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Week 8 was not exactly scintillating in terms of suspense-filled fourth quarters. It was blowout city and had five teams inactive. Of the rest, five fan bases are very happy, four are very sad. Based off what we saw on the field, here are your SEC power rankings after Week 8:
14. Arkansas (2-5, lost to Auburn 52-20)
This game simply was never competitive. As we noted last week, there’s no single facet of this Arkansas team that stands out. The other weaker teams of the league have gaping flaws, but there are reasons for optimism. Not for Arkansas.
13. Missouri (2-5, defeated Idaho 68-21)
This is the Mizzou team we’ve grown to expect. Drew Lock passed for about 1,000 yards in between this game and the Tigers’ opener against Missouri State. The rest of his numbers won’t look quite that good. Missouri is more entertaining than Arkansas, but not significantly better.
12. Tennessee (3-4, lost to Alabama 45-7)
Honestly, this was a much better effort than Tennessee had any reason to show. This offense is simply an embarrassment to college football. UT’s last offensive touchdown came in the first half of the UMass game on Sept. 23. They’ve played 14 consecutive quarters without an offensive touchdown. That streak includes a 41-0 loss and a 45-7 loss. If they string together six wins, can the entire UT fan base boycott the bowl game?
11. Vanderbilt (3-4, off)
Unlike UT, which has been crushed because it just isn’t any good, Vanderbilt has been crushed because of a ridiculously difficult schedule. That said, it’s hard to figure out what anchors (no pun intended — well, maybe a little pun intended) this team. There are still several winnable games left, and Vandy might well end up bowling.
10. Ole Miss (3-4, lost to LSU 40-24)
The Rebels look better every week, but they still don’t play any defense. The Ole Miss/Kentucky game has the potential to be fascinating, in that the Rebels defense vs. Wildcats offense means that one of those units has to actually play well.
9. Kentucky (5-2, lost to Mississippi State 45-7)
This hurt. How much did it hurt? Let’s postpone that to see if Kentucky beats Tennessee at home next weekend. If so, UK is fine and ends the season either at the bottom of the SEC’s second tier of good-but-not-great teams or at the top of the third tier of, well, other teams. If not … well, if not, we’ll go into that next week.
8. Florida (3-3, off)
The Georgia game is a chance for a beleaguered team to make a gigantic stand or to get knocked back a spot or two on this poll. The smart money is on the second outcome.
7. South Carolina (5-2, off)
The ball is bouncing the right way for Carolina to end up finishing second in the East. October has been a good month for Carolina, and there’s little reason to think Vanderbilt will change that.
6. Mississippi State (5-2, defeated Kentucky 45-7)
Much like Kentucky, it’s hard to figure whether State is toward the bottom of the good-but-flawed pile (they did lose two conference games by 67 combined points, and haven’t even played Alabama yet) or the top of the seriously-flawed pile. Its game next feel at Texas A&M is an elimination match for the top half of the West standings.
5. LSU (6-2, defeated Ole Miss 40-24)
The Tigers are fine, and they move down only because Auburn was a little more impressive in its domination than LSU was in theirs. When the Tigers run the ball the way they did Saturday, they’re the third-best team in the SEC. The problem is that they don’t always do that.
4. Auburn (6-2, defeated Arkansas 52-20)
Sure, Auburn lost to LSU. But they played better this week. With late games with Georgia and Bama, if anybody can mess up the SEC race, it’s these Tigers. And they could.
3. Texas A&M (5-2, off)
Could end up flip-flopping with Mississippi State this weekend, but the Aggies being veterans of close games hold an edge over the Bulldogs, who tend to blow out or get blown out. Hard to imagine this game being terribly one-sided.
2. Georgia (7-0, off)
The former World’s Largest … etc., is always a big game. No matter how bad Florida is. Georgia can’t afford to not pay attention to this game. The guess here is that they show up prepared.
1. Alabama (8-0, defeated Tennessee 45-7)
So this didn’t end up being the most lopsided UT vs. Alabama game ever, but a 604-108 yardage count tells the story nicely.
Joe Cox is a columnist for Saturday Down South. He has also written or assisted in writing five books, and his most recent, Almost Perfect (a study of baseball pitchers’ near-miss attempts at perfect games), is available on Amazon or at many local bookstores.
