We knew it was going to be a wild one. Week 5, as it turned out, lived up to the billing.
We had ranked foes falling, wild finishes and pivotal late-September statements made. Not too shabby for a “regular season that doesn’t mean much anymore.”
Week 5 was a good reminder of how great this silly sport is.
Here were the biggest SEC takeaways from Week 5 action:
That’s why Kalen DeBoer was hired
Remarkable. Resilient. Resounding.
All are fair words to describe DeBoer leading Alabama to a win in Athens. As in, the place where Georgia hadn’t lost a game since 2019. Like, the place where Georgia hadn’t lost at night since 2009. All DeBoer did was answer every last question about Alabama righting the wrongs of the Florida State game. His team was much more poised, especially in key moments. Picking up 13 3rd downs against a Georgia defense is no joke. In fact, it was a record. A locked-in Ty Simpson led Alabama to an 8-for-8 start on 3rd down, and he fittingly closed the game on a masterful play-call from Ryan Grubb on 3rd-and-5.
DeBoer didn’t just win. Alabama never even trailed in that game. That’s the type of performance that Nick Saban would deliver in that atmosphere. Silencing a hostile atmosphere was a massive part of what made the G.O.A.T.’s legacy what it was. DeBoer’s legacy is showing up in big-time games. He’s now 7-1 vs. AP Top 10 teams and 16-3 vs. AP Top 25 foes since he became an FBS head coach in 2020.
In this era of the sport, it’s not about being perfect. Granted, you shouldn’t frequently lose to unranked teams as a 2-touchdown favorite, either. DeBoer still needs to figure that part out. But in this era, it’s about getting to the Playoff and having a coach who can win a big-time game. DeBoer has shown that he can do that. Going 2-0 against Kirby Smart is no small feat.
Last year, Alabama’s win against Georgia didn’t lead to a Playoff berth. Having already been humbled, many will wonder if Saturday night was a sign that Alabama has turned the corner. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and instead just focus on what DeBoer did to silence the people who said he was cooked.
Remarkable, it was.
Kirby Smart can deny it all he wants, but 1-7 vs. Alabama is real
Did Smart get out-coached against Alabama once again? The 4th-and-1 decision not to attempt a game-tying kick came back to bite him, and allowing those aforementioned 13 conversions on 3rd down will be tough to stomach. Smart and Georgia’s defense couldn’t get to Simpson, especially when it mattered most. Alabama was the more poised team, and Georgia couldn’t get the late breaks that were there at Tennessee.
For whatever reason, Alabama continues to be Smart’s boogeyman. Going 1-7 against the Tide and 107-13 against everyone else isn’t a coincidence. Smart has multiple losses to 3 coaches, and 2 of them are Alabama coaches.
Nobody is erasing 2021 from his record or saying that the national title didn’t happen. But if that was the moment that was supposed to exorcise demons, it’s been anything but that. Since that night, UGA is now on a 3-game losing streak to Alabama.
We’re about 20 months removed from Georgia being considered the biggest winner after Saban retired. Georgia has instead fallen twice in down-to-the-wire games wherein many of Smart’s moves have played out like his late-2010s decisions. Big picture, maybe that won’t matter. After all, Georgia won an SEC title last year even after it endured a bizarre regular season. It’d be foolish to say that’s off the table for Smart, especially with how much parity there appears to be in the conference.
But Saturday felt all too familiar for Smart.
Lane Kiffin has himself a Playoff-caliber team with Trinidad Chambliss
Had to have it. Had to have it to be a real Playoff contender. It didn’t matter if it was the first time that Chambliss faced some adversity. It just had to be a win against a top-5 LSU team.
Lane Kiffin did just that, down to that final play call to put the game on ice (give Charlie Weis Jr. credit for that). Ole Miss didn’t flinch, even when LSU’s defense threatened to turn it into another defensive struggle early on. Pete Golding’s defense got pressure with a 3-man rush and frustrated a 1-dimensional LSU offense. It was the type of finish that Ole Miss struggled to get last year, particularly when it blew a late lead at LSU.
This was a different story for Kiffin and Co. His squad picked up 10 conversions on 3rd (8) and 4th down (2). That’s how you beat an elite defense. Chambliss did right by his coach to give him that opportunity by converting with his arm and his legs — he ended any lingering sense that Austin Simmons could get his job back — and while Kewan Lacy didn’t have the type of day that’ll earn him All-America honors (23 carries, 87 yards), he finished runs and wore on that LSU defense.
Now, a team that was a borderline top-25 team entering the season is in position to get into the top 10 with a favorable remaining schedule after a 3-0 start to SEC play. Ole Miss will be tested in its next 2 SEC games with trips to Georgia and Oklahoma, but it’s hard not to be impressed by the resiliency shown with a trio of 1-score victories to kick off conference play.
Perhaps a post-hype season in Oxford is unfolding.
LSU’s offense, while banged up, is a mess
Yes, LSU lost Aaron Anderson, Caden Durham didn’t play and offensive linemen were dropping like flies. Mind you, that was in front of a hobbled Garrett Nussmeier. If you want to use that as an excuse for the LSU offense, that’s on you. As for the rest of us, well, our eyes told a different story.
We can now ask about it, Brian Kelly. Your offense? It’s a problem. A 2-for-11 mark on 3rd down with a 4.5 yards/play clip won’t cut it on the road against a top-15 team. We saw when LSU’s defense, which played at a high level, finally ran into an offense that scored multiple touchdowns. Trinidad Chambliss made plays that past opposing quarterbacks couldn’t, and Lacy picked up tough yardage. That was always going to happen to LSU. The question was whether LSU would find its offensive identity.
Nope. It’s not there. Nussmeier is still good for a bad, inexplicable decision every game, and not having any run game to speak of puts teams in drop-8 coverage without much threat of the quarterback run game. It’s a problem. Can LSU find a solution during the bye week? That’ll be the sell from Kelly. Lord knows his offense could use a week off to get healthy.
But any faith that this LSU offense was going to pull its weight at a championship level might’ve disappeared in Oxford.
Now there’s really no coming back from that for Sam Pittman
All you need to know about Saturday’s “showdown” in Fayetteville was that Notre Dame’s starters left the game having gained 544 of a possible 584 yards. That’s how you get blown out. Well, having coverage busts with some horrific tackling against an elite defense is how you get blown out and send home fans at the break.
Pittman said afterwards that he was “embarrassed.” It felt like second-hand embarrassment just watching that defensive effort. It probably wasn’t the best omen that Arkansas allowed 290 rushing yards to Memphis, and then it was tasked with turning around and finding answers against Jeremiyah Love. He cruised to 4 touchdowns when he probably could’ve had 7-8 if Marcus Freeman wanted to keep his star out there.
Whatever the case, last week felt like the end of the Pittman era because of the 18-point blown lead. The only question after the Notre Dame mess is whether Hunter Yurachek wants to wait for Pittman to lose 3 more games to fall below the .500 mark (since 2021) and reduce his buyout from $9.8 million to $6.9 million.
These are dark times in Fayetteville.
Jackson Arnold isn’t it, either
This is a classic case of plugging one hole and watching another leak open up. The first 2 years of the Hugh Freeze era, the issue was that Payton Thorne was too loose with the football. He’d throw horrendous interceptions and Auburn fans would fairly wonder how much better the team would be with a game manager. In stepped Jackson Arnold, who was billed as a more talented, but less turnover-prone option than Thorne.
Well, it turns out a guy can be “less turnover-prone” while not being a game manager. That’s Arnold. Take your pick of an alarming stat. The 3.8 yards/attempt was tough to stomach, but going 0-for-13 on 3rd down and 0-for-2 on 4th down led to Auburn not feeling like it had much of a chance late without some sort of turnover. That’s the only reason that Auburn scored a touchdown because it nearly returned a high Marcel Reed throw for 6.
It was a disaster. As Justin Hokanson pointed out, Auburn is now 3-for-28 on 3rd down in its first 2 games of SEC play. That’s dreadful. That’s also a sign that the play-calling isn’t fooling anyone. The hope was that even if Auburn didn’t have elite play-calling and some all-world quarterback, it could still get that talented group of receivers the ball in key spots. That happened against Oklahoma. Against Texas A&M? Not so much.
In a game in which Auburn was within arm’s reach thanks to its elite defense, the running backs carried the ball 8 times for 38 yards. That can’t happen. Not when we know that Arnold isn’t in control. He needed his play caller to bail him out at times, and instead, it felt like Freeze was having him drop back more to build his confidence up. We’re past that point. Freeze was to blame for plenty of that showing, which he admitted to after the fact.
Unfortunately for Arnold, that felt far too much like the 2024 Oklahoma version of him that led to his benching. After a performance like that, one can’t help but wonder if a similar development awaits at Auburn.
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.
