The beauty of a loaded weekend of games is multi-faceted.

For me, a person who was on his couch for 16 hours Saturday, I was entertained. And that’s speaking as someone who couldn’t quite make it to the end of the UCLA-Washington State thriller on #Pac12AfterDark.

But as someone who consumed a whole lot of entertaining SEC games Saturday, I had a lot of takeaways. We saw headliner matchups, we saw under-the-radar games with the middle-of-the-pack SEC teams and we saw Arkansas puke on its shoes and then slip on its own vomit.

Too graphic? Sorry. Arkansas fans, you get me.

Here’s one thing I learned about every SEC team in Week 4.

Alabama: The defensive injuries keep on comin’

Can Alabama get through a week without losing a key defensive starter? It’s beginning to feel like the answer to that question is a hard “no.” D.J. Dale was the latest casualty, which is a shame because the freshman nose tackle was off to a great start. After getting his leg rolled up on in the 2nd quarter, he was transported from Bryant-Denny Stadium to nearby DCH Hospital. Nick Saban announced that he’d be day-to-day with a patellar tendon strain. That was on top of Terrell Lewis missing Saturday’s contest with a hyper-extended knee.

As dominant as Alabama has been so far to start the year against inferior competition, it’s felt like a never-ending cycle with the defensive injuries.

Arkansas: Rock bottom was Saturday night … probably?

Oh, I’d say losing as a 3-touchdown favorite against a Group of 5 team that won a single game last year is rock bottom. Then again, I don’t want to say that Arkansas can’t do any worse than that. Nick Starkel threw 5 interceptions in what was a disastrous home effort coming off the Colorado State win. Rebuilding or not, there’s no excuse for that to ever happen to an SEC team. San Jose State was coming off a home blowout loss to Tulsa. The only thing worse for Chad Morris would be if he watches Ty Storey lead Western Kentucky to a win in Fayetteville in a couple of months. That would be absolute rock bottom.

Auburn: New Gus isn’t backing down from anyone

I love it. Twice, Auburn went away from the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare and beat a ranked team. In September. With a true freshman quarterback. Now I know what you’re thinking — the defense is doing all the work. It’s definitely doing the heavy lifting, but Auburn was up 21-3 just 3 minutes into the 2nd half. Gus Malzahn out-coached an extremely good defensive coordinator in Mike Elko. The Tigers have been impressive against some quality foes and they didn’t let a developing offense derail things. Malzahn deserves a ton of credit for that.

Florida: The defense is deeper than I thought

No Jabari Zuniga? No CJ Henderson? No problem. The Gators still didn’t allow a touchdown against the spiraling Vols. Sure, it helps when Jarrett Guarantano hand-delivers an interception to Marco Wilson and when the Gators pounce on errant goal-line passes, but still. I’ll give credit where credit is due. Florida’s defense took over that game and stood tall when it had some short fields to work with. Jonathan Greenard has been huge for Todd Grantham’s defense. That’s what’s allowed the Gators to overcome some early injury issues on that side.

Georgia: It got the job done, but UGA’s defense has some holes

The Georgia defense held one of the top quarterbacks in the country to 17 points. J.R. Reed made one of the more impressive interceptions and the Dawgs got out of Saturday with a win. Having said that, it’s not a finished product defensively. I know not having both starting cornerbacks was tough — Tyson Campbell didn’t play and Eric Stokes went down on the first drive of the game with a knee injury — but why couldn’t Georgia cover a tight end? Cole Kmet was wide open in several key instances. Also, the pass rush is still an issue. Ian Book didn’t get sacked once. If the Dawgs are going to have depth issues at cornerback, they need to find ways to generate pressure up front.

Kentucky: Mark Stoops ultimately did punish Kash Daniel for the Kyle Trask play

Daniel’s incident in the scrum involving Kyle Trask was well-documented. He denied any foul play, and Florida fans were upset that action wasn’t taken by the SEC. Mark Stoops could have easily let the situation die without anything more than “internal punishment.” While I didn’t necessarily agree with Stoops’ decision to deny any wrongdoing, I do appreciate the fact that he suspended Daniel for the 1st quarter on Saturday. Yes, 1st-quarter suspensions are often seen as slaps on the wrist, but in a situation in which he obviously needed his senior captain, Stoops did something that would have been forgotten about nationally had he stayed on the path of least resistance.

LSU: The offense is going to put up stupid numbers all year

I didn’t necessarily “learn” that LSU’s offense was good Saturday, though I didn’t expect Joe Burrow to have a record-setting day in an 11 a.m. kickoff in Nashville. But LSU is going to put up stupid numbers and rewrite the record books because the defense is still struggling. The Tigers have injury issues, but they look like a shell of themselves on defense because they can’t get a pass rush. You need that in Dave Aranda’s system (and every system?). Right now, though, LSU’s offense is more than capable of bailing out the Tigers’ depleted defense.

Mississippi State: Joe Moorhead’s QB situation isn’t so cut and dry

Garrett Shrader has some juice. Like, the type of juice that could make for a quarterback controversy in Starkville. We know that Tommy Stevens is still nursing a shoulder injury. We thought there was a chance he’d play against Kentucky, which didn’t happen. One has to think there’s a chance he’ll play against Auburn. But what if Shrader gets the start and looks the part against that loaded Tigers defense at Jordan-Hare on Saturday? Is Stevens suddenly out of his job? Shoot, some might want Shrader to be the guy based on what they saw over the weekend against the Cats. Whatever the case, there could be an interesting situation developing for Moorhead.

Mizzou: The post-Wyoming defense is lights out

Man, I was critical of the Tigers’ run defense in that opener. Getting lit up for nearly 300 yards on the ground against a Mountain West team didn’t exactly scream “ready for SEC play.” Since that game, Mizzou allowed a total of 86 rushing yards. Two of those 3 matchups were against Power 5 teams, including Saturday’s 16-yard output from South Carolina. That’s incredible. That’s the type of turnaround we needed to see from Barry Odom’s squad.

Ole Miss: John Rhys Plumlee was maybe a few inches short of being a hero

Lost in the hoopla of that controversial ending was the fact that Plumlee nearly became the star of the show Saturday. The true freshman replaced an injured Matt Corral and completed all 7 of his passes for 82 yards, and he added a 47-yard run. Plumlee did everything he could to march the Rebels back late and nearly forced overtime, but his sneak attempt came up short. That was impressive against one of the top defenses in the country. If Corral is banged up this year, Plumlee certainly looked the part.

South Carolina: I got ahead of myself on Ryan Hilinski

Eeeeeeeek. Now I’m not saying I’m out on the true freshman quarterback. He’s the guy. He’s the quarterback of the present and the future in South Carolina. But I might have forgotten that some growing pains were inevitable in his freshman season. We saw that on display Saturday. It didn’t help that the Gamecocks fell behind double digits heading into halftime and he was forced to throw the ball more than Will Muschamp probably wanted him to. Better days are ahead, but there are going to be some learning experiences like Saturday.

Tennessee: I got ahead of myself on the Jim Chaney hire, too

So far, I’ve been dead wrong on this. I praised Tennessee for shelling out big bucks to land someone who I thought was under-appreciated at Georgia. I thought it was the perfect move to get the offense back to an SEC level, which it wasn’t under Tyson Helton last year. After Saturday’s 3-point debacle at Florida, I’m thinking that the whole “4 offensive coordinators in 4 years” thing isn’t helping Jarrett Guarantano. The game still looks too fast for him at times. It’s safe to say the preseason buzz about him being a perfect fit in this offense was a bit overblown.

Texas A&M: The ground game is a major concern with this schedule

I praised Isaiah Spiller for filling in nicely for Jashaun Corbin last week against Lamar, but when the Aggies needed him to step up Saturday against Auburn, it was a totally different story. He was held to 9 yards on 6 carries with a costly fumble on the first play of the 2nd half that made a 14-3 deficit a 21-3 deficit in a matter of minutes. Do the Aggies have a talented group of pass-catchers and a capable veteran quarterback in Kellen Mond? Yes and yes. But do they need to have some sort of balance to navigate the rigors of this brutal schedule? Absolutely.

Vanderbilt: The offense has a little life, but the passing defense …

Woof for the defense. Double woof. Derek Mason’s defense couldn’t stop a thing. It looked like Joe Burrow was playing against air for most of the time he was out there. That was following a game in which the Commodores were lit up by Purdue’s passing game for 509 yards. So what’s the good news? Despite the 0-3 start with those defensive issues, the Vandy offense is beginning to find its groove. The Commodores averaged 432.5 yards of total offense in the past 2 games. Ke’Shawn Vaughn had his first 100-yard rushing day of the year, and Riley Neal is starting to look a little more comfortable. The other good news for Vandy? The brutal 3-game stretch to start the year is in the past.