Ole Miss and LSU made serious moves while Ohio State lost some of its cool points. That was college football’s third weekend in a nutshell in reference to our latest SEC vs. Big Ten power rankings.
Held back by a sluggish offense, the defending national champions escaped an upset bid from Northern Illinois to stay atop the Week 4 AP Top 25. The Rebels and Tigers each used momentum from wins over nationally-ranked league competition to vault into the Top 10.
Ole Miss’s win over Alabama was its first in Tuscaloosa since 1988.
Here’s a look at our hybrid SEC/Big Ten rankings after three weeks of the season. *SEC teams are slotted using our weekly power rankings:
Playoff-caliber
Can we just pick four of these teams right now and start the Playoff? Over the next few weeks, conference chaos will wreck one of these SEC teams’ season while the Buckeyes and Spartans enjoy a relative breeze before their head-to-head meeting Nov. 21 (though at Michigan in a month could be tricky for Mark Dantonio’s group). Ole Miss is unstoppable right now on offense led by a quarterback who many were concerned about heading into fall practice. Chad Kelly has not only won the job, but he has ascended several others in the SEC and is nearing Dak Prescott for the rights to all-league accolades. Like Leonard Fournette, Kelly’s a serious Heisman candidate too.
- 1) Ohio State
- 2) Ole Miss
- 3) Michigan State
- 4) Georgia
- 5) LSU
Serious Contenders
One of these teams isn’t like the other. Northwestern doesn’t care the same national prestige as the two SEC Western Division programs in front of the Wildcats in this group, but Pat Fitzgerald’s squad is built to last with a championship-caliber defense. Northwestern leads the country in third-down defense (opponents have converted just 6-of-43 times). Alabama slid four spots in last week’s SEC vs. Big Ten power rankings to No. 6 after a home loss to Ole Miss.Texas A&M begins its SEC gauntlet on Saturday vs. Arkansas, a must-win for the Razorbacks as far as bowl hopes are concerned following a 1-2 start.
- 6) Alabama
- 7) Texas A&M
- 8) Northwestern
Fringe threats
Three members of this foursome have had a shot to knock off nationally-ranked elite competition this season and failed in doing so, showing they aren’t quite ready for the main stage. The Vols will try and begin their SEC slate with a win at Florida on Saturday. Tennessee’s lost 10 straight games against the Gators. The Badgers (2-1) should be favored the rest of the way and if they can stay healthy, will have a shot at a New Year’s Six berth — or something more — if they run the table.
- 9) Tennessee
- 10) Iowa
- 11) Wisconsin
- 12) Mississippi St.
More work is needed
Many of these teams will reach the postseason, but few have shown enough consistency in the early going to make a serious run at a division championship. Two-time defending SEC East champs Mizzou may bench two-year starter Maty Mauk if he doesn’t improve from the pocket. Coach Gary Pinkel is disappointed in his team’s effort thus far offensively and said as much as Saturday’s 9-6 win over UConn. Preseason SEC favorite Auburn meanwhile has benched Heisman pretender Jeremy Johnson in favor of redshirt freshman Sean White. Times have been better on the Plains.
- 13) Auburn
- 14) Michigan
- 15) Mizzou
- 16) Florida
- 17) Minnesota
- 18) Penn State
- 19) Nebraska
- 20) Kentucky
- 21) Illinois
- 22) Indiana
- 23) Maryland
Bowl hopes on life support
Arkansas was supposed to contend for a Western Division title this season. Arkansas was supposed to show vast improvement in Bret Bielema’s third campaign. Arkansas was supposed to beat Toledo and Texas Tech by double-digits. Injuries have ravaged this team and Dan Enos’ pass-heavy philosophy has backfired. College football fans would like to see Steve Spurrier ride off into the sunset with the Gamecocks on the heels of a successful season. Instead, he’s starting a true freshman at quarterback Saturday vs. UCF and is trying to rally the troops before October transforms into complete turmoil in Columbia. And the situation at Rutgers? Dumpster fire.
- 24) Arkansas
- 25) South Carolina
- 26) Purdue
- 27) Vanderbilt
- 28) Rutgers
