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Eleven weeks gone and what do we know? We know we have one gifted student in the SEC class, and a whole lot who are pretty average. Some are looking forward to next year, some are still trying to make a case for a better bowl.
But everybody gets a grade. As usual we’ll also pick a couple of teams for hall passes (good work) or detention (bad work) on offense, defense, special teams, and coaching.
Here are the SEC report cards for Week 11.
Overall grades
SEC West
Alabama: A
Sure, they’re much better than Mississippi State. But merely being a heavy favorite didn’t carry a lot of weight across the conference and the nation Saturday. Unlike most, Bama more than held serve.
LSU: A-
Which LSU team shows up? Nobody knows. You have to wonder if they had featured Derrius Guice against Alabama, would they have had a better shot?
Ole Miss: A-
For the second time this season, a coach pulls a redshirt from a QB and some of us feel skeptical, only for the coach to look like a genius. One wonders if the Rebels wouldn’t have been better with Shea Patterson all year.
Mississippi State: D
Just outclassed by Alabama, which is no disgrace. After the resurrection of Ole Miss, the Bulldogs are looking like the lone non-bowl team out of the West.
Texas A&M: D
They get a better grade than Auburn because they spent three-plus quarters in position to win. But they didn’t, so this kills their CFP chances.
Auburn: D-
A good defensive effort, but that UGA offense has been a bag of mess all year. The story here is blowing their shot at a CFP berth by being pitiful offensively themselves.
Arkansas: D-
Much like Auburn, an awful, awful game, which is ironic, since their last awful game was against Auburn. An inconsistent team that could’ve been second in the West, but will limp in at fifth or sixth.
SEC East
Georgia: A-
Back from the dead. This is the kind of game Kirby Smart has to love, although it’s still discouraging to see the UGA offense play this badly. The Dawgs’ defense scored their only touchdown.
Missouri: A-
Nobody would have blamed them had they packed it in for the season. But they didn’t, and probably consigned Vanderbilt to missing a bowl as well.
Florida: B+
They were who we thought they were — sluggish on offense, special on defense, and good enough to limp toward the finish line of winning the East.
Tennessee: B
So confused by their game. They won, they stayed alive for the East title, and they came a handful of yards for giving up the most rushing yards ever to a Kentucky team. What a weird game, what a weird year.
Kentucky: C
Can’t give a terrible grade to a team that rushed for 443 yards. Can’t give them a good grade, either, because they lost by 13, and it wasn’t really that close.
South Carolina: C
Just outmatched by Florida. Honestly, if they get their sixth victory against Western Carolina on Saturday, Gamecocks fans should be thrilled. Not at all unlike Kentucky, except younger and with a higher ceiling.
Vanderbilt: D-
They beat Georgia and placed themselves in the bowl hunt, and then lost to Missouri and fell right back out. A week ago, a sixth win looked very possible. Now, Ole Miss is scoring all over the place and Tennessee looks normal. So no bowl for the Commodores after all.
Offense
Hall Pass
Alabama: Jalen Hurts throws for 347 yards and runs for 100 more. The Tide are pretty good.
LSU: Putting up 390 rushing yards on Arkansas was very Auburn-like of them. The good Auburn, I mean.
Detention
Auburn: They passed for 37 yards and ended up with 164 overall. What happened? Is Kamryn Pettway really that valuable?
South Carolina: Jake Bentley had masked this, but South Carolina couldn’t run at all (1.4 yards per carry) Saturday, and thus, they scored seven points.
Defense
Hall Pass
Georgia: Sure, part of it was that Auburn was awful, but UGA had something to do with that. And they scored the TD that won the game for good measure.
Alabama: Nick Fitzgerald had been pretty explosive lately — just ask A&M. Not so much this week.
Detention
Tennessee: Gave up 443 rushing yards to Kentucky. Not a good habit.
Kentucky: Was so bad that UT beat them despite the above. UK gave up 376 rushing yards on their end of things.
Special Teams
Hall Pass
Ole Miss: Gary Wunderlich hit the game-winning field goal in the final minute and saved Ole Miss’ season.
Detention
Missouri: Mizzou missed two more field goals (one from 21 yards) and two extra points. Tucker McCann has struggled more than any kicker in the SEC, and possibly the worst in FBS.
Coaching
Hall Pass
Ole Miss: Hugh Freeze, you old football genius you. Now why didn’t you get this Patterson kid in a game earlier?
Georgia: Kirby Smart got to have a Kirby Smart kind of game, and UGA fans are feeling a little bit relieved. (Although we have no idea why they called those two trick play passes, one of which was intercepted, the second of which put Jacob Eason in harm’s way.)
Detention
Auburn: The Gus Bus is making me feel bipolar. Which Auburn offense is real?
Texas A&M: Kevin Sumlin is now facing four consecutive seasons of late-season slides. Has to be discouraging to be an Aggie when the seasons start to change.
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.
