10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after Week 7 in the SEC
By Chris Wright
Published:
The NCAA desperately needs your help.
Good thing Cooper from Chipotle is just a phone call away.
Know who else could use a hand? Defenses trying to stop Kadyn “Refrigerator” Proctor, soon-to-be former Penn State coach James Franklin, anybody in Indiana’s way, TV announcer Sean McDonough, poor Auburn … and Eli Drinkwitz, whose Mizzou team disappeared in another show-me situation.
Those are some of the 10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after a wild Week 7 in and around the SEC.
10. Texas isn’t back … but Oklahoma is all but done
Dabo has “Tyler from Spartanburg.”
Oklahoma has “Cooper from Chipotle,” the tortilla presser who broke the news that Sooners QB John Mateer would, in fact, play in the Red River Showdown — a day after coach Brent Venables said he had no idea about Mateer’s status or recovery from thumb surgery on his throwing hand.
Unfortunately for Oklahoma fans, Cooper never promised that Mateer would play well.
And he most certainly did not.
The desire was there, but the execution was sorely lacking. Hardly a surprise considering the time off and, you know, the thumb being a critical part of the throwing process.
Texas limited the Sooners to just 2 explosive plays — the long being a 23-yard reception. A healthy Mateer had 22 such completions in the first 4 games.
Texas also pressured Mateer into a career-worst 3 interceptions. Fortunately for Oklahoma, Texas couldn’t capitalize on any of them. The Longhorns twice missed field goals, and the other interception came just before halftime.
Venables wasted a prime opportunity to get back on even terms in the rivalry. Instead, he’s now 1-3 vs. Texas and staring directly at the toughest remaining schedule in college football. It’s too bad, because with a normal slate, Oklahoma would be Playoff-bound.
As for Texas? Arch Manning played well enough — nothing more. The O-line neutralized Venables’ red-hot defense and kept Manning upright — and Manning made enough plays with his legs to keep the pass rush honest. If you were looking for a light-bulb moment, Saturday wasn’t it. But it was a step in the right direction.
Enjoy the victory over a hated rival, but don’t read anything more into it. Texas isn’t a Playoff team.
9. Refrigerator Proctor …
Forget the Tush Push. Giving the ball to 6-7, 366-pound Kadyn “Refrigerator” Proctor is the most unstoppable short-yardage play in football. It’s by far the most entertaining, too. No idea why Alabama only unleashed its beast 1 time in a gutsy win at Mizzou.
Also, fun fact: Alabama’s O-line combined for more total yards on the Tide’s 66-yard, go-ahead drive in the 3rd quarter than Ryan Williams did in the entire game. Before Proctor’s 2-yard run on 3rd-and-1 that set up first-and-goal, Bama OL Parker Brailsford caught a tipped pass for a 2-yard gain.
Zero clue about what’s going on with Williams, by the way. Maybe old age is catching up with him? I mean, he is 18 this season.
Ty Simpson connected with 8 receivers Saturday — plus Brailsford — but never Williams.
Big picture? I liked Alabama’s national championship odds before their trip to CoMo, and given the manner in which they tamed a hot Tigers team in a rowdy atmosphere — overcoming key injuries along the way, zero contribution from Williams, and making Heisman throws and timely, critical plays on defense — you could argue that was Kalen DeBoer‘s most impressive win yet.
On the flip side, given the stakes and what a win would have meant, it probably was one of Eli Drinkwitz‘s more crushing losses. Mizzou’s Playoff hopes are dimmed, not done. But its ability to actually beat top-10 teams is questionable if Beau Pribula can’t generate more chunk plays through the air. Pribula didn’t connect on a single 30-yard pass Saturday, and through 6 games, he remains last among SEC starting QBs with just 4. That’s a glaring issue — especially if Drinkwitz strangely abandons the run again. Star RB Ahmad Hardy, the nation’s leading rusher coming in, had just 12 carries against Bama — even though the scoreboard never dictated panic.
At least Hardy didn’t throw a tantrum like Marquis Johnson did — twice — during Mizzou’s ill-fated final drive.
8. That’s a fumble, Sean!
It’s perfectly fine that ABC play-by-play man Sean McDonough disagreed vehemently with the key fumble that changed the Auburn-Georgia game.
Repeating his explanation was baffling, however.
McDonough kept insisting that Auburn QB Jackson Arnold still had possession of the ball when it crossed the plane for an apparent touchdown.
The problem? Arnold, clearly, already was in the process of losing the football when it crossed the goal-line.
By rule, if a player is in the process of losing control, even if the ball is still touching his arm or hand, that’s a fumble. We see plays like that every week, with the same definition of when a fumble becomes a fumble.
That’s what happened here. Georgia linebacker CJ Allen punched the ball loose as Arnold began to dive.
Auburn fans can be angry, and Hugh Freeze can submit it to the SEC for review, but there won’t be an apology this time. The referees on the field — and in the review booth — got this one, well, mostly right.
If we’re being technical, it was even more obvious that Georgia’s Raylen Wilson never was down after he recovered the fumble. Wilson climbed off the pile and ran for what should have been a Georgia TD.
If anybody got hosed on the play, it was Georgia. But the Dawgs aren’t too upset: Instead of going down 17-0, they reeled off 20 consecutive points after causing the fumble that changed everything and won the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry for the 9th consecutive time.
7. It’s always something with Ole Miss
Was Ole Miss looking ahead to next week’s showdown at Georgia?
Does Lane Kiffin like to have fun on Twitter?
Yes and (expletive) yes.
Anytime a top-5 team that’s favored by 32.5 points fails to even score that many, you know somebody’s going through the motions.
The good news: These Rebels survived Washington State’s upset scare, whereas previous Rebels outfits suffered puzzling upset losses to unranked teams. (See: Kentucky and Florida 2024; Arkansas and Mississippi State in 2022; Auburn in 2021, etc.)
I want to believe in the Rebels, and I do believe in Trinidad Chambliss, who was outstanding again Saturday — and had to be. But there’s just too much evidence of them underperforming to lean on blind faith carrying them to Atlanta and beyond.
The next 2 weeks — at Georgia, at Oklahoma — are the most telling in Kiffin’s tenure. Pretenders get swept. Contenders split. Championship teams? They sweep.
We’re about to find out where Ole Miss belongs.
6. OK, Indiana, you win. Again …
This Indiana team not only is better than last year’s Playoff team, these Hoosiers are good enough to win it … all?
That’s the craziest thought in the history of modern college football, but there’s no denying the Hoosiers belong in the championship conversation after watching them physically dominate Oregon in Week 7.
Nothing about what Curt Cignetti is doing in Bloomington makes sense. The math certainly doesn’t.
Indiana had never won 10 games in a season until Cignetti won 11 last year. Now, he’s a lock to win 10+ games in back-to-back seasons.
How? No idea. IU ranks 18th in the Big Ten — not the country, the Big Ten — in 247Sports’ talent rankings. Overall, they are No. 74 in the country. They don’t have a single 5-star. They only have 7 4-stars. They also don’t care if you believe in them — and I certainly haven’t — because they have enough belief for everybody.
The Hoosiers traveled across the country and toyed with an Oregon squad that features a Heisman favorite, 6 5-stars, 52 4-stars and 7,467 uniform combinations.
They won 30-20, limiting Oregon to 2.7 yards per rush and intercepting Dante Moore twice. They returned home with the program’s first road win over a top-5 team in program history.
Sunday, the Hoosiers will move into the top 5 of the AP poll — reaching that level for the second consecutive season and just the 4th season in program history. They’ve never been higher than No. 4.
They’re not done, either. There’s nothing remotely close to a challenge left on their schedule. Four of their 6 remaining B1G games are against teams that haven’t won a conference game. That includes once-ranked Penn State, which just lost its 3rd consecutive game — this time to Northwestern! — and lost starting QB Drew Allar to a season-ending injury in the process.
Indiana’s 1975-76 basketball team, famously, is the most recent NCAA Tournament men’s champion to finish a season with a perfect record. Those Hoosiers went 32-0.
Could these Hoosiers become the first college football team to go 16-0?
5. Predicting the 5 automatic bids after Week 7
The 5 highest-ranked conference champions receive an automatic bid into the Playoff. Here’s how I see it after Week 7:
ACC: Miami. Fun fact: 5 ACC teams still are undefeated in league play: Miami, Duke, Georgia Tech, SMU and Virginia. The schedules are so unbalanced, it’s still possible that an undefeated team doesn’t make the ACC title game. Here’s how 3 teams could finish 8-0 in the ACC: The Miami-SMU winner runs the table. Georgia Tech and Virginia beat Duke and also run the table. In that scenario, Miami/SMU, Virginia and Georgia Tech would finish 8-0 in the ACC. Coastal Chaos wasn’t this much fun.
Big Ten: Logic says Ohio State, but Indiana just KO-ed Oregon and Heisman favorite Dante Moore in Eugene. I’m still taking Ohio State, but nothing Indiana does this year will surprise me.
Big 12: I liked Texas Tech when most of the country was still ignoring the Red Raiders.
SEC: Ty Simpson is the SEC QB I trust most to make a throw to beat a quality team in a championship game. He showed that time and again Saturday at Mizzou, including the critical 29-yard completion on 4th-and-8 that helped Bama eventually score and extend its lead to 10. Roll Tide. (But watch out for Texas A&M.)
Group of 5: Memphis — primarily because the Tigers have the easiest path to the American Conference championship game; they host USF and Navy. Navy’s path also includes a road trip to North Texas and visit from USF. USF has the far superior nonconference resume — 2-0 vs. Top 25 — and just destroyed previously-undefeated North Texas on the road, but the Bulls still have to go to Memphis and Navy. The Bulls have to survive that slate just to get to the title game.
4. Joey Aguilar wins DETMER Bowl Showdown
Are you familiar with the DETMER award?
It’s an entertaining and completely made up metric, devised by the maniacs at Sickos, that measures and rewards high-risk/high-reward quarterbacks. Per Sickos: “DETMER — Downfield Efficiency Throwing Metric Encouraging Rippin’ it — seeks to identify the most highlight-generating quarterback in the sport.”
DETMER doesn’t care which team catches the ball, either, just as long as it’s being thrown around the yard at a prolific rate. Safe, reliable game-managers who average 20 attempts per game might win a lot of games for Kirby Smart, but those guys won’t sniff a DETMER title.
This is purely for fearless spiral-slingers like Stephen Garcia and Matt Corral. Or Jevan Snead — the only SEC QB to throw 20 TD passes and 20 INTs in the same season. (John Reaves and Jared Lorenzen both just missed joining the 20 TD/20 INT club, by the way.)
Without looking at this week’s DETMER rankings, I guessed, based purely on style and aesthetics, that Tennessee QB Joey Aguilar had to lead the SEC. In fact, he did. Arkansas’ Taylen Green was next … which made Saturday’s Tennessee-Arkansas tilt unofficially the DETMER Bowl.
True to the acronym, both QBs flashed the traits that make them DETMER darlings.
Green threw it more often (31 times to Aguilar’s 25) and did more damage on said throws (2 TD passes to Aguilar’s 1), but Joey Football earned the victory to keep Tennessee’s SEC and Playoff goals intact.
DETMER doesn’t care about that, of course, but Josh Heupel sure does.
3. 3 Top-11 teams that won’t make the Playoff
In last week’s Overreactions, I noted that the Week 7 AP Top 25 poll last season included 4 teams ranked in the top 11 that didn’t make the Playoff. (Blame the voters, or the teams. Up to you.)
Last year is a fair comp because it was the first year of the 12-team Playoff.
As such, here are 3 teams in the top 11 of this season’s Week 7 poll that won’t make the Playoff:
No. 6 Oklahoma: This isn’t an overreaction to getting thumped by Texas in the Red River Showdown. It’s reality, given the Sooners’ schedule. Oklahoma didn’t need an Express Lane to the Playoff setup, like several other Playoff contenders have (hello, Miami, Ohio State, Indiana, etc., etc.), but something easier than still having to face 5 teams currently ranked in the top 12.
No. 10 Georgia: Do we really need to explain why? Gunner Stockton doesn’t have the talent around him to offset his modest play. They got away with it Saturday night at Auburn, but this might be the least imposing team Kirby Smart has had.
No. 11 LSU: Why? The Tigers’ remaining schedule is only slightly less brutal than Oklahoma’s. Give LSU Indiana’s or Oregon’s remaining schedule, and start scouting Playoff opponents. As it stands, the Tigers still have play at No. 20 Vanderbilt, at No. 8 Alabama and at No. 6 Oklahoma. Obviously those rankings will change by kickoff, but … At least they get to host No. 5 Texas A&M, right?
2. 2 … as in Cam
There’s a fierce debate about which player authored the greatest season in SEC history.
Keep in mind that current SEC teams have produced 25 Heisman winners. But generally, the debate revolves around 2010 Cam Newton vs. 2019 Joe Burrow.
There’s no debate on The Plains. Saturday, Auburn honored Newton by retiring his famed jersey No. 2. He’s the 4th Tiger to be so honored, joining fellow Heisman winners Pat Sullivan (No. 7) and Bo Jackson (No. 34), and 2-time All-American Terry Beasley (No. 88).
Newton, of course, led Auburn to the 2010 national championship, a 14-0 march to perfection that included the iconic “Cam-back” to win the Iron Bowl. Newton passed for 2,854 yards and 30 TDs and rushed for 1,473 yards and 20 more TDs. Newton easily cleared the 1,000-yard rushing bar and still holds the SEC record for most rushing yards by a quarterback.
Hugh Freeze could have used a few of those highlight-reel plays Saturday night in the 20-10 loss to Georgia.
1. PSA: The Snitch Line is open for business …
I’m here to help the people. As such, I feel compelled the share some Earth-shattering, foolproof news that’s going to restore the purity in college athletics: Something called the College Sports Commission wants your help in cleaning up college football.
The CSC has created an anonymous tip line where anybody — anybody, including fans who start tailgating on Wednesday for an 8 pm Saturday kick — can “confidentially report potential violations of the rules governing third-party NIL deals and revenue sharing in college sports” to the CSC.
Of course the notion that crowd-sourcing will end corruption and root out offenders is ridiculous, but this is not a joke. Still, I can’t stop laughing, picturing the absurdity and volume of complaints some poor soul soon will be charged with sorting through. Seriously, this sounds like an SEC Shorts skit. I’m wondering: Will accusers rat on their rival? Or their underachieving head coach with the $20.4 million buyout? (Too specific, Florida fans? Sorry.)
In real life, this will look like Finebaum callers reporting allegations to Barney Fife.
My only wish? Leak the complaints. Nothing will be funnier.
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
