Finally, we can actually talk about SEC football that happened in 2025.
Cheers to that. With all due respect to Week 0, Week 1 is the true start to college football season. A full slate of SEC games had storylines galore. From Arch Manning’s debut as QB1 to LSU’s quest to end its season-opening woes in the 2020s, it was a loaded SEC weekend to kick off the season.
Each week, we’ll break down the top takeaways from the conference. Top takeaways aren’t formed in games against FCS teams or lowly Group of 5 teams, unless they wind up being historically awful results. We’ll try to focus on not overreacting — we’ve got plenty of other places for that — and instead putting proper context around every Saturday.
Here’s attempt No. 1 at that:
LSU has a defense and a legitimate championship contender
If you had told anyone entering Week 1 that the lone Clemson touchdown would be a Herculean, “this guy doesn’t skip leg day” push at the goal line, you would’ve laughed them out of the room because it would’ve implied that LSU‘s defense played out of its mind.
Well, don’t ya know it. Nobody is laughing at LSU’s attempt at a defense anymore. In a masterful defensive display, Blake Baker’s Year 2 unit looked beyond what was advertised. Harold Perkins Jr.’s return to the lineup at the STAR position was crucial, as were all of the offseason additions in the portal. Whether it was a Mansoor Delane interception off a Patrick Payton pressure or AJ Haulcy’s second-half dominance in the secondary (after Dabo Swinney made sure he was suspended in the first half for a 2024 ejection), LSU looked like it had money well spent in a monumental season-opening game at Clemson.
Forget about just starting 1-0 and ending the 2020s losing streak. That losing streak existed in large part because of how unreliable the LSU defense had become. On Saturday night, it was the best unit on the field when many assumed it’d be the worst unit, especially with Cade Klubnik and Garrett Nussmeier battling. Against a team with a preseason All-American quarterback, decorated returning starters at receiver and a Matt Luke-coached Year 2 offensive line that was loaded with experience, LSU held that unit to 0 second-half points and 261 total yards.
LSU has a gauntlet of a schedule that awaits, but that felt like the type of early-season statement that could set the tone for a special run.
The Arch Manning hype was always going to be out of control, but a 7-point debut showed how wild it truly was
Two things happened. One, Manning was a preseason Heisman Trophy favorite and imminent No. 1 overall pick in the way-too-early mock drafts. He was also held scoreless for 3 quarters in his 2025 debut as QB1.
Manning wasn’t just held in check by the defending champs; he was completely bottled up. Credit the decorated signal-caller for at least putting Texas in position to have a last-ditch effort to tie the game, but he looked like someone who was pressing. He didn’t get through progressions quick enough, and he was off-target from different arm angles. Nothing felt easy for Manning. He didn’t look like someone who was in complete control. It looked like the game was too fast for him.
Again, it’s his third career start. With that context, 99.9% of quarterbacks would be forgiven for a showing like that at Ohio State, especially with 4 new starters on the offensive line and last year’s top 3 pass catchers off to the NFL. But Manning isn’t 99.9% of other quarterbacks. Well, at least he wasn’t billed as that.
On Saturday, Manning looked far closer to “human” than “chosen one.”
Forget the Alabama you knew. It’s officially dead.
Thomas Castellanos called his shot against Alabama, and delivered. As in, the guy who was benched at Boston College. To Castellanos and the credit of Florida State, it outdid Alabama in everything. Gus Malzahn and Mike Norvell showed that they weren’t dead men walking. Alabama had 8 months to prepare after a disappointing season, and it got whipped in the trenches.
Alabama might not have been at full strength — the Tide’s top run-stopper Tim Keenan was out — but that shouldn’t have been an excuse for allowing 230 rushing yards and 31 points to a team that didn’t score more than 24 vs. FBS competition in 2024. Then again, it was a new FSU team with 9 transfers starting on offense, including Castellanos. He clearly got under Alabama’s skin, which was shown by a pair of awful late hits on him.
We haven’t even gotten to the offensive side of the ball because that’s somewhat of an afterthought. But remember when Ryan Grubb’s reunion with Kalen DeBoer was supposed to spark the Tide’s offensive turnaround? I remember that, too. Ancient history. Ryan Williams dropped 3 passes before he left the game with an apparent head injury. Ty Simpson spent far too much time running for his life behind a decorated offensive line. Outside of an early connection with Germie Bernard, who had 146 yards on 8 catches, nothing came easy for Simpson.
The most telling sign that Alabama is in a new era is simple — Nick Saban didn’t lose to an unranked team from 2008-20. In 14 games at Alabama, DeBoer has 4 losses to unranked teams, all of which were away from home as at least a 2-touchdown favorite. Oh, and just in case that wasn’t enough, Alabama is 5-5 since that win against No. 1 Georgia last year.
Until further notice, remove Alabama from all future Playoff conversations.
The mobile Jackson Arnold needed that type of night in his new home
On 4th and 1, leading by a touchdown with 4 minutes to play on the road, I wondered if Hugh Freeze would show his quarterback that he believed in him. After all, reports out of camp were all about Freeze trying to build up Arnold’s confidence after a disastrous season at Oklahoma, wherein anything that could go wrong did go wrong. But would Freeze trust his quarterback to use the best part of his game (his legs) to find the crease and all but put the game away?
Thankfully for Auburn, Freeze made the right call.
Arnold kept it on the zone read, found the hole in the porous Baylor defense and watched the heavens open up en route to pay dirt. OK, I’m laying it on thick. It had to feel like that for Arnold, who admitted that he didn’t plan on using his legs as much as he did (16 carries for 137 yards). But it was working behind an improved Auburn offensive line. The passing attack was much quieter. Credit the Baylor secondary for that. They contained an incredibly talented group of Auburn receivers, most notably the duo of Eric Singleton and Cam Coleman, which combined for just 4 catches for 43 yards.
That’s perhaps the most promising thing about Friday night’s win. While Auburn has issues to figure out in the passing game on both sides of the ball, Auburn scored 31 offensive points (removing the kick return TD) and the passing game stars were held in check. Arnold shook off a slow start and righted the ship.
Maybe that’ll be the story of his college career.
Tennessee is going to get back to its pre-Dylan Sampson ways
That sounded negative. It’s not. Let me explain.
Last year, Josh Heupel basically threw out everything with how he typically built a running attack. Before 2024, he had never had a back eclipse 160 carries. Sampson then had a whopping 258 carries (No. 9 in FBS) while the next-closest back was DeSean Bishop with 74 carries. That was the byproduct of injuries combined with Sampson’s emergence as the SEC Offensive Player of the Year.
With Sampson off to the NFL, Saturday confirmed that preseason notion that 2024 was a true one-off. In an impressive offensive showing against Syracuse, Heupel got back to having a versatile 3-headed rushing attack. Bishop, Peyton Lewis and Duke transfer Star Thomas combined for 212 rushing yards on 31 carries. They were the driving force of a Tennessee offense that averaged 7.3 yards per play.
That was a welcome sight in Joey Aguilar’s Tennessee debut. Or rather, the first game of the post-Nico Iamaleava breakup. Aguilar might not have had a perfect day, but he avoided throwing an interception, AKA the stat that he led the nation in as Appalachian State’s starter in 2024. Aguilar delivered a beautiful downfield score on a post route to Braylon Staley. It was the type of throw that one assumed that Tennessee would have frequently, both with Iamaleava and with Joe Milton in 2023. That didn’t prove to be the case.
Perhaps it’s a bit premature to say a vintage Heupel offense is upcoming after a dominant performance against a Syracuse defense that struggled in Year 1 under Fran Brown. But that was as close to an ideal start as he could’ve asked for.
Nyck Harbor, welcome to the big time
The 2-time winner of Bruce Feldman’s annual “Freaks List” hasn’t blossomed into an All-SEC player yet, but after an offseason in which he put track on the back burner to focus on developing as a receiver, there was hope that Harbor could become a game-changing WR1 for LaNorris Sellers.
On Sunday, that felt more real than ever.
Harbor shook off an early drop and looked every bit like the freakiest guy on the field. OK, he can at least share that title with the ever-impressive Sellers and Dylan Stewart, who shook off an apparent shoulder injury and wrecked a Virginia Tech drive single handily. But Harbor was the story of the day because of 2 plays. The first was an apparent touchdown in which officials ruled that he didn’t complete the process of the catch.
Judge for yourself.
But Harbor then did something that’s been extremely rare for his all-world speed — he caught a downfield pass and took it to the house.
Shane Beamer credited his son, Hunter Beamer, for dialing up that play-call. Something so simple — a post to the fastest guy in college football — has been much more of a challenge to execute in his first 2 years at South Carolina. Why? Defenses are well aware of his world-class speed and have forced him to operate underneath. Before Sunday, Harbor had 2 career catches of 40 yards and just 7 career catches on throws that traveled 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Not only was the 63-yard score the longest play of Harbor’s career, but it matched South Carolina’s entire 2024 total of 60-yard completions (1).
It was the perfect, long-time-coming dagger for South Carolina to close Week 1. If defenses have to account for Harbor having a full route tree at his disposal, that’s going to open up the field for Sellers in a game-changing way in 2025.
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.
