Week 7 SEC Primer: QB questions loom over another make-or-break edition of the Red River Rivalry
By Matt Hinton
Published:
Everything you need to know about the Week 7 SEC slate, all in one place. (Bold • indicates Matt Hinton’s pick ATS.)
Game of the Week: Oklahoma (-1.5) vs. Texas
The stakes: Set aside for a second the fact that these people flat-out do not like each other. Even outside of the context of the rivalry, Oklahoma vs. Texas is one of the handful of games on the annual calendar that always matters. Saturday’s entry will mark the 24th time in 26 meetings since the turn of the century in which one or both teams arrive ranked in the AP top 15, with conference championship and Playoff implications perennially on the line.
This year — in defiance of the preseason odds — that team is Oklahoma, which comes in with its best record (5-0) and ranking (6th) at this point on the calendar in four years under coach Brent Venables. Fortunately for him: Under pretty much any other circumstances, he would be “the beleaguered Brent Venables,” squarely on the hot seat with a brutal schedule looming over the second half of the season. Instead, the Sooners aced their September tests against Michigan and Auburn, resetting expectations along the way. Beyond the record, they’re basking in the glow of the nation’s No. 1 total defense and the emergence of transfer quarterback John Mateer as their first legitimate Heisman contender at the position since Lincoln Riley left for USC.
Given the uncertainty surrounding Mateer’s status (see below) and the potential for a second-half collapse, Venables is not out of the woods yet. But everything so far is pointing in the right direction, and a win on Saturday would cement OU as a contender heading into the turn.
For Texas, well, not so much. The Longhorns opened the season atop the polls for the first time in school history, fueled by what now looks like extremely regrettable hype over preseason Heisman frontrunner Arch Manning. Six weeks later, the ‘Horns are 0-2 in their first 2 games against Power 4 opponents, unranked, and staring down the reality that their would-be messiah is — for now, anyway — Just a Guy.
The good news (relatively speaking) is that the vibes in Austin in the wake of last week’s 29-21 loss at Florida are much worse than the actual product on the field. Beat Oklahoma, and all of the Longhorns’ bigger goals come back into view with a restored sense of confidence and a manageable schedule ahead. The bad news is that, at the rate it’s going, the vibes are on the verge of becoming the only discernible reality. A loss would all but definitively end Texas’ chances of returning to the CFP and deepen the crisis narrative surrounding Manning only halfway through his first season as a starter. Actually, forget the Playoff: Right now, salvaging their franchise quarterback’s self-esteem before he’s overwhelmed by the Bust Police is a high-stakes proposition in its own right.
When Oklahoma has the ball: Who is the quarterback?
In his first 4 starts as a Sooner, John Mateer accounted for 81.6% of the team’s total offense as a passer and rusher. In wins over Michigan and Auburn, his share rose to more than 90%. Before he was sidelined by an injury to his throwing hand, he was arguably the most valuable player in the country. Is he playing on Saturday, or what?
As of this writing, TBD. Optimism surged on Tuesday based on an ESPN report that Mateer is “pushing to play” against the Longhorns, less than 3 weeks removed from an apparently successful surgery. A local report added that he resumed throwing late last week and “practiced in some capacity” at the start of the week. Venables, predictably, was in no mood to add to the speculation, telling reporters “I don’t know anything about this injury,” and “when (doctors and trainers) tell me he’s ready, then I’ll know.” Translated from coach-speak: “I know, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let YOU know.”
That leaves Texas to prepare for Mateer and sophomore Michael Hawkins Jr., whom the ‘Horns remember well from last year’s 34-3 blowout. That game was Hawkins’ 2nd start as a true freshman, and the beginning of the end of his audition to be the Sooners’ full-time starter. In his Monday press conference, Steve Sarkisian called Hawkins “a much improved player,” which is coach-speak for “the only recent film we have on him is against Kent State.” The trajectory of both teams’ seasons could hinge on how comfortably Mateer is gripping the ball when he wakes up on Saturday morning.
When Texas has the ball: Can the ‘Horns protect Arch Manning?
The Longhorns’ loss at Florida was a watershed in the “Arch Sucks” Discourse, which appears to have very quickly broken contain into a much broader hive mind than the one that usually has opinions about college quarterbacks. The confluence of social media, NIL, and — let’s be real here — sports gambling has created a vortex of haterade the likes of which we’ve rarely seen at this level, at least for a guy at such a fledgling stage of his career. Not that being the starting quarterback at Texas has ever been a low-profile gig. But people are watching and reacting to this kid’s every move with a level of scrutiny that feels, if not unprecedented, then certainly extreme.
Without a doubt, Manning is struggling. He’s indecisive. He’s erratic. He’s holding on to the ball too long and missing too many open receivers downfield. For every impressive throw (and he has had his share), there’s a groaner. He’s looked like … a gifted but green sophomore barely a month into his first season as a starter. At the moment, that’s what he is, no more or less.
He could also use some help. Texas’ issues in The Swamp began up front, with a ramshackle offensive line that was just as much to blame as the quarterback, if not more so. Manning was under duress on 26 of his 42 drop-backs, per Pro Football Focus, an egregious pressure rate of 62%. If he bore some responsibility for that number (as a rule, the QB always does), so did the line, which yielded 6 sacks, was flagged for 6 penalties, and repeatedly forced Manning to elude rushers, speed up his operation, or release the ball with a Gator defender in his face.
The left guard on that play, sophomore Connor Stroh (No. 79), was yanked for a true freshman, Nick Brooks, who played the rest of the game in the first meaningful action of his college career. PFF tagged Brooks with 9 pressures allowed and a 3.8 pass-blocking grade on 33 snaps. Texas doesn’t release an official depth chart, but if it did, there’s no name it could list in that position that would be reassuring against an OU defense that’s tied for the national lead at 4.2 sacks per game.
The surest way to keep Arch upright is to keep him out of obvious passing situations in the first place. And the surest way to do that is to force the Sooners to pay at least some token respect to stopping the run. The ground game was a nonentity against Florida — top back carried just 8 times for 11 yards before the Longhorns gave up trying in comeback mode. Manning himself was the leading rusher, accounting for 74 of the team’s 89 rushing yards (excluding sacks). Half of that total came on one 36-yard scramble. With the other half of the RB rotation, CJ Baxter listed as “doubtful” with a lingering hamstring injury, Texas is relying again on Tre Wisner, who was limited in the nonconference slate by an injury of his own. The ‘Horns badly need him to rediscover the inner workhorse who emerged during the home stretch of last year’s Playoff run.
The verdict …
It would be nice to know who’s playing quarterback for Oklahoma! The oddsmakers initially tabbed Texas as a 2.5-point favorite, before the positive headlines re: Mateer’s status shifted the line (narrowly) in favor of the Sooners. In a game that projects as a slugfest either way, his presence or absence really could be the decisive factor.
Frankly, the Longhorns’ quarterback situation is just as big a wild card until Manning gives them some reason to feel otherwise. Arch isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but this does feel like the point of no return for salvaging a dignified debut. There’s plenty of time for him to turn it around; patience, on the other hand, is in short supply. The longer he has to listen to bromides about how broken he is, the more likely it is to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Prediction: • Texas 22, Oklahoma 18
Alabama (-3.5) at Missouri
Given that we live in (checks calendar) the 21st Century, I don’t tend to put a lot of stock in “time of possession” as an especially meaningful stat. If the gap is wide enough, though, it can be revealing, and in Missouri’s case, it tells you most of what you need to know about how thoroughly its offense has dominated the trenches.
TOP was at the top of the list of Kalen DeBoer‘s concerns this week, for good reason. The Tigers lead the nation at an astonishing 37 minutes, 27 seconds per game, the kind of number usually reserved for service academy offenses committed to draining the clock one fullback dive at a time. Exclude the opener against Central Arkansas, where possession was roughly even, and the average margin approaches 2-to-1. Since, Mizzou has finished with at least a 10+ minute advantage in all 4 wins over FBS opponents; in wins over Kansas and UMass, the gap was more than 20 minutes. As DeBoer told reporters, “If we’re not careful, you’re not gonna have the ball at all.”
The Tigers don’t run the option, but they are putting up academy-worthy numbers on the ground. Against FBS opponents, they’re averaging a national-best 310.3 yards rushing on 52 carries per game, including an emphatic, 285-yard outing in their lone SEC win over South Carolina. The star of that game, sophomore RB Ahmad Hardy, ground out 118 of his 138 yards against the Gamecocks after contact, per PFF, which is par for the course. For the season, Hardy leads the nation in rushing yards (731), yards after contact (551) and missed tackles forced (46), a category in which he also ranked among the national leaders last year as a Freshman All-American at UL-Monroe. Meanwhile, the “lightning” half of the rotation, sophomore Jamal Roberts, is averaging 7.3 yards a pop and poses a threat to go the distance every time he touches the ball.
Up front, right tackle Keagen Trost — a 7th-year transfer on his fourth school — boasts the top PFF run-blocking grade of any SEC lineman by a wide margin. (Take PFF grades for what they’re worth, but the gap between Trost’s elite 90.3 run-blocking grade and the next guy on the list, Alabama’s Kadyn Proctor, is nearly 10 points.) The question mark is on the left side, where future pro Cayden Green is listed as “questionable” due to a foot injury that sidelined him for the past 2 games. Green wasn’t missed against South Carolina or UMass; against Alabama, his absence would loom a lot larger.
Then again, Bama is not as inviolable against the run as it used to be. The Tide are ranked 13th in the SEC in rushing defense and 15th in yards per carry allowed, at 4.7 yards a pop. Two very different offenses, Florida State and Georgia, gashed them for 230 yards and 227 yards rushing, respectively; and Vanderbilt popped a couple of big runs early last week before bogging down over the course of the game.
In the end, Alabama’s best defense against both UGA and Vandy was its offense, which kept the D off the field by amassing an 11-minute advantage in time of possession against the Bulldogs and a nearly 15-minute advantage against the ‘Dores. In Athens, that meant stringing together 13 3rd-down conversions, mostly from the arm of Heisman contender Ty Simpson. Against Vandy, it meant committing to the run for the first time this season behind a finally healthy Jamarion Miller. One way or another, the offense that gets it done on Saturday is the one that successfully hogs the ball.
Prediction: • Alabama 29, Missouri 24
Florida at Texas A&M (-7.5)
Did Florida just find its offense? Coming off a depressing September, the Gators looked like a different team against Texas, racking up a season-high 457 yards on 7.0 yards per snap. Most of the attention for that performance focused (for good reason) on a pair of blue-chip freshman wideouts, Dallas Wilson and Vernell Brown III, who between them were on the receiving end for 183 of DJ Lagway‘s 298 passing yards and both of his touchdowns. Wilson, especially, looked like an instant star in his college debut after missing the first 4 games nursing an injured foot.
But the real revelation was the ground game, a non-factor in the Gators’ losses to LSU and Miami. Sophomore Jadan Baugh was a bona fide workhorse against the Longhorns, running 27 times for 107 yards with a long gain of just 16. Florida controlled the clock (a running theme this week), converted half of its 3rd-down attempts and never trailed. Lagway was far from perfect, but for once wasn’t under constant pressure to be.
Whether a reassuring afternoon in The Swamp translates to a primetime kickoff in College Station is another question. After a shaky start in the nonconference slate, Texas A&M’s defense has been lights-out the past 2 weeks, allowing a grand total of 2 touchdowns and a single 3rd-down conversion in home wins over Auburn and Mississippi State. And even the touchdowns were a) The result of a short field following turnover against Auburn; and b) A meaningless score in garbage time of a game A&M had well in hand against the Bulldogs. There’s plenty to like about the Aggies’ offense, too, but at the rate they’re going it might be a while still before they really need it operating on all cylinders.
Prediction: Texas A&M 28, • Florida 19
Georgia (-3.5) at Auburn
No quarterback in America has absorbed more punishment lately than Jackson Arnold. And I don’t mean from disgruntled Auburn fans sliding into his DMs: Arnold’s 20 sacks this season are tied for the most in the FBS, 14 of them coming in the Tigers’ past 2 games against Oklahoma and Texas A&M alone. Historically, the absolute last thing a struggling QB who doubles as a crash test dummy in the pocket wants to see staring back at him is Georgia’s defensive line. Suddenly, though, the Dawgs’ pass rush is suffering from an alarming deficit of dudes.
Not that any front is likely to compare favorably to, say, the 2021 national championship d-line that rotated 5 future first-round picks. Even at Georgia, dudes like Jalen Carter and Travon Walker don’t grow on trees. But the current front appears to lack any notable difference-maker at all, especially when it comes to the pass rush.
The potential is there, at least according to the recruiting rankings. The production, so far, is not. The pass rush was underwhelming against Tennessee and Alabama, failing to record a sack in either game. (Technically, the Bulldogs did log an official sack against Alabama, but it was the result of dropping a wide receiver behind the line on a trick play, not the quarterback.) In 3 SEC games, PFF has the Dawgs down for a pedestrian 23% pressure rate, with the vast majority of what heat they have managed to generate coming not from the front but from inside linebackers Chris Cole, Raylen Wilson and CJ Allen as blitzers. Cole and Wilson are tied for the team lead with 7 QB pressures apiece in those games; no d-lineman, including edge rushers, has more than 2. A garbage-time takedown by reserve Nnamdi Ogboko against Kentucky was the first sack by a d-lineman on the season.
It’s early enough to chalk that up to small sample size, although the results against the Volunteers and Crimson Tide aren’t very encouraging. Joey Aguilar and Ty Simpson had time and both took advantage of it in breakout performances, combining for 651 yards and 6 touchdowns passing on 8.7 yards per attempt. The best player on Georgia’s front, nose tackle Christen Miller, is a future pro, but better suited to run-stuffing than getting after the passer. The starting edge rushers, Gabe Harris Jr. and Quintavius Johnson, have been nondescript. A couple of massively touted freshmen, Isaiah Gibson and Elijah Griffin, are still breaking in. The portal additions, Elo Modozie (Army) and Josh Horton (Miami), are well down the depth chart.
So this group is not on pace to be drafted en masse by the Philadelphia Eagles. Given the talent on hand, any given Saturday could be the one the pieces click to unlock a classic, borderline NFL-ready Kirby Smart front. In the meantime, including in the Deep South Oldest Rivalry, every extra rusher the Dawgs have to send across the line in an effort to turn up the heat leaves them a little more vulnerable on the back end, which isn’t what it once was, either.
Prediction: • Georgia 26, Auburn 17
South Carolina at LSU (-9.5)
Last year’s meeting, a 36-33 LSU win in Carolina, was one of the most eventful of the season, and turned out to be one of the most consequential. The Tigers fell behind 17-0 and trailed most of the game. They were still trailing midway through the fourth quarter when Garrett Nussmeier threw what initially looked like a door-slamming pick-6, until the touchdown was wiped off the board by a marginal roughing the quarterback penalty on the return that Gamecocks fans may still not be over. (I wouldn’t be, if I was them.)
That was the second touchdown by Carolina’s defense called back by penalty – literally, they are still writing about the refs in this game in South Carolina – and left the door open for LSU to take the lead on its next possession. The Gamecocks’ last-gasp field goal attempt from 49 yards sailed wide, sealing the Tigers’ escape.
Brian Kelly‘s relief to be 2-1 instead of 1-2 in the aftermath was palpable, but the win ultimately didn’t mean much for LSU. For South Carolina, however, the loss was enormous, eventually costing the Gamecocks a CFP bid at the end of the regular season. No wonder the “what if” lingers.
This year, neither side is under any illusion that it can afford a loss in what amounts to a Playoff elimination match. When South Carolina looked at the schedule before the season, it was banking on coming into this game undefeated, well-rested coming off an open date, and ready to hit the meat of the conference slate over the coming month. Instead, with 2 losses already on the books, the Gamecocks’ Playoff odds are hanging by a thread, win or lose, with 4 straight games on deck against teams currently ranked in the top 10. The odds already amount to a pipe dream; a 3rd loss by mid-October would snuff them out completely.
LSU (4-1) has slightly more margin for error, but only slightly. The Tigers’ big-ticket win at Clemson in the opener is already forgettable in light of Clemson’s slide from the polls, and the offense has been morose in the meantime. The schedule still features Alabama, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, plus a trip to Vanderbilt. (Marking possibly the first time in history anyone has cited “a trip to Vanderbilt” as a foreboding one for LSU, but here we are.) If there’s anything to look forward to, a night game in Tiger Stadium against a confirmed underachiever is one they gotta have.
Prediction: LSU 23, • South Carolina 20
Arkansas at Tennessee (-11.5)
You never know how a team whose head coach just got shoved overboard midseason is going to respond. Some teams go in the tank. Just as often, though, they rally, especially when the change comes early in the season. Look at UCLA. The Bruins were so bad over the course of an 0-3 start that firing coach DeShaun Foster was a no-brainer less than a month into his second season; folks wondered (fairly) if they’d win a game. A couple weeks later, they celebrated UCLA’s biggest win in ages, over Penn State.
The Razorbacks could not have looked much worse their last time out, a 56-13 embarrassment against Notre Dame in which Sam Pittman might as well have waved goodbye to the crowd at halftime and gotten a head start on the drive from the stadium to the deer stand. Prior to that, though, their previous losses at Ole Miss and Memphis were competitive outings that ended with Arkansas fumbling away its shot at a go-ahead touchdown in the final 2 minutes. QB Taylen Green isn’t going anywhere. How competitive the Hogs are on given Saturday hinges mainly on how badly they want to be there.
Now, just how motivated they are to turn it around under interim head coach Bobby Petrino (still an incredible combination of words to type) is another story. Petrino is more or less openly angling for the full-time job, an outcome that would inspire, uh, feelings among the locals, to put it mildly. If the locker room is on board, there’s still a shot at respectability. If not, it’s a long time till December.
Prediction: • Tennessee 37, Arkansas 24
Washington State at Ole Miss (-31.5)
Last year, Washington State boasted one of nation’s highest-scoring offenses at 36.6 ppg, and promptly got picked clean as a result. In addition to losing OC Ben Arbuckle and QB John Mateer to Oklahoma, the winter exodus from Pullman also included the head coach, leading rusher and 3 of the top 4 receivers. This year, predictably, production is in the tank. Through 5 games, the Cougars rank in the bottom 10 nationally in total offense, rushing offense, yards per play and turnover margin. In their 2 losses to date (vs. North Texas and Washington), they committed 8 giveaways, forced none, and lost by a combined 84 points.
Anyway, I know they’re adding a 9th conference game and all, but seems like it’s about time Ole Miss got a leeeetle more ambitious, schedule-wise. Under Lane Kiffin, the Rebels are 19-0 in regular-season nonconference games, none of which have come against a ranked opponent and very few of which have been close. The only one decided by single digits: A 35-27 decision over Tulsa in 2022. Ole Miss’ average margin of victory in 14 non-con games since: 33.9 points.
Prediction: Ole Miss 44, • Washington State 16
Scoreboard
Week 6 record: 4-1 straight-up | 2-3 vs. spread
Season record: 55-11 straight-up | 25-36 vs. spread
Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.
