We have a lighter SEC Saturday ahead with only 3 SEC East teams in action. Vanderbilt and Tennessee have scheduled byes in Week 5. Hurricane Ian altered the schedule, causing South Carolina to move its game against SC State up to Thursday (50-10 Gamecocks win) and Florida’s contest with Eastern Washington a day later to Sunday.

The Saturday slate features a pair of ranked-vs-ranked conference matchups. The “SEC Nation” crew is in Oxford for No. 7 Kentucky at No. 14 Ole Miss (noon ET, ESPN). No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 20 Arkansas is getting the “SEC on CBS” showcase treatment with a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff. There will also be plenty of interest in 3 other division matchups: No. 1 Georgia at Missouri, No. 17 Texas A&M at Mississippi State and LSU at Auburn.

ESPN’s Football Power Index predicts the outcome of every game. Here’s how the FPI predicts the remaining Week 5 games:

  • Ole Miss (78.5% chance to win) vs. Kentucky
  • Alabama (93.1% chance to win) at Arkansas
  • Mississippi State (68.1% chance to win) vs. Texas A&M
  • LSU (78.9% chance to win) at Auburn
  • Georgia (94.8% chance to win) at Missouri
  • Florida (97.1% chance to win) vs. Eastern Washington (Sunday)

Here’s how ESPN explains the FPI:

FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.

We’ve already been reminded throughout the first few weeks that anything can happen once the teams take the field. We’ll see how the FPI’s projections fare against the results on the field.