On Thanksgiving, here’s 1 thing from each SEC team that I’m thankful for in 2025
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I’m thankful for this 2025 season.
It gave us a year in which 7 SEC fanbases felt they had a right to the Playoff heading into late November, we had 4 SEC head coaches fired, we had a Diego Pavia encore for the ages and we had whatever’s going down with Lane Kiffin.
It’s been glorious. I’m thankful for every bit of it. Few SEC teams have been boring.
Here’s 1 thing from every SEC team that I’m thankful for in 2025:
Alabama — This version of Ty Simpson
Without him? Alabama would be a disaster to watch on a weekly basis. For a team that cannot run the ball, Simpson has been among the most clutch players in the sport. He’s got 38 3rd-down conversions (No. 3 among Power Conference QBs) and 8 4th-down conversions (No. 4 among Power Conference QBs) via the pass. The relationship with Ryan Grubb has turned Alabama’s passing attack into an NFL operation in ways that it wasn’t last year. If the Tide reach the Playoff, it’ll have that to thank.
Arkansas – Weekly 1-score losses
So maybe it lost a little juice after the Texas game, wherein the Hogs lost by 15 points and ruined their insanely narrow scoring margin in a winless slate in SEC play (it was -25 before the Texas game). But as much as I feel for the Arkansas fans in my life who have been tortured, I’ve enjoyed that the worst team in the SEC has 6 losses by 1 score. Whether that’s a costly Taylen Green turnover, a coverage breakdown on 4th down or a fumble to blow a 17-point lead against Memphis, Arkansas has been a walking, talking car crash that I can’t look away from this year.
Auburn – The end of the Hugh Freeze era
Couldn’t watch it anymore. I was relieved that it didn’t get 3 full years because unlike Arkansas, who lost 1-score games in comical ways, we had to watch Freeze misevaluate quarterbacks and then throw them under the bus publicly. The end of the Freeze era also unlocked perhaps the beginning of the Deuce Knight era, as well as the acknowledge of Cam Coleman’s existence. Coleman has 20 targets in the first 2 games without Freeze, which is his best ever in a 2-game stretch. Freeze was so bad that he couldn’t even get anything resembling Jordan-Hare magic. We only saw the Tigers go 2-10 vs. Power Conference foes at home under Freeze. A new era on The Plains was needed.
Florida — That one afternoon I spent in The Swamp this year
To be clear, that wasn’t a troll. It was the Texas game. I was indeed thankful for it because when The Swamp is rocking, I’ll put it up there with any venue in the sport. Getting there this year was my first time in Gainesville on a fall Saturday since the 2018 LSU game, wherein the pick-6 of Joe Burrow led to the single loudest roar that these ears have ever heard. The takeaway from this is that if I had gone to more games at Florida, the Gators wouldn’t be moving on to their fifth coach of the post-Urban Meyer era.
Georgia — The Gunner Stockton-Mike Bobo connection
Hand up. I called for Bobo’s job last year. I argued that Kirby Smart was making a horrendously misguided decision to retain his OC, especially knowing that he’d have a first-time starting quarterback. Turns out, Smart knew what he was talking about and I didn’t. Imagine that? Stockton has been masterful in Bobo’s offense, and he’s been at his best when the competition has been cranked up. Stockton has a 180.4 QB rating vs. teams that are currently in the AP Top 25. The next-closest FBS quarterback with 2 such games is Simpson at 152.4. Stockton can absolutely be Stetson Bennett V (had to) and lead Georgia to a national championship.
Kentucky — Cutter Boley’s emergence means Kentucky won’t have to spend another $1.2 million on the next Zach Calzada
Need I say more?
LSU — Blake Baker is putting up 30 a game for the Wizards
By “Wizards,” I just meant an irrelevant NBA team. You get it. Baker’s defense is legit. It’s worth watching. Even without Whit Weeks, guys like Mansoor Delane, AJ Haulcy and DJ Pickett have been even better than advertised, and we’ve even gotten some big-time moments from Harold Perkins Jr. again. If you just watched LSU’s defense and pretended that the offense didn’t exist, you’d be having a much better time with the 2025 version of the Bayou Bengals.
Mississippi State — Brenen Thompson’s wheels
Last year, it felt like Mississippi State never really got to run the Jeff Lebby offense because Blake Shapen got hurt so early in the season. This year, when Shapen can actually sit back and get time to throw, he’s often found a streaking Thompson, who has been a godsend since coming over from Oklahoma. He’s quietly No. 2 in the SEC with 868 receiving yards, and he’s No. 3 with 18.5 yards per catch. Thompson gave us what was easily the best moment of the post-Mike Leach era with a game-winning touchdown against defending Big 12 champion Arizona State.
More of that is needed in Starkville.
Mizzou — Ahmad Hardy and his refusal to be tackled
Hardy established himself as a Doak Walker Award finalist even though, as some might forget, he didn’t even get a carry on Mizzou‘s first 2 series of the season. At the same time, he was a decorated transfer after a 1,300-yard true freshman season at Louisiana-Monroe. He’s since surpassed that with a Power Conference-best 1,403 rushing yards, 989 of which have come after first contact. That’s best in the FBS, and if you just made “Ahmad Hardy after contact” his own person, it would rank No. 4 in the SEC in rushing. For a team that was tasked with starting its 3rd-string quarterback multiple times, Hardy has kept Mizzou worthy of YouTube TV multi-view real estate.
Oklahoma — The best Brent Venables defense since 2018 Clemson
Don’t get it twisted. I’m also thankful that the packaged deal of Ben Arbuckle and John Mateer has made it so that Oklahoma’s offense can at least occasionally hit a chunk play and do things that last year’s unit couldn’t, especially with Isaiah Sategna’s ability to jet. But Venables has a special defense. It just needed a little help. When healthy, R Mason Thomas has played like a Round 1 guy while Taylor Wein’s emergence has been monumental as of late, and the Bowen brothers (Peyton and Eli) have turned this secondary into a feared unit. The Sooners might be more comfortable playing in slogs than most — they have 4 wins without exceeding 24 points — but if that means emerging from that gauntlet of a schedule with a Playoff berth, so be it.
Ole Miss — We got the loudest quiet Lane Kiffin season possible
It felt like it would be a post-hype year for Kiffin. A year after he failed to make the Playoff with arguably the most talented roster in program history, there was an expectation that frisky Playoff buzz would be the best-case scenario for a team that ranked last in the SEC in percentage of returning production. Instead, Kiffin has the most buzz over his potential departure since the Tennessee-to-USC saga, and it’s all going down while Ole Miss is on the brink of its first Playoff berth in program history. It’s both loud and quiet because is anybody actually talking about Ole Miss as a title contender? Nope. That’s not the case in the SEC or in the Playoff. But unlike last year — or really any other year in the Playoff era — both are still on the table heading into the Egg Bowl. Of course it is.
South Carolina — LaNorris Sellers is still in 1 piece … I think?
No Power Conference quarterback has taken as many sacks as Sellers (37), and even more alarming, he’s been sacked 20 times without even blitzing. It’s been that kind of year for the decorated South Carolina signal caller. The Mike Shula offensive coordinator experiment was brief and disastrous. The portal help at the skill positions hasn’t been there, and as a result, Sellers has regressed. At the very least, we’ve at least seen flashes of the guy who emerged as one of the best quarterbacks in the sport. But simply surviving this season with 42.4% pressure rate (the highest in the SEC) is a minor miracle.
Tennessee — This offense could’ve been a disaster, and it’s instead elite
Heading into the final Saturday of the season, Tennessee had the No. 4 scoring offense in America. While it had some non-offensive scores inflate that number a touch, think about this. The Vols lost their top 3 receivers, their SEC Offensive Player of the Year at running back, they had 4 new starters on the offensive line and then they were forced to make a post-spring QB change after Nico Iamaleava’s departure. That’s unbelievable turnover that Josh Heupel has made a distant memory. Are the Vols as prolific as the 2022 group? No, but with this porous defense, it needed to be close to that or else this easily could’ve been a 5-6 win season. Don’t take that for granted.
Texas — We’re back to realistic Arch Manning expectations
No longer will we watch Manning and assume that we’re about to embark on a religious experience. Instead, after a year of growing pains and positive moments, we can view him through the proper lens. Manning is a talented, but still inexperienced quarterback. He’s still got accuracy and timing issues. These surroundings didn’t help him as much as some thought they would, and now 2026 can be the real barometer for his future. It was never realistic to think it was going to set college football ablaze, bolt for the NFL after 1 season as a starter and become the next Hall of Fame Manning. Perhaps that’ll be exactly what he needs to become the best version of himself in 2026.
Texas A&M — The Aggies didn’t flinch at $76 million
If they did flinch at that unprecedented buyout, Jimbo Fisher would still be coaching A&M and Mike Elko wouldn’t be rewriting the record books in Year 2 in College Station. Fortunately for Texas A&M, Elko is doing things that haven’t been done in decades. He’s on the brink of A&M’s first Playoff berth and if he can win at Texas, he’ll have the Aggies in their first conference championship game in the 21st century. Yes, the schedule gods favored the Aggies, but that Notre Dame win in South Bend still happened. This team has 3 true road wins vs. Power Conference bowl teams, and it has perhaps the most versatile team in the SEC. Elko deserves legitimate National Coach of the Year consideration.
Vanderbilt — Diego Pavia found that JUCO loophole to become a college football legend
Duh. No disrespect to Clark Lea or his remarkable coaching staff, but Pavia is the straw that stirs the drink. By him suing the NCAA and getting another year of eligibility, we got to see the best version of Pavia on display. He’s been must-see TV in ways that he wasn’t throughout his 2024 breakout season in Nashville. The entire playbook has been opened up and a healthier Pavia has been slinging it all over the yard. Will he become the first Vanderbilt player to ever get a Heisman Trophy invite? It’s possible. Either way, leading the program to its best regular season since the Woodrow Wilson administration (1915) is worth celebrating, regardless of whether it leads to a Playoff berth. Pavia’s encore has somehow surpassed the original.
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.
