to a 21-0 lead. Oklahoma’s offense has been decimated by injuries and flat-out ineffective through the first half of the season. And a tough schedule means that simply going to a bowl game isn’t a foregone conclusion.
Needs a lot of help
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Florida (3-3, 1-2)
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Arkansas (4-3, 2-2)
We’re not officially ruling out either team, though it’s hard to envision a path for both the Razorbacks and Gators to get to the SEC title game. Arkansas has its big win over Tennessee but lost 34-10 at home to LSU on Saturday night. The Hogs still have games against Ole Miss, Texas and Missouri remaining.
Florida got its first SEC win of the season with a drubbing of Kentucky a week after the Gators took Tennessee to overtime. But Florida’s final four SEC games of the season are against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss. A 4-0 stretch is getting the Gators to Atlanta. But the odds of that happening may be worse than you winning the lottery.
Can’t afford another loss
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Alabama (5-2, 2-2)
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Ole Miss (5-2, 1-2)
Both of these teams likely need to win out the rest of the way to get to Atlanta. Alabama has been a Jekyll and Hyde football team all season, and the Crimson Tide were uneven once again in their loss to the Volunteers. Good Alabama may be the best team in the conference, but Good Alabama hasn’t showed up for a full 60 minutes just yet in SEC play.
Ole Miss was off in Week 8 ahead of a home game vs. Oklahoma in Week 9. Georgia’s visit on Nov. 9 looms large in the SEC race.
Contender or pretender?
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Vanderbilt (5-2, 2-1)
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Missouri (6-1, 2-1)
Missouri’s comeback win over Auburn might have saved its season. QB Brady Cook returned from an early ankle injury late in the third quarter as the Tigers scored 18 straight points to swipe a 21-17 win.
Next week’s game between Mizzou and Alabama could serve as an elimination game of sorts for both the College Football Playoff and the SEC title. Alabama is also the last ranked team remaining on Mizzou’s schedule, Missouri won’t have the opportunity to have tiebreaking wins over other SEC opponents if it loses in Tuscaloosa and still finishes the conference season at 6-2.
The Commodores beat Ball State 24-14 on Saturday night to wrap up non-conference play. Each of Vanderbilt’s three conference games have been decided by a single possession and Texas comes to town in Week 9. It may not be a straightforward bounce back for the Longhorns.
It’s all in front of them
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Georgia (6-1, 4-1)
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Texas (6-1, 4-1)
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Tennessee (6-1, 4-1)
The Bulldogs are now 1-1 in their road SEC gauntlet with that trip to Ole Miss to come. Tennessee also visits the Bulldogs on Nov. 16. Wins in both those games likely gets the Bulldogs to the SEC title game. If Georgia splits those games, how it splits those games could be very, very significant for tiebreaking purposes.
Texas has a chance to be 6-1 in the conference heading into the last week of the season at Texas A&M. The Longhorns have Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky after Vanderbilt. Tennessee’s schedule also includes the Wildcats and Commodores and also has Mississippi State. The Vols’ chances of going 6-2 or better in the conference are very good.
Undefeated in the conference. For now.
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Texas A&M (6-1, 4-0)
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LSU (6-1, 3-0)
Just one of these teams will have an unblemished conference record after Week 9 when the Tigers visit College Station in the marquee game of the weekend. RB Caden Durham scored three touchdowns in the Tigers’ win over Arkansas and the LSU defense had its best game of the season forcing three turnovers and holding Arkansas to just 277 yards.
A&M got a late fourth-down stop in Starkville to seal a 34-24 win over the Bulldogs on Saturday. Conner Weigman wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was against Missouri two weeks ago, but the Aggies’ defense held MSU to just seven points in the second half. Both of these teams are far better than their Week 1 losses showed.
Here are the rest of this week’s winners and losers.
Winners
No. 13 BYU: The Cougars could be on their way to a special season. BYU got a 38-35 win over Oklahoma State on Friday night after Darius Lassiter caught a 35-yard TD pass from Jake Retzlaff with 10 seconds to go.
The Cougars are now 7-0 and 4-0 in the Big 12. Plus there are no more ranked teams remaining on their schedule. The toughest game remaining looks to be a trip to Utah on Nov. 9. The path to the Big 12 title game and a potential bye in the College Football Playoff is looking very clear.
Duke: Hours before BYU beat Oklahoma State, Duke got its first win ever over Florida State. The Blue Devils moved to 6-1 with a 23-16 victory over the Seminoles. Florida State, now 1-6, had won 22 straight games over Duke since joining the ACC.
Duke entered Friday night’s matchup as the favorite and jumped out to a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter. Florida State’s only TD came on a 95-yard kickoff return by Samuel Singleton Jr. QB Brock Glenn was 9-of-19 passing for 110 yards and two interceptions and he even ceded some time to true freshman Luke Kromenhoek.
South Carolina: The Gamecocks have established themselves as the SEC’s chaos team. South Carolina jumped out to a 21-0 lead less than six minutes into their 35-9 win at Oklahoma on Saturday thanks to a TD run by Rocket Sanders, a fumble return TD by Tonka Hemingway and a pick-6 by Nick Emmanwori.
USC led 32-3 at halftime and could simply cruise in the second half as Oklahoma was helpless. The win came after South Carolina lost by two at Alabama and two weeks after the Gamecocks were blown out at home by Ole Miss. With games remaining against Texas A&M, Missouri and Clemson, expect some more wackiness from the Gamecocks.
UCLA: So much for traveling across the entire country to play a game that started at 9 a.m. Pacific. The Bruins beat Rutgers 35-32 for just their second win of the season on Saturday. Ethan Garbers was 32-of-38 passing for 383 yards and four scores while also rushing nine times for 48 yards and a TD. The end of the game was ugly; UCLA missed a field goal and fumbled on its two drives before Rutgers cut the deficit to three with 1:23 to go. But the whole season has been ugly so far for the Bruins.
Losers
Oklahoma: The Sooners are in a bad spot at the moment. After turnovers on each of the team’s first three offensive possessions, freshman QB Michael Hawkins got replaced by Jackson Arnold, the man Hawkins replaced in OU’s loss to Tennessee. Saturday’s loss was Arnold’s fifth game of the season; he can no longer redshirt in 2024.
South Carolina sacked Hawkins and Arnold a combined nine times as the Sooners had fewer than 300 total yards. With Ole Miss looming next weekend and a closing stretch that includes Missouri, Alabama and LSU, a bowl game could be in jeopardy for the Sooners.
USC: You can laugh at any thought that USC was going to join the Big Ten and become an immediate contender. The Trojans lost 29-28 at Maryland on Saturday for their third consecutive Big Ten loss. USC is now 3-4 after blowing a 28-14 halftime lead to the Terrapins. Maryland blocked a USC field goal late that would have put the Trojans up two scores, and QB Billy Edwards was 4-of-4 passing and ran the ball into the end zone himself on the game-winning TD drive.
Nebraska: The Cornhuskers entered Saturday’s game at No. 16 Indiana as a deserved underdog. But the loss in Bloomington showed just how much work there still is to do in Lincoln to make Nebraska a true contender. Indiana dominated the Huskers as Nebraska turned the ball over five times and averaged just 5.1 yards per pass. The schedule looks great for Nebraska to go 8-4 this season. And that would be a huge step forward. But it’s clear that Nebraska is not a contender just yet.
Texas Tech: So much for being tied atop the Big 12. The Red Raiders got smoked at home by a Baylor team that entered the game at 2-4. Tech began the day as one of three teams tied atop the Big 12 at 3-0 before Sawyer Robertson was 21-of-32 passing for 274 yards and threw five TDs in the Lubbock native’s first game back home.
Auburn: The Tigers had every opportunity to put a hobbled Missouri team away and simply didn’t do it. Auburn led 17-3 in the third half after Payton Thorne found Cam Coleman for a long TD pass. Missouri played much of the game with backup QB Drew Pyne in for Brady Cook, and starting RB Nate Noel also suffered an injury in the first half.
But Cook returned late in the third quarter to spark the Missouri offense, and Auburn’s offense was simply stuck in neutral. Auburn missed a short field goal in the second half as it couldn’t take advantage of multiple short fields in the 21-17 loss. Auburn is now 0-4 in the SEC and just two losses away from the guarantee of no bowl game.
