All eyes will be on Athens this weekend as No. 8 Georgia and No. 13 Alabama face off for what should be a battle royale in their first regular-season meeting since 2008. But there are plenty of other interesting storylines playing out throughout the SEC outside of Athens.
Here’s a quick look at some of the burning questions around the SEC as the calendar prepares to shift to October.
1. Alabama: Is Jake Coker really the quarterback who can carry the Crimson Tide back to the College Football Playoff? Coker completed 17 of 31 passes for 158 yards and three touchdowns in the team’s 34-0 pasting of Louisiana Monroe on Saturday but continued his penchant for ill-timed mistakes. He’s thrown four interceptions over the last four games. A tenacious Dawgs defense awaits this week.
2. Arkansas: Is any lead ever really safe with the Razorbacks? Probably not. In losing a heartbreaker to Texas A&M on Saturday, Arkansas blew a fourth-quarter lead for the eighth time under third-year coach Bret Bielema and for the seventh time in its past nine SEC losses. The Hogs are 0-9 in games decided by seven points or less since 2013.
3. Auburn: Are the Tigers finally showing some signs of offensive life with Sean White at quarterback? A flicker here and there, but managing just three field goals and going 4 for 14 on third down as the Tigers did in Saturday’s 17-9 loss to visiting Mississippi State aren’t exactly reasons to be all that optimistic. Coach Gus Malzahn will have more opportunities to clean things up this week against San Jose State and during the following bye week before resuming SEC play at Kentucky on Oct. 15.
4. Florida: Are the Gators the surprise team of the SEC so far this season? Without a doubt. They improved to 4-0 following Saturday’s improbable 28-27 come-from-behind win over Tennessee that pushed their winning streak over the Vols to 11 consecutive games. Coach Jim McElwain’s team enters the meat of its schedule now, but a 4-0 start in September appeared extremely unlikely at the start of the season, given Florida’s serious question marks at the time at both quarterback and along the offensive line. Now ranked in the Associated Press for the first time in two years at No. 25, the Gators will be playing with a lot of confidence, meaning anything is possible the rest of the way.
5. Georgia: Is this the year Georgia finally beats Alabama and goes on to claim its first SEC title in 10 years? I like the Bulldogs’ chances of accomplishing both. The Dawgs fell, 41-30, in Athens the last time the traditional league powers met during the regular season and came within a few yards of beating Alabama in the 2012 SEC Championship game and denying the Crimson Tide an eventual national championship. This game is going to have all the feel of the postseason, too, but the Dawgs are too good on both sides of the ball.
6. Kentucky: How significant was the Wildcats’ 21-13 victory over 25th-ranked Missouri on Saturday? You can never underestimate the importance of this win because coach Mark Stoops can only preach about turning a program around and changing a culture for so long. At some point, the Wildcats had to get it done on the field to make people believe, and they did just that in beating the Tigers to snap an 18-game losing skid at the hands of ranked teams. The ‘Cats hadn’t beaten a ranked team since upending then-No. 10 South Carolina in 2010.
7. LSU: All the attention is being focused on stud tailback Leonard Fournette, but is Brandon Harris quietly developing into an effective quarterback? The sophomore completed 8 of 16 passes for 157 yards without an interception in the Tigers’ 34-24 win at Syracuse on Saturday and has begun playing with the kind of confidence needed to consistently get the ball downfield to LSU’s many talented receivers. His play could later decide whether LSU wins the SEC West.
8. Ole Miss: Can the Rebels handle early success? They didn’t do a good job of doing that last year, and Saturday’s less-than-impressive 27-16 win over Vanderbilt did nothing to erase that image of coach Hugh Freeze’s team. They’re still young and strangers to the pressures that come with getting everybody’s best shot each week, but they’ll learn. A stiff test at Florida is next.
9. Mississippi State: How did the Bulldogs win on the road at Auburn, 17-9, by rushing for just 56 yards? Quarterback Dak Prescott made up for the lack of yards on the ground, completing 29 of 41 passes for 270 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. It also didn’t hurt that Mississippi State’s defense came up with four stops of the Tigers in the red zone.
10. Missouri: What’s wrong with the Missouri offense? The Tigers are lacking true playmakers, and quarterback Maty Mauk has struggled with his consistency. Worse yet, tailback Russell Hansbrough is not fully recovered from an injury, thereby crippling the Tigers’ ability to effectively run the football. It bodes badly as South Carolina comes to visit this week.
11. South Carolina: Has the Head Ball Coach finally found a quarterback in true freshman Lorenzo Nunez? That remains to be seen still as Central Florida is a really bad team and hardly a barometer of future greatness. Still, Nunez looked good, single-handedly accounting for 307 yards of total offense (123 rushing, 184 passing) in the Gamecocks’ 31-14 win over UCF, while completing 12 of 22 pass attempts for two touchdowns. We’ll get a better feel for Nunez in his first SEC road game at Missouri this week.
12. Tennessee: Who needs the win more this week when Tennessee and Arkansas meet in Knoxville? Both teams are DESPERATELY in need of a victory after last weekend’s crushing losses to Texas A&M and Florida, respectively, in which both teams squandered fourth-quarter leads. Again. Tennessee’s Butch Jones and Arkansas’ Bret Bielema are feeling the heat and another loss won’t help things. Loser leaves town match?
13. Texas A&M: Is wide receiver Christian Kirk the best freshman in the SEC this year? He is as of right now. Kirk had eight catches for 173 yards and two touchdowns in his team’s 28-21 overtime win over Arkansas on Saturday, giving him his third game of at least 100 yards receiving this year. He has 24 catches for 442 yards and four scores for the season and has returned a punt for a touchdown as well. He’s just going to get better.
14. Vanderbilt: Can the Commodores take a moral victory from their closer-than-expected 27-16 defeat at the hands of Ole Miss? Never been a big fan of moral victories, but Vandy coach Derek Mason and his staff should feel pretty good about the way their team handled itself this past weekend, especially offensively. Quarterback Johnny McCrary completed 23 of 42 passes for just 194 yards, but more importantly, committed no turnovers. They also totaled 322 yards of total offense against a very good Rebels defense. That’s a far cry from where the Commodores were offensively just a few weeks ago.
John Hollis is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers Georgia and Florida.
