Let’s appreciate a division-less SEC for what it gave us heading into Week 11.
In many years, the second weekend of November had division races all but decided. Figuring out who would get to Atlanta wasn’t so much a mystery as it was an inevitability. Perhaps we’ll still wind up with an Alabama–Georgia SEC Championship Game, but at the very least, it remained a mystery entering Week 11.
Dare I say, it’s still a mystery. Cheers to that.
Here were the biggest takeaways of the Week 11 action in the SEC:
We were overdue for a Georgia flex
After starting off SEC play without a halftime lead in 5 of 6 conference games, Georgia finally put its foot on the gas from the jump. Well, I supposed that wasn’t entirely true because of that opening script touchdown for Mississippi State. But needless to say, 38 consecutive points from the visiting Dawgs put the the home Dawgs away early.
Georgia ran the ball seemingly at will against Mississippi State. Nate Frazier looked like the second coming of D’Andre Swift, Elyiss Williams looked like the second coming of Darnell Washington and Kirby Smart looked like the second coming of … Kirby Smart, who got his 47th consecutive win vs. an unranked foe (longest in the nation). To be fair, Georgia hadn’t had a flex like that against a non-Kentucky SEC team all year. The offensive line completely overpowered Mississippi State and we even saw Georgia have — wait for it — multiple sacks in the first half.
One of those sacks knocked out Blake Shapen, who was overwhelmed during roughly 1 half. He gave way to the true freshman Kamario Taylor, who has shown promise when he’s been used in certain packages, but was never going to overcome a lopsided deficit against the Georgia team that showed up on Saturday.
With Texas on deck, it was a fitting time for Georgia to put together its best SEC game of the season. Now the question for the No. 5 Dawgs will be whether that’ll continue against a Texas team that felt their wrath last year. At the very least, Saturday served as a reminder that Georgia might just be peaking at the right time.
Texas A&M can officially kiss those 8-4 jokes goodbye
I’m old enough to remember when Mike Elko inherited a Texas A&M program that had lost 10-consecutive true road games. My, how things have changed. Not only did Elko squash that in Year 1, but in Year 2, his team might just sweep its entire road slate.
That’s how you move past 8-4 jokes.
The 9-0 Aggies feasted on a true freshman quarterback in his first career start, but after 23 rushing yards in the first half, it also finally broke a Mizzou run defense that had the fewest missed tackles (45) of any FBS team and had 220 rushing yards in the second half. Fittingly, it was a 57-yard Rueben Owens touchdown that did just that to put the game on ice. Marcel Reed made plenty of big-time throws, though it was a perfect play design and blocking on the bubble screen to KC Concepcion that fueled the biggest passing play of the day.
Whatever the case, A&M showed why it’s the most versatile SEC team. Ergo, it showed why it’s the last remaining unbeaten in the conference and a legitimate national title contender. That’s becoming tougher and tougher to deny. The Aggies could still have their first 21st century trip to a conference title game come down to that Texas matchup, but that’s fine.
Elko just gave A&M its first 9-win regular season of the post-Johnny Manziel era. Think about that. Jimbo Fisher couldn’t do it, and Kevin Sumlin only did it with the best player in program history.
If Elko isn’t part of those national coach of the year conversations, well, he should be … and not just because A&M won’t finish the regular season with an 8-4 record like it has 7 times in the last 12 seasons.
Mizzou can officially kiss that Playoff path goodbye
It felt over with the Vandy loss, but loss No. 3 with a 3rd-string quarterback made that official. Matt Zollers struggled mightily in his first career start, and understandably so. That was an A&M defense that entered Week 11 ranked No. 1 in FBS with 4 sacks per game. It was tough sledding for him. To be fair, it would’ve been tough sledding for Beau Pribula, too.
But for a program that was knocking on the door the last 2 years, that had to feel like a frustrating missed opportunity. It was an extremely favorable schedule, the portal hits were evident on both sides of the ball, it was an elite defense that looked the part for the vast majority of the season and Eli Drinkwitz had a Year 3 offensive coordinator. This was a team with a 10-2 ceiling, though obviously a 3rd-string quarterback keeping Playoff hopes alive doesn’t usually set up well (unless you’re 2014 Ohio State). That’s a tough pill to swallow.
Now, attention will shift to Drinkwitz’s future. Will he be pursued by another SEC job? And would he leave? The Mizzou coach has a fascinating November ahead, even as his Playoff chances end.
As for Vandy’s Playoff chances … you’re still there? You’re still there!
What’s that? Vanderbilt will have Playoff life heading into the 4th Saturday of November? Yep.
(Vandy is on bye next week, AKA the 3rd Saturday of November, so it won’t play again until the 4th Saturday of November.)
It wasn’t exactly Diego Pavia getting the last laugh on Hugh Freeze, but it was indeed another Vandy victory against Auburn. Go figure that it was the polar opposite of last year’s game. A 45-38 shootout turned into one of the more entertaining games of the day. It even gave us Pavia stumbling on 4th-and-1 in the scenario that he seemingly never stumbles in. Of course, he still delivered a jump-pass touchdown to Cole Spence in overtime for the win. Why would’t he?
Vandy OC Tim Beck did a masterful job slicing up an Auburn defense who was 1 of 3 units who hadn’t allowed 25 points in a game this season. A 20-10 halftime deficit flipped because of Vandy’s ability to dial up the chunk plays. Some of that was scheme, and some of that was a busted coverage on a 57-yard touchdown pass in the middle of the 3rd quarter. Tempo might’ve contributed to the latter, but still.
It’s remarkable to see how easy things look for the Vandy offense at times, and not just because of how special Pavia is. Eli Stowers continues to be the best tight end in the country, Junior Sherrill makes plays in traffic and Sedrick Alexander finishes off drives. A unit that was quiet for the majority of the last 2 weeks — that furious comeback at Texas came in the last 4 minutes — looks borderline unstoppable.
Vandy is 8-2 with a chance for its first 9-win regular season since 1915. The only thing standing in Vandy’s way of a Playoff berth is a home game against Kentucky and a road game at Tennessee.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — what a time to be alive.
Cam Coleman’s 2026 price is skyrocketing
All it took for Coleman to be force fed targets was for Freeze to get fired. Imagine that. In his first game without Freeze running Auburn’s offense, Coleman had career highs in both catches (10) and yards (143). But it wasn’t just the fact that Coleman stuffed the stat sheet. The degree of difficulty of his catches was a sight to behold.
Just insane. Not pictured there was him hauling in a jump ball for the 2-point conversion, or the fact that Ashton Daniels blindly targeted Coleman in double coverage on 4th down in overtime. The latter didn’t work, but who could blame Daniels? Coleman, as well as Georgia Tech transfer Eric Singleton, looked as advertised without Freeze.
It begs the question — what’s Coleman going to get for 2026? Interim coach DJ Durkin said after the game that coaches across the country were calling Auburn players. One would assume that Coleman got the most calls of anyone. Will he stay at Auburn with whatever new-look offense it rolls out in 2026? Or will he hit the portal and inevitably make as much money as any non-quarterback in the sport?
Whatever the case, it was a joy to watch Coleman finally unleashed in 2025.
DJ Lagway and Garrett Nussmeier getting benched felt __________.
“Sadly inevitable.”
Man, what a brutal 2025 it’s been for the second-year Florida quarterback and the LSU post-Week 1 Heisman Trophy favorite. A season that began awkwardly for Lagway with injury questions galore now feels all but over after a disastrous first half resulted in his benching in favor of Tramell Jones Jr. Lagway was a mess, and not just because he had a banged-up group of receivers. He wasn’t seeing defenders, which led to a trio of interceptions. The 5th multi-interception game of Lagway’s young career was the most depressing of the bunch because it happened to a Kentucky team that was searching for its first home win vs. an SEC foe in over 2 years.
As for Nussmeier, like Lagway, he hasn’t looked healthy and a banged-up group of receivers didn’t help. But also like Lagway, watching the mistakes has been alarming. Whether that’s nearly taking consecutive delay of game penalties or spinning into a sack in a 3-man rush, Nussmeier was such a mess that LSU coach Frank Wilson pulled the plug in the middle of the 3rd quarter. It was bad. It was more of the same that we saw under Brian Kelly. It didn’t matter that Nussmeier had a new play caller.
It’s now fair to wonder if that’s the last that we’ll see of them in their respective uniforms as QB1. Nussmeier’s NFL Draft stock has inevitably taken a massive hit while Lagway’s 2026 will be spent in college, but where that is is anyone’s guess.
What’s clear is that nobody in August would’ve guessed that this is how November would go for those 2 decorated signal callers 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.
