On Wednesday, ESPN came out with its Week SEC Power Rankings based upon this past weekend.

While we all know which team tops the list, the order for the second-tier of teams might surprise some people.

You can compare ESPN’s power rankings below with SDS’ power rankings, which were released last night. Here they are:

14. Mississippi State
13. Vanderbilt
12. Missouri
11. Kentucky
10. South Carolina
9. Auburn
8. Arkansas
7. LSU
6. Tennessee
5. Florida
4. Ole Miss
3. Georgia
2. Texas A&M
1. Alabama

Few Takeaways:

  • We’ll see teams jockeying for the No. 2 spot all season, but how likely is it that Alabama stays at No. 1 for the year?
  • The Bulldogs (and in particular Nick Chubb) looked good in defeating a talented North Carolina team. Going forward, it will be fascinating to see how the quarterback battle shakes out. True freshman Jacob Eason got some time against the Tar Heels, and more than looked like he belonged. He could ultimately snag the job away from incumbent starter Greyson Lambert.
  • The Vols — entering this season with a ton of hype — got a huge scare from Appalachian State in the opener. This may have brought Tennessee down to earth a bit. It’ll have to be on its A-Game this upcoming Saturday, with a significant non-conference game against a wily Virginia Tech squad.
  • Different year, same story for the LSU offense. Quarterback Brandon Harris struggled immensely in the upset loss to Wisconsin a week ago. If he continues to be wildly inconsistent, Les Miles will have no choice other than to insert backup Danny Etling.
  • There’s a dichotomy when looking at Auburn’s loss to Clemson in the opener. On the one hand, the defense played exceptionally well — limiting Deshaun Watson to a rather ordinary performance. On the other side of the coin, the offense struggled immensely. Head coach Gus Malzahn has to hope one of the three quarterback options can separate themselves in order to lead this team.