Biggest flaw for every SEC championship contender after Week 2
The top 3 teams in the SEC look very much like College Football Playoff contenders: Florida and Georgia in the East, Alabama in the West. In fact, the Crimson Tide already have a clear 1-game lead in their division.
The Gators and Bulldogs are undefeated as well, but they are not alone. Tennessee is also 2-0 and has looked reasonably solid. Those three have created a gap in their division because the other 4 SEC East teams (South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt) are all 0-2. The Vols get a chance to prove that the next level might be attainable because they face Georgia this Saturday and Alabama on Oct. 24. For now, we’ll add the guys from Knoxville to our list of contenders.
As for the West, the teams that were considered the biggest threats to Alabama have all lost, though 2 of them lost on the road to 1 of the Big 3. In fact, there’s a 6-way tie for second at 1-1 in the division. Mississippi State could have been considered a surprise contender after its win over LSU — but Saturday’s loss to Arkansas knocked the Bulldogs back down to the middle of the pack.
Two weeks into the season, even Bama, UF and UGA are not flawless. So here are the biggest flaws for each SEC title contender.
Georgia: Penalties
The Bulldogs looked much better on offense against Auburn than they did against Arkansas in their opener, and the defense was excellent. UGA confirmed its status as an SEC and national title contender — but there is one area to clean up and it should be pretty easy. Georgia leads the conference in penalty yards at 83.5 yards per game, a long way ahead of No. 2 Kentucky (60.5). Even this area was better against the Tigers than against the Razorbacks, but 8 penalties for 59 yards against Auburn won’t satisfy coach Kirby Smart.
Florida: Pass defense
Teams are passing a lot against the Gators because they’re trailing a lot, as the UF offense continues to operate at a high level. But it has to be a little troubling for Gators fans that UF is 13th in the league in passing yards allowed at 327.5 per game (only LSU at 368 is worse) and the Gators have yet to face one of the elite quarterbacks in the SEC. The Gators were better Saturday against South Carolina as Collin Hill was 28-of-47 for 212 yards. UF did a decent job of slowing the Gamecocks offense but they can get better for sure.
Tennessee: Lack of explosive plays
This is nitpicking a little. The Vols’ offense has looked solid enough, especially running. UT ranks 2nd in the SEC at 182.5 rushing yards per game. But as a whole, the Tennessee offense is averaging 5.9 yards per play, good for only No. 8 in the league. The longest play for the Vols so far is 36 yards, on a pass from Jarrett Guarantano to Jalin Hyatt.
The Vols and Auburn are the only SEC teams that haven’t registered a 40-yard play from scrimmage.
In an East division where Kyle Trask is passing the ball all over the place — with great success — and Georgia suddenly looking dangerous on Saturday, UT will need more quick strikes on offense.
Alabama: Pass defense
This is also nitpicking a little because Texas A&M threw a lot Saturday. But when the game was close in the first half, Kellen Mond threw for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns against Bama, including a 47-yard TD to Ainias Smith. Texas A&M wound up with 7.1 yards per passing attempt and though that’s not a spectacular number (certainly not compared to Tide QB Mac Jones, who threw for 16.1 yards per attempt), it is slightly worrying for a young secondary that is still a work in progress.
Auburn: Offense. All of it.
In Week 1, the Tigers’ defense played well enough to paper over any cracks that might have appeared in the Auburn offense. No such luck in Week 2 against Georgia. Auburn gained just 216 yards against the Dawgs, including 39 on the ground in 22 carries. For all the (deserved) talk about how Auburn has to develop Bo Nix and how the passing offense is not where it needs to be, the running game is much worse. At 65 yards per game, the Auburn running game has gone nowhere through 2 games. Nix struggled badly against Georgia, but he was far from the only one.
LSU: Pass defense
Yeah, yeah, we know. The Tigers only gave up 113 passing yards in Saturday’s rout over Vanderbilt and held Commodores QB Ken Seals to 11 completions on 25 attempts. And after that very solid performance, LSU moved up to … actually nowhere, because the Tigers are still last in the SEC in pass defense, allowing 368 yards per game. LSU showed no real flaws against Vandy, but we still can’t get KJ Costello’s record-setting performance against the Bayou Bengals out of our heads. LSU will have to shut down a better foe before we start believing again. They won’t have to wait long. Trask and Florida await in Week 4.
Texas A&M: Turnovers
The Aggies were blown out at Alabama after keeping things close for a good chunk of the first half. Perhaps the biggest back-breaker for A&M was Daniel Wright’s 47-yard interception return, which gave Alabama a 28-14 lead in the 2nd quarter. It was bad enough for the Aggies that Mac Jones threw for 435 yards and running back Najee Harris scored 2 touchdowns. But when you give Bama free points on defense, your task becomes nearly impossible. A&M has committed 5 turnovers this season, 2nd-most in the SEC.
Lame article.
It said championship contenders… why is aTm, auburn, LSU and UT in it?
UT is 2-0 let them play UGA before saying they’re not a contender. They can beat Florida in Knoxville and perhaps UGA, but not Alabama
Balance. To SDS it would not look right to have 3 east teams and only 1 west.
while they remain undefeated they are contenders.
Also Jim Tomlin has shown he doesn’t watch football. The Vols Linebackers are their biggest flaw.
There are 36 undefeated power 5 teams and all but about 5 of them have the same chance Tennessee does to contend for a championship.
Writer graduated from South Florida so is still upset about the two beat downs to start the year.
The Tide has a one-game lead on Texas A&M in the West.
They have a half-game lead on all other West teams with one conference loss.
The writer apparently doesn’t follow baseball or know how to calculate divisional leads.
Alabama needs to lose twice for A&M to win the West.
All other west teams with one conference loss still control their own destiny.
Clarification, all other west teams control their own destiny in relation to Alabama.
They do need the team that gave them their loss to lose twice.
Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss and Alabama all still control their own destiny in the West.
Ok, I’m done now lol.
HOW IS TEXAS A&M ON THIS LIST???????????
I see Captain obvious is writing for sds now.
Auburn’s offense was terrible but it’s both unfair and wrong to say “all of it.” Tank Bigsby was very good and Anthony Schwartz played well. Schwartz was open deep more than once but Nix missed him.
I’m going to skip Georgia. Tired of debating. I will only say that against 80% of their schedule they may not have any weaknesses.
Tennessee’s weakness is defensive depth and a relatively one dimensional offense.
TAMU’s weakness is their experienced senior quarterback.
LSU’s weakness is inexperience. And maybe Bo Pelini. And maybe Myles Brennan.
Alabama’s weakness is its secondary, but everything is relative and their pass rush will help the secondary.
Florida’s weakness right now is the entire defense. Will they play themselves into better performance over the next few games? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. Fortunately, for the next few games I don’t think it will matter.
Nix missed Schwartz because he was running for his life. A lot ways to play defense besides blanket coverage.
That’s right. Georgia did a great job of pressuring him.
But perhaps if Nix had climbed the pocket just once instead of breaking out toward the sideline, he might have been able to hit one of those deep passes.
We just need to get the line settled down. Hard to trust a line when you keep getting sacked or pressured. Look at fsu from several years ago when they played bama with a bad O-line (jimbo fisher was still their coach) their QB tried to be proud and stand in the pocket and got hit again and again till he got hurt. When he did that was the end of FSU’s season.
A&M is still here? Wow. You’re really committed to that pre-season hype, huh? Honestly think it could be somewhat of a rough season for them.
UF is 13th in the league in passing yards allowed at 327.5 per game, and 10th in Opponent 3rd Down Conversions.
That’s surprising.
Georgia really needs to get the penalties fixed, if they don’t it will be the difference in a game.