It’s almost time for Week 6 of the 2025 season, which means we now have a decent sample size for every FBS team.
This piece will seek to identify 3 SEC teams who I believe are overrated by either the media, the betting markets or analytic models. Along with explanations for each team, I’ll be making a correlated prediction on Kalshi.
Overrated SEC teams
Here’s why these 3 SEC teams are overrated:
Overrated by the media: Ole Miss
Ole Miss is a consensus top-5 team in the country entering Week 6. Not only are the Rebels ranked No. 4 in the AP Top 25 this week, but they also appear in the top 6 for all 9 of ESPN’s college football panelists who rank their CFP contenders on a weekly basis. If that’s a résumé ranking, it’s reasonable — Ole Miss has an impressive win over LSU and already owns 3 SEC victories.
However, the underlying data just does not support Ole Miss as a top-5 team. Or even a top-10 team. I think top-20 is accurate and you could probably make a data-driven case for as high as top-15. Ole Miss has a fatal flaw to this point in the season — it can’t stop the run. The Rebels rank 111th nationally in rush defense success rate, per Game on Paper. That’s a massive problem, especially given their schedule of opposing offenses they’ve faced so far this year. Here’s how all of Ole Miss’s opponents to date rank nationally in rushing average:
- Georgia State: 3.84 (104th)
- Kentucky: 4.5 (67th)
- Arkansas: 6.36 (7th)
- Tulane: 4.97 (41st)
- LSU: 3.56 (116th)
Ole Miss has faced 1 decent rushing offense this season and it ranks 112th in rushing yards per carry allowed. That hasn’t been a problem so far — and it might not be an issue that keeps Ole Miss out of the Playoff — but it will limit the Rebels’ ceiling if they can’t figure out their issues against the run.
Résumé-wise, I think Ole Miss is getting a bit too much credit. It was lucky to beat a putrid Arkansas team a few weeks ago and it only beat Kentucky by 7. Given Mississippi State’s resurgence, the Razorbacks and Wildcats might be the worst teams in the SEC this year. Ole Miss’s most recent win came over an LSU team who I don’t think much of at this point, either.
Ole Miss is 20th in Game on Paper’s schedule-adjusted EPA-per-play metric. Despite not being able to stop the run, the rest of the profile is pretty unassailable. I think this is very much still a Playoff team, but I would stop short of making them an SEC title contender until we see more. Road games against Georgia, Oklahoma and Mississippi State over the second half of the season should be illuminating.
Prediction: Ole Miss to not win the SEC championship (89 cents per contract on Kalshi)
Overrated by betting markets: Texas
I don’t quite understand the love Texas is still getting in the betting markets despite its struggles in September. The Longhorns were terrible in their season-opener against Ohio State — the only serious opponent they’ve faced so far this year. They were average in Week 2 against San Jose State and downright horrendous in Week 3 against UTEP (4.2 yards per play). Sure, they rebounded for a 55-0 victory against Sam Houston the following week, but that’s not exactly convincing given the first few games of the season.
And yet, Texas enters the month of October as one of the favorites to win the national championship. At BetMGM, the Longhorns are +700 to win it all — priced behind only Oregon and Ohio State. It’s largely because Texas’s defense is so elite, but it’s impossible to imagine Texas as a legitimate national title contender until the Longhorns get to at least an above-average level on offense. Through the first month of the season, they rank just 66th in schedule-adjusted EPA-per-play on offense, according to Game on Paper.
The problem, of course, has been the passing attack. Arch Manning hasn’t just failed to live up to the hype so far — he’s been worse than the likes of Bear Bachmeier and Jalen Kitna by passer efficiency rating. Dead-end throw rate, which measures how often a pass attempt ends in a completion of 4 yards or less or an incompletion, has Manning even lower on the totem pole. Manning ranks 109th out of 123 qualified passers so far this season — and remember, 75% of his games in September were against Group-of-5 bottom-dwellers. Manning is also turning the ball over like crazy — he has 4 interceptions and has been charged with 6 turnover-worthy plays already, per PFF. That’s the most of any SEC quarterback who has played 4 games or fewer. Until Manning shows the ability to even be an average passer and decision-maker, I can’t fathom placing a bet on Texas to win the national championship.
Prediction: Texas to not win the national championship (92 cents per contract on Kalshi)
Overrated by analytics: Tennessee
Tennessee is 6th in SP+ this week and is the top-ranked team from the SEC in that metric. FPI has the Vols at 13th. FEI has Tennessee at 11th. KFord’s power ratings put Josh Heupel’s crew at 17th. That’s a pretty wide range and I wouldn’t make the claim that Tennessee at 17th is exceptionally overrated. But I don’t see a Vols team that’s particularly close to making a College Football Playoff run at this stage.
As I covered in Buy or Sell this week, Tennessee’s offense still lacks explosiveness to a concerning degree. This has been the case since Alex Golesh and Hendon Hooker left after the 2022 season, but it’s worth noting that a strong wide receiver corps and Joey Aguilar haven’t done much to fix things. Game on Paper slots Tennessee in at No. 36 in its schedule-adjusted EPA-per-play metric. Unlike the other metrics cited above, that one doesn’t have any preseason projections baked in — it’s purely a reflection of what has happened on the field so far this season. That doesn’t make it more accurate than the others — some would suggest the opposite, in fact — but it is worth noting.
Tennessee’s defense has been an even bigger issue. The Vols are without both of their starting cornerbacks due to injury, so perhaps it’s not a surprise they rank 84th in pass defense success rate this season, per Game on Paper. But they haven’t been able to stop the run, either. Tennessee’s defense has been poor in all aspects so far this season, which is a pretty significant surprise that probably hasn’t garnered enough attention through the first 5 weeks of the year. The Vols entered the year with the potential to have a top-5 defense. Now? It looks like top-25 might be a stretch. And given the existing concerns on offense, that’s not a recipe for a Playoff berth.
Tennessee’s defensive regression is the primary reason why I believe systems like SP+ may be overrating the team as as a whole. Preseason priors are still carrying a lot of weight with some of these models, so Tennessee is likely benefitting from its elite defensive results in recent years. But due to injuries and other factors, it doesn’t seem like Tennessee’s defense will get back to that level this season. Tennessee likely will need to go 10-2 in order to reach the CFP, although 9-3 might cut it. The Vols have already lost once to Georgia and still have games remaining vs. Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida and Vanderbilt, among others. That includes trips to Tuscaloosa and Gainesville. There’s a long way to go, but I think the rest of this season will prove that Tennessee is not a top-15 team in 2025.
Prediction: Tennessee to miss the College Football Playoff (78 cents per contract on Kalshi)
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
