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Overrated, underrated, properly rated SEC players, teams entering Week 7
By Keith Farner
Published:
Pass rushers and offensive lines played prominent roles this week as the season shifts to talk of bowl probabilities and postseason awards. Some performances left us wondering about summer predictions and what went wrong, while others cause us to remember, how’d we forget about that guy?
Here is the overrated, underrated and properly rated following Week 6:
Overrated
Mississippi State defense: The Bulldogs’ six-season bowl streak looks to be taking on water after they gave up a season-high 228 rushing yards and three TDs against Auburn. They previously yielded a total of four TDs and hadn’t allowed more than 177 rushing yards in a game this season. The team’s pass defense ranks 11th in the league.
Vanderbilt defense: Expected to all but carry the Commodores to a bowl game, the defense has given up at least 205 rushing yards to Georgia Tech, Western Kentucky and Kentucky, which accounts for seven of the defense’s nine touchdowns allowed on the ground. Kentucky alone did it with four players who each had at least nine carries and collected 258 yards.
Underrated
Jon Toth: The Kentucky center was once an unheralded two-star recruit by Joker Phillips, Toth has turned into not only arguably the best lineman on the Wildcats, but in the conversation of the best players on the team. Five years after he signed, and last week against a Vanderbilt defense that allowed 160 rushing yards per game, Toth was in the middle of an offensive line that generated 258 yards, the most on the ground for UK in SEC play since 2010.
He also made a key block on Jojo Kemp’s 4-yard touchdown. But even before this season, Toth was on the watch lists for the Rimington and Outland trophies, and listed among the top 10 centers for next year’s NFL Draft.
It’s OK if you don’t necessarily know his name. They mispronounced it at SEC Media Days, too.
Darius English: There are many well-known pass rushers in the SEC, but English is several names down the list for most people. But there he is second in the league with six sacks (tied with Carl Lawson) and one behind Arden Key. English has had at least a half of a sack in every game but one, and had a season-high three against Kentucky.
Properly rated
Carl Lawson: The Auburn defensive end is playing like you would expect when he’s healthy. He’s had two consecutive SEC games with two sacks, and led the Auburn defense to a first-half shutout against an SEC opponent (Mississippi State) for the first time since 2008. With Lawson in the lineup, the Auburn defense has held all but one opponent under 20 points in 2016. It’s the kind of play many expected last season before a hip injury sidelined Lawson. He now has six sacks on the campaign, including five in three games.
JK Scott: One of the most well-known punters in college football, Scott average 51.5 yards on four punts in Alabama’s win over Arkansas. Four of those punts were inside the 20-yard line. He also had a long of 63 yards and two boots beyond 50 yards. It was the fourth time this season Scott has had four punts in a game, but the other games were all under a 48-yard average.
Alabama’s defense: It seemed like hyperbole when some suggested last season that the 2016 Tide defense would be even better than the 2015 version that included four NFL Draft picks and helped with the national championship.
Through six games, it’s hard to argue. Not only is Alabama limiting teams to 15.8 points — on par with last season — the unit has scored seven touchdowns in six games.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
