Weekly takeaways, trends, and technicalities from the weekend’s SEC action.

In this week’s recalibrated edition of Monday Down South…

  • LSU lets it rip
  • Reading too much into Georgia’s slow starts
  • Weekly awards and updated power rankings

… and much more. But first:

Meet the new Tide, same as the old Tide

Of all the possible ways to describe Alabama’s 24-10 win over Ole Miss, “reassuring” might not be the first word that comes to mind — not to Bama fans, anyway, and certainly not in real time. For most of the afternoon, the angst that followed the home crowd into Bryant-Denny Stadium was as palpable a presence as the Million Dollar Band.

If they came for a confident, domineering response to the narrative that their team suddenly does not seem all that confident or domineering, what they got instead was an outfit still groping for an identity. The Crimson Tide trailed at the half, and didn’t find the end zone until more than midway through the third quarter. In the meantime, they were sloppy, uncertain and the opposite of opportunistic. One trip inside the Rebels’ 10-yard line ended with a ghastly interception in the end zone; another yielded a desultory field goal after the offense, gifted the ball at the 2-yard line following a blocked punt, promptly lost 21 yards on the subsequent set of downs. After halftime, the Tide were forced to settle for 3 again after an apparent touchdown was wiped out by a flag, the 5th Alabama TD negated by penalty in the past 3 games.

Gradually, though, the game began to bend to Alabama’s will in a way that felt like a callback to the early years of the Saban era. The defense, which looked out of sorts on a 75-yard Ole Miss touchdown drive in the first quarter, responded in vintage fashion, clamping down on the run, consistently hounding Rebels QB Jaxson Dart, and keeping the lid on big plays; the same front seven that barely laid a hand on Texas’ Quinn Ewers in Week 2 sacked Dart 5 times, as well as drawing multiple holding penalties against outmanned Ole Miss linemen that achieved the same result. (At one point, two Rebels were flagged for holding on the same play, which still resulted in a sack by Alabama’s ubiquitous Dallas Turner.) Ole Miss failed to crack the end zone over the final 3 quarters, its longest drought in 40 games under Lane Kiffin.

Meanwhile, Bama’s offense stopped shooting itself in the foot and started finishing drives. Jalen Milroe, restored to QB1 by default after last week’s dismal experiment at South Florida, found his rhythm in the second half, completing 6-of-7 attempts for 132 yards and, finally, a touchdown — a 33-yard strike to freshman Jalen Hale that Milroe dropped in the chute a split-second before he was pulverized in the pocket by an oncoming pass rusher.

Sensing it had the Rebels on the ropes, Alabama’s next possession covered 75 yards in 6 plays, 5 of them runs by workmanlike RB Jase McClellan; those carries covered 53 yards (exactly half of McClellan’s career-high total on the day) and included what amounted to the game-clinching touchdown from 8 yards out. An ending straight out of 2009 for a game that, first-half miscues aside, was largely indistinguishable from the methodical choke outs the Tide used to inflict en route to the BCS title game.

As championship blueprints go, it’s hard to argue that dusting off one of the old murderball scripts from the first Obama administration is going to cut it in 2023. Through 4 games, Alabama ranks 12th in the SEC in scoring offense, 13th in yards per play and dead last in total offense, which even Saban’s most conservative outfits from back in the day would have considered a disaster. The USF debacle is a huge, outlying drag on those numbers, but eventually, if we’re still talking about this team as a plausible Playoff contender, it’s going to have to make strides in every respect: More explosiveness in the passing game, more consistency on the ground, fewer opportunity-robbing mistakes. Three touchdowns on their past 10 trips in the red zone is a red flag that must be addressed.

What Saturday’s win did accomplish, however — beyond the simple math of making Alabama 1-0 in the conference standings — is to point the way forward for a flawed team that’s obviously going have to settle for winning ugly at least a little while longer until the pieces fall into place. The most important piece, of course, is Milroe, who won the job in the first place specifically because the upside of his arm and mobility offers some margin for error until he (hopefully) grows out of the mistakes that have plagued him early in his career. The defense, the ground game and the rotating cast of plausible big-play threats who show up a couple times each weekend are all means to that end. And a throwback blueprint, if that’s what it takes to survive from one Saturday to the next, is part of the same bridge to the future.

But then, living in championship-or-bust mode doesn’t allow much patience for growing pains, and with 1 loss already, Bama doesn’t have the luxury of rebounding from another. On the other side of this weekend’s trip to Mississippi State, 3 of the next 4 games are against Texas A&M (in College Station), Tennessee and LSU — all imminently winnable games that, as the past couple seasons have already made clear, are also imminently losable.

Can the Tide run the gauntlet leaving multiple touchdowns on the field, cashing in on a big play or two, and banking on the defense to account for the difference? More likely, they’re going to need Milroe to grow up fast.

LSU lets it rip

Last year, the deep ball was the missing link in Jayden Daniels’ game: Among SEC starters, only Mississippi State’s Will Rogers aimed a smaller percentage of his overall attempts 20+ yards downfield, and Rogers played in an offense expressly designed to throw as many short, safe passes as possible. Even Daniels’ own coach lamented that he was too conservative.

This year? Suddenly he cannot get enough of the long ball.

LSU’s down-to-the-wire, 34-31 win over Arkansas marked the second week in a row that Daniels has inflicted most of his damage on a perfect or near-perfect performance throwing downfield. In Week 3, he was 4-for-4 for 152 yards and 2 touchdowns on attempts of 20+ yards in a 41-14 blowout at Mississippi State — all of that output coming in collaboration with his favorite target, junior WR Malik Nabers. Against the Razorbacks, Daniels was even more aggressive, completing 5-of-7 deep attempts for 176 yards and 3 touchdowns, sharing the wealth this time between Nabers (3-for-4, 78 yards, 1 TD) and Brian Thomas Jr. (2-for-3, 98 yards, 2 TDs).

Just 4 games in, the contrast with 2022 is stark. Per Pro Football Focus, Daniels was 16-for-42 on 20+ yard attempts for 517 yards and 5 touchdowns across the entire ’22 season. This year, he’s 13-for-18 for 513 yards and 8 touchdowns in September alone. Among quarterbacks with at least 10 attempts this season, only Rice’s JT Daniels (75%) is completing deep shots at a higher rate, or for a higher yards per attempt.

It’s tempting to compare Daniels to former Tennessee/current Detroit Lions QB Hendon Hooker, another lanky, athletic transfer who benefited from an additional season on campus via the free COVID year and took advantage of it by becoming one of the nation’s most enthusiastic bombers. It’s still a little early for that, given that as recently as a couple weeks ago Daniels still had a reputation for keeping it relatively close to the vest. But if LSU’s opening-night loss to Florida State fed into his sense of urgency in his final year of eligibility, he seems determined that he’s not going down again with any ammunition left to spare.

Georgia: Playing with its food

Against this schedule, the only way we were going to learn anything meaningful about Georgia in its first 4 games is if something went extremely wrong. It hasn’t: The Bulldogs have dispatched UT-Martin, Ball State, South Carolina and UAB by an average margin of 30.2 points. Back in August, they claimed 60 first-place votes in the preseason AP poll out of a possible 63; one month and 4 routine Ws later, they’re all the way down to… 55 first-place votes.

What do the defending champs have to prove in September, anyway? Or, hell, at any point in the regular season?

With 3 more unranked opponents on deck (Auburn, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, followed by an open date), it might be another month before they finally venture out of the shallow end of the pool — and that’s assuming Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee still qualify as meaningful tests in the home stretch.

One thing we can say: They really seem to enjoy letting the would-be giant-killers they’ve faced so far experience a fleeting moment of hope before crushing their spirit. The Bulldogs’ first score in Saturday’s 49-21 win over UAB was just their 2nd touchdown of the season in the first quarter, following back-to-back first-quarter shutouts against Ball State and South Carolina. Contrast that with the past 2 years, when Georgia averaged a tick over 10 points in the first quarter and frequently left opponents for dead within the game’s first few possessions.

Of course, it’s hard to sell the slow-starting trend as “meaningful” considering a) small sample size, and b) predictably lopsided final scores. Despite their sluggishness in the first frame, before you can say don’t look now the Dawgs have put 15 touchdowns on the board in the second and third, including a couple quick TDs to open the second half against South Carolina that erased a 14-3 halftime deficit in Week 3. In their 3 nonconference games, they’ve gone into the locker room leading by at least 14 points.

Starting QB Carson Beck has attempted a grand total of 4 passes in the 4th quarter, all of them against the Gamecocks. Until further notice, “briefly interesting” is the best anyone tuning into a Georgia game who is not a Georgia fan can hope for.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Alabama Edge Dallas Turner. The silver lining of Bama’s close call at USF in Week 3 was the pass rush, and the combination of Turner and fellow bookend Chris Braswell made Ole Miss’ o-line look nearly as overmatched as the Bulls’. Turner was credited with 5 QB pressures, 2 sacks and 2 additional tackles for loss against the Rebels, as well as a forced fumble to round out the havoc checklist. (For his part, Braswell also added 5 pressures and 2 sacks.) As dominant as they’ve been the past 2 weeks, their absence from the stat sheet in the loss to Texas only looms larger.

2. LSU QB Jayden Daniels. Daniels’ final line against Arkansas: 20-for-29, 320 yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT, plus 35 yards rushing, for good measure. After falling behind 13-3 late in the first half, LSU’s final 5 possessions consisted of 4 consecutive touchdown drives covering 75 yards apiece and a 72-yard march to set up the game-winning field goal in the dying seconds.

3a. South Carolina QB Spencer Rattler and WR Xavier Legette. Rattler was nearly flawless on Saturday night, finishing 18-for-20 for 288 yards, 3 TDs, zero turnovers, and an astronomical 260.5 passer rating in a 37-30 win over Mississippi State. But it was the 6-3, 227-pound Legette and his blazing open-field speed that stole the show, accounting for nearly 2/3 of Rattler’s output (189 yards) on just 5 catches. In fact, the majority of that came on just 2 catches: A 75-yard touchdown strike in the first quarter …

… and a 76-yarder in the third that represented the 2 longest completions of Rattler’s career.

With that, Legette moved into the national lead with 556 receiving yards for the season, eclipsing his total over his first 4 years on campus combined. If he and Antwane “Juice” Wells — still nursing a foot injury — can satay on the field at the same time, they cam pose problems that South Carolina’s offense hasn’t made opposing defenses think about in a long time.

3b. Mississippi State QB Will Rogers and WR Tulu Griffin. On the losing side in Columbia, Mississippi State’s offense had a prolific night of its own. Coming off a nightmare outing against LSU, Rogers was back to doing what he does best, putting the ball in the air 48 times for a career-high 487 yards at Carolina — the lion’s share of that total coming via Griffin, who went off for a school-record 256 yards on 36.6 per catch. Five of Griffin’s 7 receptions gained 30+ yards, including a couple of straight-up bombs in the first half that lifted the Bulldogs out of an early 14-0 hole.

That’s the kind of throw MSU fans have spent the better part of the past 3 seasons wondering if Rogers could make if given the chance, and it was especially reassuring after an underwhelming start to the post-Air Raid era. Maybe the offense doesn’t have to that look that different, after all. And if the defense continues to struggle, there might be no other choice.

4. Missouri QB Brady Cook and WR Luther Burden III. It’s easy to overlook Cook’s growth next to Burden, who is emerging by the week as Mizzou’s biggest star on offense since … Jeremy Maclin? Brad Smith? The former 5-star is climbing the ladder in record time. In the Tigers’ 34-27 win over Memphis, Burden set career highs for catches (10), yards (177) and long gain (56) for the 3rd time in the past 4 games. The vast majority of that output came after the catch, per PFF, which calculated his average depth of target at a mere 5.4 yards.

But Cook is rapidly coming into his own for the 4-0 Tigers, too. In Week 3, he turned in his first 300-yard passing game, throwing for 356 and 2 touchdowns (both to Burden) in a dramatic upset of Kansas State. On Saturday, he nearly matched that number against Memphis on 10 fewer attempts, finishing with 341 yards and 2 more scores — neither to Burden, who didn’t find the end zone Saturday despite coming very close.

Cook’s yards per attempt (13.6), efficiency rating (213.0) and Total QBR rating (90.4) all represented career bests, and put one more weekend between his rising stock and the preseason doubts that he can be more than a replacement-level SEC starter. The schedule gets significantly steeper after this week’s trip to Vanderbilt, but on the other side of last year’s growing pains, he’s on the verge of inspiring actual confidence.

5. Kentucky DB Maxwell Hairston. Few offenses anywhere have been more generous with the ball than Vanderbilt’s, which has committed 10 turnovers in its past 3 games. Worse: 4 of those giveaways have gone the other way for defensive touchdowns, including 2 pick-6 INTs in Saturday’s 45-28 loss to Kentucky — both by Hairston, the beneficiary of ill-advised throws by beleaguered Vandy quarterback AJ Swann in the first quarter …

… and again in the fourth:

Hairston is only the 6th SEC player and the first Wildcat to house 2 interceptions in the same game. In between the picks, he kept himself busy by breaking up three more passes while allowing just 3 receptions on 12 total targets, per PFF. A banner afternoon all the way around.

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Honorable Mention: Alabama DB Terrion Arnold, who intercepted 1 pass and broke up 2 more in addition to a team-high 8 tackles against Ole Miss. … Ole Miss LB Suntarine Perkins, who had 2 sacks in a breakout performance in Tuscaloosa. … Georgia TE Brock Bowers, whose 9 catches against UAB yielded 121 yards and 2 of QB Carson Beck‘s 3 TD passes on the night. … Arkansas TE Luke Hasz, who accounted for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns in a losing effort at LSU. …South Carolina DL Alex Huntley, who recorded 8 QB pressures, 2 sacks and a pair of batted passes against Mississippi State. … Mississippi State DL Nathan Pickering, who was credited with 6 tackles and 2 sacks against the Gamecocks. … Alabama RB Jase McClellan, who turned in his first career 100-yard rushing game vs. an FBS opponent. … Texas A&M RBs Le’Veon Moss and Amari Daniels, who combined for 181 yards on 21 carries against Auburn.

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The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the year of the week

As a unit, Florida’s offense slopped it up against what should have been an easily overmatched Charlotte defense, turning the ball over twice and finishing 1-for-9 on 3rd-down conversions in a 22-7 slog. The exception: WR Ricky Pearsall, whose 6-catch, 104-yard performance included this 1-handed, mid-air beauty that’s going to be replayed on loop for years to come:

As long as we’re on the subject of hanging plays in the Louvre:

This one is a strong candidate to actually stand up as the Catch of the Year of the Year. Check back in December.

Fat guy of the week

Missouri RB Cody Schrader ran for a career-high 123 yards on 8.8 per carry on the Tigers’ 34-27 win over Memphis — a lot of that going around on Mizzou’s offense lately — and owed a significant chunk of that total to his right guard, Cam’Ron Johnson. Johnson, a 5th-year transfer from Houston, was one of the most sought-after linemen in the portal after earning a first-team All-AAC nod in 2022, and he looked the part Saturday against his old conference rivals: He earned the top PFF run-blocking grade (81.4) of any SEC o-lineman in Week 4, and made the crucial combo block that sprung Schrader’s game-clinching, 37-yard TD run with a little over 2 minutes to play. Watch No. 74 do his thing:

Big men putting in the work at the second level: We love to see it.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain after Week 4.

1. Georgia (4-0). The Bulldogs have allowed multiple first-half touchdowns each of the past 2 weeks, the first time that’s happened in back-to-back games since November 2020 against Florida and Mississippi State. (Last week: 1⬌)

2. LSU (311). The flip side of LSU’s offensive awakening is a defense that, so far, has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. After Arkansas’ offense went 3-and-out on the game’s opening series, the Razorbacks went on to score on 6 of their last 7 non-half-ending possessions. (LW: 2⬌)

3. Alabama (3-1). Nick Saban’s Twitter breakdowns of a key play following wins are always worth it, but hang with this week’s edition analyzing Ja’Corey Brooks’ blocked punt against Ole Miss all the way to the end:

The product on the field may not be what it once was, but the mellower Saban seems better suited to handle it. Not that long ago the month this team has put him through might have sent him prematurely to the rocker. (LW: 4⬆)

4. Texas A&M (3-1). I’d love to be able to tell you the last time a quarterback completed a touchdown pass to his own brother in a D-I game prior to Max Johnson’s connection with Jake Johnson on Saturday, but apparently there’s no database for that sort of thing? This is why people have lost confidence in the NCAA. (LW: 9⬆)

5. Ole Miss (3-1). This is the final year of the East-West format before the SEC finally scraps divisions altogether, meaning that it’s also Ole Miss’ last chance to avoid going in the books as the only original member of the West never to win it. After Saturday, the Rebels may already be reduced to praying for a minor miracle. (LW: 3⬇)

6. Florida (3-1). It’s too soon to say what Florida’s Week 3 upset over Tennessee is going to look like by year’s end, but it’s already an outlier in one respect: 3rd-down conversions. The Gators converted as many 3rd-down attempts against the Vols (7) as they have in their other 3 games combined. They were 1-for-9 Saturday against Charlotte — and 0-for-1 on 4th. (LW: 5⬇)

7. Tennessee (3-1). Joe Milton III ticked off another box on the Freak Specimen checklist Saturday with an 81-yard touchdown run — a record for a Tennessee quarterback — on the first play of the Vols’ eventual 45-14 win over UT-San Antonio.

By my estimation Milton covered the last 80 yards in approximately 9 seconds (14:52 on the game clock to 14:43) despite his admission after the game that he “blew a tire” near the end. Remember, that’s at 6-5, 235 pounds. If he manages to straighten out his accuracy for any remotely sustained period of time (a big if at this late stage of his career, I know), there’s more money to be made off his raw tools than any other QB in America. (LW: 6⬇)

8. Missouri (4-0). Mizzou appears in the updated AP poll (at No. 23) for the first time since October 2019, under former coach Barry Odom. Back then, the Tigers lost their first and only game as a ranked team at Vanderbilt, kicking off a 5-game losing streak that cost Odom his job. Up next in Week 5: At Vanderbilt. (LW: 11⬇)

9. Kentucky (4-0). The Wildcats have been efficient on a per-play basis, averaging 7.2 yards a pop for the season, but they don’t run very many: They’re averaging just 55 offensive snaps per game, fewest of any Power 5 offense except their spiritual brethren at Iowa. You know if Mark Stoops can figure out a way to win a game running 33 plays from scrimmage, he’ll do it in a heartbeat. (LW: 8⬇)

10. South Carolina (2-2). The Gamecocks still need more from their defense to set their sights any higher than bowl eligibility, but Spencer Rattler’s emergence as a QB who gives them a puncher’s chance almost every time out is one of the early season’s more intriguing developments. (LW: 12⬆)

11. Arkansas (2-2). The Razorbacks have obviously missed All-SEC RB Rocket Sanders, who hasn’t played since the opener (and remains in limbo) due to a sore knee. But they have identified a big-play receiving threat the past 2 weeks in true freshman TE Luke Hasz, who’s accounted for 194 yards and 3 TDs on 19.4 per catch in losses to BYU and LSU. Among an unproven group of receivers, Hasz and senior Andrew Armstrong (a transfer from Texas A&M-Commerce) are emerging as the only targets KJ Jefferson seems to trust. Which is probably more than he can say at the moment for his offensive line. (LW: 11⬌)

12. Auburn (3-1). I don’t think Auburn fans were holding their breath for a high-octane passing game this year, but 2.4 yards per attempt against Texas A&M is a real “abandon all hope” kinda number, and it doesn’t even account for the 7 sacks. The upcoming stretch against Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss has the potential to get very dark. (LW: 10⬇)

13. Mississippi State (2-2). The resurrection of the passing game against South Carolina wasn’t enough opposite a defense that seems to have lost the ability to force an incomplete pass itself. In Zach Arnett’s 3 seasons as MSU’s defensive coordinator, opponents topped 35 points just twice; in his first 2 SEC games as head coach, they Bulldogs have given up 41 and 37 points in consecutive weeks. (LW: 12⬇)

14. Vanderbilt (2-3). Kentucky in Nashville was arguably the Commodores’ best shot at an SEC win; instead, they fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter and never closed the gap to within single digits in a 45-28 rout. It’s strictly “moral victory” season from here on out. (LW: 14⬌)

Moment of Zen of the week

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