Judgment Week.

That’s what I call Week 3. For many SEC teams, we’ve seen 1 promising game and 1 less promising game.

That means Week 3 tipped the scales for many. For some, that was good. For others, it was not quite as good.

Here’s what we learned from each SEC team in “Judgment Week.”

Alabama — Um, Jalen Milroe might be the best option after all

Goodness, it was rough. It was actually closer than what the final score indicated. Tyler Buchner was ineffective in his first (and maybe only) start, and no, that wasn’t just the hour-long rain delay. He missed Jermaine Burton deep, he sailed throws on the sideline and he couldn’t get anything going with his legs. Ty Simpson wasn’t much better. He took 5 sacks and had no real feel for the backside pressure, which was the criticism of Milroe, but at least Simpson led a pair of touchdown drives. It was ugly. Simple as that. Nobody stole the job from Milroe, which suggests that the Tide could simply return to the most explosive option in that room.

There’s not a game manager in the Alabama quarterback room. Any hope that Nick Saban had of seeing real promise from Buchner or Simpson was gone by day’s end.

Arkansas — Against actual competition, the Hogs cannot pass protect

It was bad. KJ Jefferson, who shakes off everything, got sacked 4 times and it felt like 12 in a 38-31 loss to visiting BYU. Fitting, it was that the game ended on an illegal touch wherein Jefferson threw the ball to a lineman. It’s an issue, and it’s weird that it’s an issue for a Sam Pittman-coached team. But even veteran Brady Latham drew penalty after penalty, including a key one on that final drive that wiped out a big gain into the red zone. The Hogs can’t seem to find the right mix up front, which is a problem for an offense that demands the quarterback throw it a whole lot more than they did with Kendal Briles. If BYU got after the Hogs like that at a home game at night, this could be a real weakness through SEC play.

Auburn — Payton Thorne wants you to know he can be a dual threat, too

Hey, who said that Auburn needs to bring in Robby Ashford to get the quarterback run game going? Thorne made an excellent play with his legs on a 38-yard run that was initially ruled a touchdown, but the review showed that his foot stepped out of bounds just before he got the pylon. Naturally, Hugh Freeze brought Robby Ashford in on the next play to hand the ball off to Jarquez Hunter for the 1-yard score. Thorne was far from perfect with his arm, but he clearly made it a point to use his legs all night. That run was his biggest play in a career-high 123 rushing yards. Shoot, Thorne hadn’t had 39 rushing yards in an entire game since the 2021 regular season finale when he was at Michigan State.

After reports that Ashford worked out at receiver this week, perhaps Thorne’s path to getting all the snaps at quarterback is showing that he can provide a threat in the ground game.

Florida — Counting this team out after 1 game was a mistake

The Gators had some fight on Saturday night. The Swamp had plenty of juice for a game that felt pivotal for Billy Napier. At some point, you have to start beating rivals. He picked a good night to do that. His play-calling was highly effective. Trevor Etienne got the lion’s share of the carries with a career-high 172 rushing yards while a banged-up Graham Mertz played the game-manager role effectively. Austin Armstrong’s defense set the tone early and Tennessee couldn’t get out of its way late. Florida didn’t look like a team that was still searching for its identity. It might’ve just found one with its first win at home against a ranked SEC foe since 2019 against Auburn.

Two weeks after everyone clowned on Florida for losing to a backup quarterback at Utah, it showed it might just keep its head above water in SEC play after all.

Georgia — The offense isn’t out of the woods by any means

Just 3 first-half points set the stage for Georgia’s first true scare of 2023. A missed field goal and some questionable red-zone play-calling led to that. The good news was that 2 touchdown drives out of the break got Georgia back on track, and the return of Daijun Edwards was key. The bad news was that a banged-up Brock Bowers still struggled to get free, Kendall Milton suffered a knee injury, starting right tackle Amarius Mims left the game with a leg injury and Ladd McConkey missed his 3rd consecutive game with a back issue. Not ideal. South Carolina did a nice job of containing that group for the majority of the day.

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo has work to do to get this offense clicking on all cylinders.

Kentucky — Devin Leary has some KJ Jefferson in him

This play was straight out of the Jefferson playbook:

How in the world did Leary escape that? Improbable. On a night in which all eyes were on the offense after Liam Coen’s health scare, that play seemed to spark things after another slow start. Ray Davis ripped off a long touchdown run on the following series, and Kentucky avoided any sort of “too close for comfort” moments late. The knock on Leary was that he didn’t have the toughness of his predecessor, Will Levis. If Leary can make plays like that, nobody will question the durability of QB1 in Lexington.

LSU — Oh, that LSU passing game might have actually figured something out against Grambling after all

I was skeptical of that being a “turn the corner” game because of the competition, but wow. Against a respected Mississippi State defense, LSU came out ready to roll in Starkville. Jayden Daniels didn’t default to his legs. Instead, he defaulted to what the defense was giving him, which for far too much of that first half, was Malik Nabers. The preseason All-SEC wideout was masterful with an insane 10-catch, 188-yard first half. He was unguardable. By day’s end, he had 13 catches on 13 targets for 239 yards and 2 scores. As a result, Daniels was 21-for-22 in the first half alone. It was as good of a game as he’s played in an LSU uniform. In that atmosphere, his decision-making was nearly perfect (he still left his feet once on a play that led to a targeting call).

Two weeks after LSU had drops galore in a mistake-filled day against Florida State, it looked every bit like the high-powered attack it was billed as in the preseason.

Mississippi State — This offense isn’t ready for SEC defenses

Yuck.

That’s harsh, but it’s true. Mississippi State’s offense made picking up first downs look like advanced calculus. It’s never a positive when your first 16 plays net a whopping 7 yards of offense. It almost felt like after Woody Marks was stuffed, the ground game lacked juice. Will Rogers making throws on the run isn’t the ideal way to maximize his abilities, but even when that wasn’t by design, LSU’s pass rush forced him into too many difficult throws. Outside of a 52-yard run from Woody Marks, Mississippi State’s offense couldn’t do anything to keep LSU within arm’s reach. Rogers completed 39% of his passes for 3.7 yards per attempt. That won’t cut it. We always knew that the transition away from the Mike Leach Air Raid was going to take time, and Mississippi State’s ground game did the heavy lifting in a couple of herky-jerky wins to get to 2-0.

But seeing LSU’s defense overwhelm the Bulldogs showed that this group is going to be in trouble in SEC play.

Mizzou — Finally, Mizzou looks improved

Never a doubt.

OK, maybe some doubt crept in when Mizzou took an inexcusable delay of game penalty game with 6 seconds left instead of attempting a 56-yard field goal. But hey, when Harrison Mevis can bomb it from 61 (!), who cares? What’ll get lost in the shuffle of that wild game was the fact that in addition to Luther Burden continuing his electric start, Mizzou got some fantastic play late from a hobbled Brady Cook, and the non-Burden options stepped up. Theo Wease made a nice grab to set up that game-winning kick. That was easily the best win of the Eli Drinkwitz era, and perhaps a turning point after a “meh” 3-plus years to start his tenure in Columbia.

The team that ranked No. 2 in the SEC in percentage of returning production had a prime opportunity to take another step. Saturday felt like a step in that direction.

Ole Miss — Banged up Quinshon Judkins? No problem. The ground game will get right.

Here’s what you need to know about the star Ole Miss running back’s night:

He still played, albeit in a somewhat limited role. Judkins wanted to work through a slow start instead of sitting a week before SEC play. Ole Miss decided to give Jaxson Dart more designed runs, which was extremely effective. Dart surpassed the century mark and got into the end zone twice, which was a welcome sight after Lane Kiffin expressed concern with the ground game. It was his 3rd time surpassing 100 rushing yards in a game, so that wasn’t anything new. What was important was Ole Miss creating some running lanes and having a multi-faceted attack instead of one that was Judkins-dependent. Mission accomplished.

South Carolina — Juice Wells’ 2023 is 1 step forward, 2 steps back

Two weeks ago, Wells had to leave the opener with a foot injury. Wells returned against Georgia and scored a touchdown on a screen that highlighted why he entered the year as one of the nation’s top receivers … but he injured his foot again. Shane Beamer said on the CBS broadcast at halftime that they thought he broke a bone in his foot, which was good because he already had a screw in that foot after the surgery that was just performed. Hopefully, that won’t be a season-ending injury because as excellent as Xavier Legette has been, Spencer Rattler needs as many weapons as he can get. That offensive line is going to be overwhelmed. Not having someone like Wells who can make something out of nothing will limit this offense.

Tennessee — It’s not Joe Milton that could hold Tennessee back. It’s penalties

Whether you agree with every call or not, everyone can agree that you cannot commit 10 penalties in an SEC road game and expect to win. Tennessee wasn’t disciplined enough to beat Florida. Jumping offsides on that play late to give Florida another first down told the story about the Vols’ defense. A week after they committed 10 penalties against Austin Peay, they did it again, but obviously this time was a loss at Florida. It hurt Tennessee last year, too. The Vols were the most-penalized team in the SEC and No. 124 in FBS last year. Of course, it’s a whole lot easier to overcome penalties when you get chunk plays at a higher rate than anyone in the sport like Tennessee did in 2022. So far in 2023, that’s a different story.

Well, I suppose losing in The Swamp is the same story as the one that’s been told the past 2 decades.

Texas A&M — A&M has some banged-up wideouts

The Aggies were without leading receiver Evan Stewart, who was sitting out with a minor injury. Noah Thomas also left Saturday’s game with an injury. The good news is that Jimbo Fisher said they should both “be fine,” which suggests they aren’t expected to miss the SEC opener against Auburn. The last thing A&M wants is the 2 standout receivers to deal with nagging injuries entering conference play. Those guys have a combined 367 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns. The Aggies are going to need every bit of that passing game to do some heavy lifting.

Vanderbilt — Those bowl chances are in serious jeopardy

That sounds harsh, but remember that unlike the rest of the SEC, Vandy has played all of its nonconference games. The Dores are 2-2 after losing 40-37 on a game-winning field goal in the final seconds at UNLV. In other words, Clark Lea’s squad must now win 4 SEC games to go bowling. Mind you, Vandy hit 4 wins in SEC play just 3 times in the past 40 years. All Vandy had to do to avoid that daunting reality after a back-and-forth game at UNLV was make a 33-yard field goal. Instead, it missed that and let UNLV go 62 yards on 5 plays to set up its game-winning field goal. Of course. It’s mid-September and the Commodores are already staring at their 5th consecutive season without a postseason appearance.