One of the things that provides me joy in-season is to look up stats that I just couldn’t have possibly predicted during an 8-month offseason.
Maybe that’s a leading rusher who came out of nowhere. Perhaps it’s a unit that’s wildly surpassed expectations. Shoot, it could be a preseason darling who simply hasn’t looked the part yet.
Whatever the case, there are always things that surprise us in the first month of the season.
These 10 SEC stats are things I wouldn’t have believed in August (shoutout to PFF for the majority of these numbers):
1. DJ Lagway has 1 completion that traveled 20 yards past the line of scrimmage
And you know exactly what it was. It was the insane, Odell Beckham Jr.-like grab that Vernell Brown III made in the season opener against LIU.
To recap, Lagway has yet to complete a pass 20 yards downfield in 3 games vs. FBS competition in 2025. Including that ridiculous Brown catch, he’s 1-for-7 on those attempts. He did have a drop on 1 of those throws, but still. Just 7 such attempts for Lagway through 4 games is something that even the biggest skeptic wouldn’t have believed. Surely not being at 100% has to do with that, but he’s still out there. Unfortunately for Lagway and the Gators, a 31% 3rd-down conversion rate that included an 0-for-13 mark at Miami (FL) is just more evidence that they’re running far too predictable of an offense.
2. The SEC team with the biggest scoring margin advantage is … Vanderbilt?!?
How about that? The team with a regular-season over/under of 5.5 wins has a chance to not only become the first SEC team to clinch bowl eligibility, but it can become the first FBS team to do so. All it needs is an Iowa State loss and a win at … Alabama. Even if that doesn’t happen, what’s remarkable is how Diego Pavia and the Commodores have gotten to this mark even though they had 2 Power Conference road games, both of which turned into stadium-clearing blowout wins. You can point to the Virginia Tech disappointment or the LaNorris Sellers injury — Vanderbilt was frustrating him before he got hurt in the targeting play — but nobody could’ve thought that Vandy would be +159 in scoring margin heading into the Alabama game. Well, Pavia probably assumed that. As for the rest of us, we couldn’t have predicted that Vandy would be No. 4 in FBS in offensive yards/play while allowing just 4.7 yards/play on defense. Truly insane.
3. Garrett Nussmeier is 7-for-23 for 90 yards on throws 10+ yards downfield outside the numbers
Eeeeeeeek. It’s been a rough go for Nussmeier, who came into the season as decorated as any quarterback in the sport, both from a college and NFL prospect standpoint. The latter has certainly taken a dip as a result of those aforementioned next-level throws. Just for a little context, in 2024, Nussmeier on throws 10+ yards outside the numbers was 47-for-118 for 1,042 yards in 13 games. He’s clearly not driving the ball downfield the way that LSU fans hoped. How much of that is health-related is in the eye of the beholder. Nussmeier clearly doesn’t look right, and injuries have been at the root of that. But the LSU offense as a whole has been incredibly disappointing, as shown by its 19.8 points per game vs. FBS competition, though if you take away the pick-6 vs. Florida, it’s 18 points per game vs. FBS foes. Woof.
4. Mississippi State’s defense has allowed 5 offensive touchdowns in the first 58 minutes of games
I could’ve just reserved a spot for “Mississippi State lost a game 41-34 to Tennessee and surrendered just 1 offensive touchdown in the first 58 minutes.” Isn’t that hard to believe? To be fair, the Vols scored immediately out of the 2-minute timeout, and they got another offensive score in overtime on a 25-yard run after Mississippi State held that potent rushing attack to 31 carries for 106 yards in regulation. But 2 Tennessee defensive touchdowns weren’t against the Mississippi State defense, which has been one of the most-improved SEC units in 2025. Coleman Hutzler has done a whale of a job with a unit that felt like it was in Year 0 in 2024. The Bulldogs dominated decorated preseason quarterback Sam Leavitt in that Arizona State win, and early-season darling Joey Aguilar looked more out of sorts vs. Mississippi State than he did against Georgia. It’s even more impressive that Mississippi State has been this solid after losing early breakout star Will Whitson to a season-ending injury against Arizona State. That unit won’t be a pushover in SEC play.
5. Arch Manning is averaging 3.6 yards per attempt on throws 0-9 yards past the line of scrimmage
Why is that shocking? In 2024, Manning actually led the SEC at 9.0 yards/attempt of 0-9 yards with a 92% adjusted completion percentage on those throws (min. 20 such attempts). Those plays have essentially turned into an inefficient running play wherein Manning’s inaccuracy either results in an incompletion or an inability for his receiver to get yards after the catch. Even the aforementioned struggling Lagway is averaging 4.3 yards/attempt on 0-9 yard throws, and every other SEC starter is better than 5.1 yards/attempt on those passes. Sloppy mechanics have been to blame for that shaky start. That’s the area of the field where Manning’s lack of rhythm has hurt him and the Texas offense the most. He’s still an effective runner and downfield passer, but we won’t see the best version of Manning until he’s more accurate on short-yardage throws.
6. Georgia is No. 121 in FBS with 5 sacks
I know that Georgia hasn’t made that the calling card under Kirby Smart, but we’re still talking about a unit that finished in the top 50 in the FBS in sacks all but once since his arrival in 2016. And while some of those units might not have gotten home at an elite rate, they at least got pressure on the quarterback. This unit? Not so much so far. Chris Cole has 3 of UGA’s 5 sacks on the season. Perhaps equally alarming, UGA only has 1 quarterback hit and it doesn’t have a single edge rusher with more than 3 QB hurries (there are 53 SEC edge-rushers with at least 3 hurries through Week 5). Meanwhile, Georgia transfer Damon Wilson II has been as advertised for Mizzou, where he leads the SEC with 22 pressures and 16 hurries. Yes, it’s early and it’s likely that better days are ahead for a new-look unit that’s struggled to replace 1st-round picks Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams, but it’s alarming that UGA currently ranks No. 127 out of 136 FBS teams in PFF’s pass-rush grade. Smart and Glenn Schumann are desperate to find some game-wreckers.
7. Ahmad Hardy has more yards after contact (551) than any SEC running back has total rushing yards (445)
I believe there’s a real chance that Hardy continues this trend for the rest of the season. Forget about the SEC rushing title or adding to Mizzou’s list of 1,000-yard rushers. Like we saw last year with Dylan Sampson and the year before with fellow Mizzou back Cody Schrader, a healthy Hardy will have that locked up by the time the calendar turns to November. More intriguing is whether he can continue to blow through SEC defenses for the majority of the year. Since the start of last year when he was a true freshman at Louisiana-Monroe, he forced 139 missed tackles. This year, he has 46 missed tackles forced, which is 13 more than any Power Conference running back (go figure that Mizzou transfer Kewan Lacy is the next-closest after a banner start for Ole Miss). Among all FBS running backs, he’s got a 130-yard advantage in yards after contact. To be clear, Hardy being awesome isn’t a surprise given what he did last year and what the running back position has looked like under Eli Drinkwitz. But him being a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate with such imposing early-season numbers has been beyond the wildest projections.
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8. Ryan Williams, Cam Coleman, Aaron Anderson and Cayden Lee are all outside the top 10 in the SEC in receiving
Coming into the year, I thought those were the 4 best receivers in the SEC. All of them got off to relatively slow starts. To be fair, Williams missed a game after suffering a concussion in a disastrous season opener at Florida State, and Anderson left the Ole Miss contest early with an injury, as well. Still, though. Anderson is the only player in that group with 260 receiving yards, which is a mark that 20 SEC players have hit. Meanwhile, Chris Brazzell II has more than twice that mark with an SEC-leading 531 yards for the new-look Vols offense. He’s been even better than the player many expected him to be after coming over from Tulane in 2024. He and fellow Tennessee breakout receiver Mike Matthews both have more yards than those 4 accomplished SEC wideouts. I can’t say I envisioned the Aguilar-led Vols producing that type of early-season feat.
9. Oklahoma is the only FBS team that hasn’t forced a single turnover … and yet it’s the No. 3 scoring defense in the FBS
It’s almost impossible that Oklahoma has been such a force defensively, and it hasn’t forced a single takeaway. It’ll continue to brought up on every broadcast, and understandably so. It’s baffling. The Sooners are No. 4 in yards/play allowed and they rank No. 2 in the FBS with 4 sacks/game, but a fumble recovery or interception has yet occur for that unit. You can bet that while Brent Venables wouldn’t like to be turnover-dependent, he’d still like to get that part of his defense figured out before the meat of the schedule begins post-bye week. Fortunately for him, that should change this weekend against a Kent State team who hasn’t beaten an FBS squad in 3 years.
10. The top-ranked SEC team (No. 4 Ole Miss) is being led by Trinidad Chambliss, who averaged 11.8 yards/attempt under pressure
Hand up. I was wrong to predict that Austin Simmons would be an excellent dark-horse Heisman candidate …. and I’d be lying to you if I told you I envisioned a scenario in which Chambliss would have overtaken Simmons for the starting job at any point in the season, much less in September. Simmons did suffer an ankle injury that opened the door, but it didn’t help that he had multiple 1st-quarter turnovers in his first 2 starts. It also didn’t help that Chambliss came in and looked like the second coming of Jaxson Dart. He’s been dynamic both as a passer and as a runner. We saw that play out in a monumental win against LSU, who hadn’t allowed multiple touchdowns in a game until Chambliss racked up 385 scrimmage yards en route to AP National Player of the Week honors. He’s the first SEC quarterback since at least 1994 with 3 consecutive games of 300 passing yards and 50 rushing yards, and in addition to those 11.8 yards/attempt under pressure, he doesn’t have a single turnover-worthy play in those 27 pressured drop-backs. Not too shabby for a Division II transfer that nobody outside of Oxford had heard of in August.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
