The final weekend of September was a big one in college football. We saw Ole Miss beat LSU, Oregon triumph over Penn State and Alabama maintain custody over Georgia. These results naturally forced Vegas to recalibrate its power rankings. As a result, there’s a new top dog in the SEC… but it’s not the team you think.
Entering Week 5, Phil Steele told us that Vegas “doesn’t overreact.” Perhaps it’s just late to the party on some teams, then. Seven SEC schools moved at least 7 spots in this week’s Vegas Power Rankings, which show who Vegas would have favored on a neutral field in a given matchup.
Most of the heavily impacted teams are entirely outside or on the fringe of the top 25. Two squads who were in last week’s top 10, though — 1 of whom didn’t even play in Week 5 — fell at least 7 spots. This proves that Steele, who has been curating Vegas Power Rankings since his ESPN days, is correct about the previous week not necessarily having an effect on Vegas’ thoughts. At the same time, the heavyweight fights we witnessed at September’s end seemingly justify more “reactionary” movement than what’s typical in a given week.
Here are where the SEC’s teams sit going into Week 6:
Parenthesis show Vegas Rating and overall movement from Week 5 (Vegas Rating; Movement from Week 5).
- No. 2 Texas (132.35 Vegas Rating; +2 overall movement)
- No. 4 Alabama (132.09; -1)
- No. 6 Georgia (130.56; -4)
- No. 10 Texas A&M (126.17; +2)
- No. 11 Tennessee (125.70; no movement)
- No. 13 Ole Miss (124.80; +3)
- No. 16 LSU (123.50; -7)
- No. 17 Missouri (123.07; no movement)
- No. 18 Oklahoma (122.76; -8)
- No. 20 Auburn (121.36; -6)
- No. 24 Vanderbilt (120.67; +8)
- No. 26 Florida (119.71; -5)
- No. 34 South Carolina (117.09; +14)
- No. 36 Arkansas (116.90; -7)
- No. 37 Mississippi State (116.14; +7)
- No. 51 Kentucky (112.67; -9)
