Week 9 lacked a marquee matchup in the SEC, as there was no battle between ranked teams and four programs (Alabama, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri) were on a bye.

The most eyes were on the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in neutral-site Jacksonville, where No. 11 Florida destroyed annual-disappointment Georgia and took complete control of the SEC East – go ahead and book the Gators for the conference championship game in Year 1 under coach Jim McElwain.

As for the Bulldogs, coach Mark Richt got the Al Golden treatment on social media following what was truly an embarrassing performance for four quarters.

The SEC will take center stage Saturday with No. 4 LSU visiting No. 7 Alabama, so here is what I liked and didn’t like from the best conference in America.

What I liked

1. Maybe he should have played quarterback, too

Georgia’s Brice Ramsey got a promotion and a demotion in the same week, falling behind Faton Bauta at quarterback but jumping ahead of Collin Barber to become the team’s primary punter.

The Kingsland (Ga.) Camden County High School product responded by averaging 43.4 yards on his five punts, which might have been the highlight for a Bulldogs club that was nothing short of atrocious in a 27-3 loss to interstate rival Florida.

He did attempt a pass on a fake punt, although the Gators weren’t fooled and defended the play perfectly – Ramsey’s throw fell harmlessly incomplete.

Ramsey probably should have gotten a shot under center at some point, as Bauta made his first career start and gave every impression that the moment was too big for him.

2. Drawing up plays in the dirt

Florida quarterback Treon Harris doesn’t offer much as a drop-back passer, which is likely why he lost the starting job to the now-suspended Will Grier, but he’s very dangerous in improvisational mode.

Following a string of nine consecutive incompletions – his accuracy was way off on some pedestrian throws – he connected with wide receiver Antonio Callaway on a 66-yard touchdown in the second quarter. Because he is always a running threat, Harris found his freshman pass catcher open behind the Georgia secondary after flushing left toward the boundary.

Progressing through reads like a conventional pocket passer will never be his strength, but he moves the chains with his legs and makes just enough plays with his arm to give enemy defensive coordinators fits.

3. At least they won the battle in the parking lot

The Florida-Georgia tailgating scene is always a contrast of styles in Jacksonville. The fan bases couldn’t be more different on game day. Gator girls tend to pull out their tightest pair of cutoff jean shorts and whatever flip-flops are nearest the front door. Bulldog girls, on the other hand, like to opt for sundresses and flats.

Advantage, ‘Dawgs, although that was the only thing they won Saturday.

4. Cool Hand Jim

McElwain made a fool of himself earlier in the season by doing his best Will Muschamp impression, directing an expletive-laden tirade at running back Kelvin Taylor in front of too many cameras to the delight of social media.

Justified as his ire may have been – Taylor had just received a personal foul for doing the throat-slash gesture – McElwain learned the hard way that he’s not at Colorado State anymore.

He choked back tears while apologizing for that poor behavior at his ensuing Monday press conference, and he apparently learned his lesson.

Ever since, McElwain has been awfully relaxed on the Florida sideline and the dictionary definition of positivity. Winning surely helps, as the Gators have exceeded all expectations in his first year, but he should be commended for bucking the trend of the egomaniacal dictator we see all too often in the college game.

5. Two tight

Arkansas continues to possess maybe the best tandem of tight ends in the nation, as Hunter Henry and Jeremy Sprinkle were at it again Saturday. While they only accounted for four receptions, Henry averaged 27.5 yards per catch and Sprinkle 33.5.  Sprinkle found the end zone, too.

The Razorbacks remain incredibly effective in the play-action passing game due in large part to their punishing ground attack, with Henry and Sprinkle the most obvious targets against undersized linebackers and safeties.

6. We can rebuild him

If there was any question about Ole Miss wide receiver Laquon Treadwell being all the way back from the gruesome leg injury he suffered last season against Auburn, he put those fears to rest Saturday against those same Tigers.

The 6-2, 210-pounder reeled in 7 passes for 114 yards and a touchdown to become the first player in the SEC to record four consecutive games with 100-plus yards receiving and a TD catch since Florida’s Reidel Anthony in 1996.

He even completed a pass for a 21-yard gain to dent the stat sheet further.

Treadwell leads the SEC in receptions (61) and yards receiving (870) and is tied for first in touchdown catches (6), making him one of the feel-good stories in college football.

7. A star is born

Hopefully nobody in College Station is calling him “Kyler Football” just yet, but freshman quarterback Kyler Murray certainly put on a Johnny Manziel-like performance Saturday for Texas A&M.

Starting for the first time, Murray was 20-of-28 passing for 223 yards and also ran 20 times for 156 more. He accounted for two scores, one through the air and one on the ground. Most important, he committed zero turnovers in a 35-28 win over freefalling South Carolina.

Listed generously at 5-11 and 185 pounds, Murray jitterbugged all over the field and proved to be hard to hit squarely, plus he showed good awareness by sliding in front of oncoming defenders and getting out of bounds when he could.

Impressive as he was, let’s not forget that Murray did all this damage against a defense surrendering 27.4 points (12th in the SEC) and 430.5 yards per game (13th) – the Gamecocks won’t be anywhere near a bowl game this holiday season.

Fortunately, he faces Auburn at home, Western Carolina at home and then Vanderbilt on the road the next three weeks, so similar stat lines aren’t out of the question.

Manziel looked to be awfully small out there for A&M a few years back, but Murray is even smaller.

8. No. 15 in orange

Last week it was Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott, but Saturday it was Tennessee’s Joshua Dobbs putting on a Tim Tebow costume for Halloween.

The Volunteers quarterback threw for 233 yards and two touchdowns – he was picked off once, however – and also ran for 51 yards and two more TDs. Dobbs was one of four Vols to rush for 50-plus, as Alvin Kamara (70), Jalen Hurd (61) and John Kelly (58) all contributed greatly on the ground in a 52-21 skinning of Kentucky.

While Tennessee has lost four times, all four have been in heartbreaking fashion to quality teams (vs. Oklahoma, at Florida, vs. Arkansas, at Alabama), so the breakout season many expected in 2015 could very well come to fruition in 2016.

9. Rules are rules

Just six days after reinstating quarterback Maty Mauk from suspension, Missouri suspended him again for the rest of the season. The school refused to comment on the nature of Mauk’s suspension the first time – “a violation of program policies” is about as broad as it gets – and remained just as mum after the second suspension.

Freshman Drew Lock is directing arguably the most inept offense in the country, but coach Gary Pinkel gets a tip of the cap for not selling his soul in a shameless attempt to get bowl eligible.

10. Movin’ on up

The biggest mover in the College Football Power Rankings this week was Texas A&M, as the Aggies rallied six spots to tie Navy for No. 25. The SEC features half a dozen teams in the Top 25, including LSU (No. 3), Alabama (No. 7) and Florida (No. 8) all comfortably in the Top 10.

No other Power 5 conference can claim more than four.

What I didn’t like

1. White space

Florida and Georgia wore their home uniforms Saturday for the Cocktail Party, with the Gators in blue jerseys and the Bulldogs in red. Typically in college football, the home team wears a colored jersey and the road team wears a white jersey.

But with all those primary colors on the field, it was a little difficult to follow the action at times on television. I imagine it might have been hard on some of the players, too. It’s a lot easier to determine a colored jersey from a white jersey in your peripheral vision during live action than it is to differentiate between blue and red – just ask Bauta, who looked colorblind on at least one of his four interceptions.

The two programs should agree to alternate between home and road uniforms every season, or perhaps let one year’s winner determine what color jersey it wants to wear the next year.

2. Richt forgot his hook

While I believe all the stories that came out of Athens last week about Bauta being the Bulldogs’ hardest worker, it was evident very quickly that he didn’t have what it took to beat Florida.

Georgia’s running game has understandably been much less effective without running back Nick Chubb – he was a Heisman Trophy candidate for a reason – after his knee injury a few weeks ago against Tennessee. We expected to see a lot of read-option and designed quarterback runs from Bauta due to the fact that he’s a better athlete than former starter Greyson Lambert. Nevertheless, Bauta finished the game with 4 yards on 3 carries, plus there was no noticeable difference in UGA’s play-calling despite two weeks to prepare for the Gators. It’s not like Lambert had been terrible. He has connected on 64.1 percent of his passes and a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 9-to-2, but for some reason Richt stuck with Bauta from beginning to end. A change was beyond justifiable at halftime – maybe even after an abysmal first quarter. Richt’s detractors have never been louder, and it might be time for his supporters to take a long look in the mirror.

3. Not-ready-for-prime-time player

Georgia wide receiver Reggie Davis had another tough day on national television, muffing a punt at the 5 and watching helplessly as the Gators pounced on the ball in the end zone for the game’s first points. In the spectacular 38-31 loss to Tennessee a few weeks ago, Davis dropped a perfectly thrown deep ball from Lambert that would have tied the contest late in the fourth quarter. The Tallahassee (Fla.) Lincoln High School graduate couldn’t corral the pigskin consistently Saturday against Florida either, so much so that analyst Gary Danielson – never quick to criticize a college kid – wondered aloud if it was time to bench him. The fumbled punt set the tone for the day, and it was avoidable since Davis should have known better than to field the ball well inside his own 10-yard line.

4. Houston, we don’t have a problem

Houston would like to say that it bettered its résumé for the College Football Playoff committee by beating a team from the almighty SEC, but when it’s rebuilding Vanderbilt, the Cougars may as well have played winless UCF two weeks in a row. The Commodores are nothing short of lifeless in the passing game, as Johnny McCrary and Kyle Shurmur combined to go just 5-of-20 for 44 yards with no touchdowns and 3 interceptions – two for McCrary, one for Shurmur – in a 34-0 beatdown on the road. The lowlight was McCrary’s pick that got returned 55 yards for a TD in the third quarter, as he stared down his receiver and telegraphed the throw from the moment he took the shotgun snap. Vandy finishes with at Florida, Kentucky at home, Texas A&M at home and at Tennessee, so look for its current 3-5 record to be 3-9 after Thanksgiving.

5. Playing with fire

Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly has been a turnover waiting to happen since the last week of September, as the nephew of Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is on the hook for 11 interceptions in his past six games. He’s now up to 12 and has recorded multiple INTs four times, including the past three weeks consecutively. Only Virginia’s Matt Johns and Hawaii’s Max Wittek (13 each) have been picked off more, and it’s safe to say those two have a lot less to work with – both in terms of skill-position talent and help on defense – than Kelly. The Rebels still control their destiny in the SEC West thanks to that win over Alabama, but with Arkansas, LSU and intrastate rival Mississippi State looming, a 7-5 finish is just as foreseeable as 10-2.

6. I don’t know what we’re yelling about!

Muschamp is known as “Flipper” on the recruiting trail, as he has a history of getting elite prospects to change their minds on National Signing Day to come play for him.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to flip the Auburn defense in his first year as a coordinator for coach Gus Malzahn, as it is dead last in the conference – by a healthy margin, too – allowing 446.5 yards per game.

It would be one thing to give up a lot of yards between the 20s and then hunker down in the red zone, but the Tigers are also bottom of the barrel on the scoreboard (29.4 points per game allowed).

Muschamp lived up to his nickname by stealing the No. 1 recruit in the nation this past February, Byron Cowart. The 6-3, 277-pounder had been considering in-state foe Alabama and, of course, Muschamp’s former employer, Florida. But so far the freshman defensive end has just 4 tackles, none behind the line of scrimmage.

7. Go ahead and declare early for the draft

South Carolina wide receiver Pharoh Cooper deserves better than this. Remarkably, he’s fourth in the SEC in receptions (44), third in yards receiving (609) and tied for fifth in touchdown catches (4), and he’s done it in a passing offense ranked 12th in the conference at 186.1 yards per game.

Texas A&M still gave up 28 points to the Gamecocks, which made the 12th Man a bit uneasy at times, yet the Aggies threw a blanket around Cooper (4 catches for 22 yards, 2 carries for 16 yards) and weren’t going to allow him to beat them.

USC has tried Connor Mitch, Perry Orth and Lorenzo Nunez at quarterback for various spells this season, and not one produced a passer efficiency rating better than Nunez’s 130. If he had enough attempts to qualify, he’d only be 10th in the conference and 70th in the country.

8. No preseason games this late in the year

Arkansas pummeled FCS opponent Tennessee-Martin 63-28 in Fayetteville, with Hogs running back Alex Collins running 16 times for 173 yards and 5 touchdowns.

This is the same Tennessee-Martin program that opened the season by getting pounded 76-3 at Ole Miss, so the Skyhawks clearly have no qualms with going on the road in the SEC for a paycheck game – no matter how humiliating the final score. Regardless, matchups like this do little more than jack up stats for the superior squad to the point that they’re borderline meaningless.

More important, they stop the momentum of conference action.

Get these games out of the way in September and then let the eight-game SEC death march begin. Coaches can always schedule a bye in October or November in order to take a breather.

9. For whom the bell tolls

Kentucky’s Patrick Towles gets off the bus looking like a big-time quarterback. He’s 6-5 and 240 pounds. He was the No. 1 recruit produced by the Bluegrass State in 2012. His long hair flows just as freely as his considerable moxie.

But something just isn’t there, and it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is. Unable to pull off upsets at home in the fourth quarter against Florida and Auburn earlier in the campaign, Towles and Co. have now been blown out by Mississippi State (42-16) and Tennessee (52-21) in back-to-back weeks.

The Wildcats have been miserable on defense and certainly aren’t helping Towles. Still, their four wins this season have come against teams (Louisiana-Lafayette, South Carolina, Missouri, Eastern Kentucky) with a combined record of 15-16 – a mark that’s buoyed by EKU’s 5-3 performance in the FCS ranks.

10. Book your hotel rooms now

The “race” for the SEC East crown is effectively over. Florida only has to beat Vanderbilt at home Saturday or South Carolina on the road the following Saturday before making travel arrangements to Atlanta for the conference championship game.

Compare that to the West, where undefeated LSU, one-loss Alabama and two-loss Ole Miss are atop the division – LSU and Ole Miss control their destiny, while Alabama needs the Rebels to lose at least one of their final three contests.

Six of the seven teams in the East have three or more conference losses, while six of the seven teams in the West have two or fewer conference losses.

Florida is good, but Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and South Carolina all fell flat and gift-wrapped the division for the Gators.