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

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

  • Will anyone ever attempt to cover Jalin Hyatt?
  • Will Levis crashes and burns
  • The Conner Weigman era is upon us
  • Week 9 Superlatives and power rankings

… and more! But first:

November matters

The weather is turning, the days are getting shorter, and electioneering is a plague on the land. But in one respect, at least, the plot as the calendar turns to November is veering off the usual script: A legitimately close, compelling race on both sides of the SEC standings.

How often does that happen anymore? For all the money, hype and prestige it’s generated for itself over the years, the one thing the SEC has never been able to buy is suspense. For that, it can thank Nick Saban and his professional offspring, Kirby Smart, who cannot abide it. By the time the clocks fall back, the course of the conference race these days tends to be pretty well set: Alabama in the West, Georgia in the East, everyone else reduced to the role of fleeing civilians as their blue-chip armies march toward an inevitable collision in Atlanta.

One or the other (or both) have played in every SEC Championship Game of the Playoff era, claiming 7 of the past 8 titles.

If anything, this year was supposed to follow the course as rigidly as ever. Before the season, SEC media picked Alabama and Georgia to win their respective divisions with a combined 349 first-place votes out of a possible 362. National media voted them No. 1 and No. 3 in the preseason AP poll, respectively, while projecting only one other SEC team in the top 18. (Texas A&M, at No. 6.) As far as the rest of the league was concerned, November intrigue was likely limited to the consolation bid for the Sugar Bowl and ritual scrutiny of coaches on the hot seat. Expectations for the likes of Ole Miss (21st in the preseason), LSU (unranked), and Tennessee (unranked) were noncommittal, topping out at cautious optimism.

Instead, the next few weeks are as relevant and unpredictable as they’ve been at this point on the schedule in a long time. For that, we can thank Josh Heupel, Lane Kiffin and Brian Kelly for putting their teams in position to make things at least temporarily interesting. In addition to Bama and UGA, the Rebels, Tigers and Vols are all ranked in the top 15 of the new AP poll, and all three remain very much alive in the conference and Playoff races with the front-runners squarely in their sights.

In Tennessee’s case, any lingering suspicions that its ascent is temporary keep vanishing by the week. The 44-6 whipping the Vols put on Kentucky on Saturday night was their most complete win of the season against a real opponent, lending fresh credibility to the defense in the process. AP voters were convinced, bumping them to No. 2 in the AP poll alongside Ohio State; with that, this weekend’s trip to Georgia is officially the fourth 1 vs. 2 matchup in a regular-season game this century. (The past 2: Massively hyped Alabama-LSU collisions in 2011 and 2019.) They’ve come so far, so fast in Heupel’s second season that even a loss in Athens wouldn’t necessarily doom their CFP chances, as long as it’s reasonably competitive. Everything about the Vols right now points to a team in it for the long haul.

The same cannot be said (yet) for LSU, still less than a month away from being humbled by Tennessee in Baton Rouge. In the meantime, though, the Tigers have looked like a different team in wins over Florida and Ole Miss, and still control their fate on all fronts with Alabama incoming. Bama has been relatively vulnerable in true road games the past 2 years – emphasis on relatively – and the energy in Tiger Stadium will be at a pitch on Saturday night it hasn’t reached since the 2019 title run.

If the Tide get out of that one with their season intact, they have to turn right around for a Nov. 12 date at Ole Miss, where the 8-1 Rebels will be rested and ready off an open date and (by virtue of an LSU loss in this scenario) back in control of their own destiny in the West, as well. Whoever in the conference office greenlit those trips seven days apart did Alabama no favors. But then, Bama has coasted through the month of November so consistently over the past decade, and LSU and Ole Miss have been so inconsistent, that it probably didn’t seem to matter. For once, it very well might.

Of course, it might not. The oddsmakers, unmoved by threats to the status quo, installed Georgia and Alabama as 12.5-point and 8.5-point favorites this weekend, respectively. ESPN’s Football Power Index put Alabama’s chances of winning the West at a healthy 67%, and Georgia’s chances of winning the East at just shy of 75%, which effectively mirrors the Dawgs’ odds of beating Tennessee.

FPI also gives Bama and UGA better odds of making the Playoff cut than missing it – just barely in the Crimson Tide’s case, at 51%, but still above the Mendoza line with multiple hurdles in front of them and no remaining margin for error with one loss already on the books. (Georgia comes in at 69.9% to make the CFP, 2nd-best nationally behind Ohio State.) We all know how that story goes.

But better-than-even odds is a long way from the foregone conclusion that loomed over the start of the season. There’s more than enough space in those numbers for a different story to tumble through – one nobody saw coming in August, but the outlines of which have been taking shape the past 2 months. Tennessee’s resurgence has graduated in record time from surprise to fact of life. LSU and Ole Miss are just 1 win apiece from taking the same step. Whether they succeed in making their move, they’ve already succeeded in making it interesting. This time of year, that’s all we can ask for.

Will Levis: Reality check

Look, is it Will Levis’ fault that he’s been touted for the last six months as a “clear-cut” first-rounder? No. Has he ever produced a mock draft projecting himself as the No. 1 overall pick next spring? He has not. Does he wax rhapsodic every other week or so about his NFL-ready skill set and how it will translate at the next level? He doesn’t. Will Levis is just a 23-year-old college quarterback doing the best he can with the opportunity he has.

So nothing against the guy here, but after Saturday night the notion that Levis belongs in the same breath as CJ Stroud and Bryce Young at the top of next’s crop of draft-eligible quarterbacks is impossible to sustain. His performance in Kentucky’s loss to Tennessee wasn’t just his worst as a Wildcat: It was a straight-up debacle. Forced to throw his team out of an ever-increasing deficit, Levis was picked 3 times, sacked 4 times and turned in career lows in yards per attempt (3.6), pass efficiency (67.5) and Total QBR (16.4). The offense as a whole managed just 205 yards (a majority of them on the ground) and went just 2-of-13 on 3rd downs — fewer conversions than turnovers.

In his defense: One, all quarterbacks have bad games. Two, he’s clearly playing hurt, apparently through multiple nagging aches and pains. And three, the hype surrounding Levis has always been more about his size and athletic traits than his production. Anyone who dismissed Josh Allen as a pro prospect based on his sub-mediocre college output at Wyoming should know better by now than to write off the idea that a big guy with a big arm, functional mobility and a functional brain can be molded into a viable starter.

But the fact is, there has never been a shortage of guys who fit the prevailing stereotype of what a franchise quarterback is supposed to look like, and there’s still only one Josh Allen. On the spectrum between “Generational Talent” and “Just a Guy,” Levis right now falls much closer to the latter. Meanwhile, his production remains squarely in the middle of the pack among SEC starters on nearly all counts, especially after you filter out stat-padding games against the likes of Northern Illinois and Youngstown State. Against Tennessee, Kentucky needed him to be the guy the scouts keep insisting that he is to keep pace with the hottest offense in America, on one of the biggest stages Levis will play on at this level, and he responded by melting down in the worst outing of his career.

That doesn’t mean he can never make it as a pro, or as a starter. But it probably should be a signal to draftniks to dial back the expectations and start taking a harder look at what’s actually there rather than what they imagine will be someday, eventually. Maybe he’ll pan out. At this point, though, it’s time to concede that it will be a surprise.

Conner Weigman: First impressions

On the other end of the QB hype spectrum: Texas A&M handed the reins to 5-star freshman Conner Weigman on Saturday night, watched him lead 2 brisk scoring drives on the Aggies’ first 2 possessions against Ole Miss, and declared him the messiah.

That was the high point of the evening. From there, A&M punted or turned the ball over on downs on 8 of their next 10 possessions, trailed throughout the second half, and ultimately dropped their fourth straight, 31-28. Weigman, in vintage “talented freshman in his first career start” fashion, was a mixed bag: On one hand, he threw for 338 yards and 4 touchdowns without an INT; on the other, it took him 44 attempts to do it, and he struggled to extend drives on 3rd and 4th down.

On its own terms, the experiment was a success: Weigman was a clear upgrade over the pedestrian Haynes King on all fronts, and if you’re at the point in a wayward season when largely resigned to losing, anyway — and Texas A&M seems to have arrived at that point — better to do it with a young player who stands to move the needle in the future than a nondescript vet who’s almost certainly portal-bound at the end of the season.

If anything, the move came several weeks too late. The one thing Jimbo Fisher has going for him, besides Devon Achane and the fact that his ludicrous contract makes him essentially un-fireable, is the reserve of young talent that, in retrospect, fueled the preseason expectations for the Aggies to a reckless degree.

At 3-5, 2022 is more or less officially a lost cause. By promoting Weigman, the rest of this season is best understood as the first step toward starting over in ’23. The hype is dead; long live the hype.

Auburn: Running out the clock by getting run over

Among the many reasons Auburn’s season is in the sewer, its collapsing run defense is at the top of the list. The Tigers came into the weekend ranked dead last in the SEC in rushing D and played down to the distinction against Arkansas, giving up 314 yards on the ground (excluding sacks) in a 41-27 loss that was worse than the margin suggests. On the Razorbacks’ 5 touchdown drives — extended marches covering 75, 80, 64, 94, and 84 yards, respectively — they put the ball in the air just 10 times on 45 plays.

Before the season, Auburn’s front seven was supposed to be the one reliable strength on a lineup plagued by youth and uncertainty almost everywhere else. It has been anything but: Prior to Saturday, the Tigers had already endured nationally televised pavings in their losses to Penn State (245 rushing yards on 6.3 per carry), Georgia (292 yards on 7.5 ypc) and Ole Miss (448 on 6.5), all of whom ran for season highs. In Ole Miss’ case, that represented the Rebels’ best single-game output on the ground in 60 years. Only one other Power 5 outfit, Colorado, ranks below Auburn in rushing defense heading into Week 10, and the Buffaloes fired their head coach in September.

Bryan Harsin is next; it’s only a matter of when, not if. (It’s possible the school is waiting to announce a new athletic director before sending Harsin packing, but that would require getting a deal done in time to get the new AD on campus by the end of the month.) Like most of Harsin’s problems, the defense’s decline can be traced back to the chaos that engulfed the program last winter, when defensive coordinator Derek Mason bailed out for the same title and significantly less money at Oklahoma State. Mason’s successor, Jeff Schmedding, was an internal hire who, prior to following Harsin to the Plains, had spent his entire career at Eastern Washington (2004-18) and Boise State (2019-20), and while his lack of Power 5 experience didn’t stop Auburn from agreeing to double his salary to $1 million, it has been evident enough in the results. At the same time the Tigers have begun to show some belated signs of life offensively, averaging 401 yards on 6.0 per play for the month of October, Schmedding’s unit has hit the skids.

At any rate, Auburn’s 0-4 October marked the second winless month of Harsin’s brief tenure, joining last year’s 0-4 finish in November. That never happened in any month in 8 years under Gus Malzahn (who, like Bo Nix at Oregon, is doing just fine in his rebound gig, for the record). The Harsin era is well on its way to going to down as a profound mistake on the order of Chad Morris at Arkansas.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Georgia ATH Brock Bowers. Bowers is a well-established Monday Down South favorite — we refuse to reduce him to a mere tight end in these parts — and somehow he only continues to add to his repertoire of feats we’ve rarely seen a player his size pull off before.

That play covered close to half of Bowers’ 154 yards in Georgia’s 42-20 win over Florida, a new career-high on a season-high 8 targets. Throw in his value as a blocker, and you have a very persuasive case that he’s the best player on the nation’s best team.

2. Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker and WR Jalin Hyatt. Hyatt is among the most prolific big-play threats in the college game right now, averaging 20.1 yards per catch for the season with an FBS-best 14 touchdowns, a school record. He’s also the most difficult to judge because he seems to always be wide open.

Having already been burned once, possibly it is in your interest as a secondary to prioritize attempting to cover the guy who leads the nation in touchdown receptions? No?

Hyatt torched the typically bust-proof Wildcats for 138 yards on 5 catches, which accounted for the lion’s share of Hooker’s 245 yards and 3 TDs on 19/25 passing — his 11th consecutive game with multiple TD passes dating to last year, and his 10th game in that span without an interception. Elsewhere, I’ve compared Hooker’s breakthrough as a graduate transfer to Joe Burrow’s emergence at LSU, and the parallels to the Tigers’ 2019 championship run are only getting easier to make. Maybe a little too easy?

3. Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson and RB Rocket Sanders. Sanders put up the fat rushing number in the Razorbacks’ win at Auburn, going off for 171 yards on 10.7 per carry. And Jefferson was his usual efficient self through the air, throwing for 234 yards and 1 TD on 16/24 passing. If there was one play that summed up the theme of the afternoon, it was Jefferson’s 13-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, on which he swatted away a 227-pound, 4-star safety like he was a small child.

For the year, Sanders ranks 2nd nationally with 1,236 yards from scrimmage, putting him right on pace for the first 2,000-yard season in school history. (Darren McFadden came up just short in 2007, if you were wondering.) But the sheer visceral spectacle of a 250-pound QB rumbling through a pack of opposing tacklers while they hang on for dear life is what Arkansas football is all about.

4. Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins / Texas A&M RB Devon Achane. Judkins, the unsung recruit turned Freshman All-American, continued his emergence as a high-volume bell cow against the Aggies, piling up 205 yards rushing with 1 touchdown on a season-high 34 carries. That marked his 3rd consecutive game and 4th this season with 100+ yards on 25+ attempts, putting him over the 1,000-yard mark in the process.

His counterpart in College Station, Achane, put in his usual work to make the best of a dismal situation, accounting for 179 yards (138 rushing, 41 receiving) and a touchdown. It was his 6th game this season over 170 all-purpose yards — and his 4th in a losing effort.

5. Tennessee DB Doneiko Slaughter. Primarily a safety, Slaughter made his first career start at cornerback against Kentucky and aced it: Three targets in his direction yielded zero catches and 2 interceptions — 1 by Slaughter himself, and 1 by teammate Juwan Mitchell after Slaughter jarred the ball loose on a textbook hit just as the pass arrived.

That play, coming with Tennessee up 20-6 in the second quarter and Kentucky driving, was arguably the end of the Wildcats’ upset bid. They didn’t cross midfield again until their final possession of the night well into garbage time.

Honorable Mention: Missouri WR Dominic Lovett, who had a career-high 148 yards on 10 catches in the Tigers’ 23-10 win at South Carolina. … Arkansas WR Matt Landers, who accounted for nearly half of his quarterback’s passing output with 115 yards on 28.8 per catch. … Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart, who had just 140 yards on 13/20 passing but threw 3 TD passes and added 95 yards rushing. … Auburn RB Tank Bigsby, who accounted for exactly 100 scrimmage yards (63 rushing, 37 receiving) in a losing effort, much of it coming on a 41-yard touchdown run. … Georgia DL Jalen Carter, who had 4 QB pressures on just 20 snaps against Florida in his return from a knee injury… And Florida LB Amari Burney, who recorded 7 tackles, an interception, and a forced fumble against UGA in addition to the best play in coverage you’ll ever see by a guy on the wrong end of a 73-yard touchdown.
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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.

Fat Guy of the Week

Georgia OL Broderick Jones. Even by Georgia standards, Jones stood out in the Dawgs’ loaded 2020 recruiting class as a guy with “first-rounder” written all over him. Two years later, his stock is still rising. In his first (and probably only) season as a full-time starter, Jones has handled every meaningful snap at left tackle without allowing a hit or sack, per PFF, emerging as a Day 1 prospect right on schedule. He played arguably his best game in the Dawgs’ win over Florida, grading out as UGA’s top run blocker (80.7) and overall offensive player (84.8) on an afternoon when Stetson Bennett was barely touched and Georgia’s running backs ran for a combined 231 yards on 6.2 per carry. I mean, watch No. 59 …

The Bulldogs haven’t made much effort to distinguish between Kenny McIntosh, Kendall Milton, and Daijun Edwards as runners, and as long as Jones is clearing the way they should have the luxury of remaining largely interchangeable.

Play Call of the Week

Let there be wheel. Ole Miss hit the ground running against Texas A&M, literally, running 6 times for 57 yards on its first 6 plays of the game. On the 7th play, the Rebels broke the Aggies’ brains in diabolical fashion:

This is a play that initially reads as horizontal via the toss action, which succeeded wildly in putting the second level in a bind, but attacks vertically. It’s specifically hell on the nickel (No. 26 Demani Richardson, a senior with more than 2,000 career snaps under his belt), who had just watched his team get repeatedly gashed to open the game; predictably, he responded to the potential running threat by getting on his horse to contain it with no concern for the third receiver to that side of the formation, Dayton Wade. By the time the ball left Jaxson Dart’s hand, Richardson was trailing more than 10 yards behind.

Assigning blame for a bust without knowing the coverage can be dicey — PFF put it on Richardson, based on the assumption that with the rest of the secondary in man-to-man, Richardson was the only man left to run with Wade. Possibly; it’s also possible he thought he had help over the top. Either way, the Rebels presented him with a play specifically designed to force him to choose between two competing responsibilities, and by breaking it out at just the right moment all but guaranteed he would choose wrong.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Georgia (8-0). Dominant as they were in most respects, the Dawgs were also unusually sloppy against Florida, committing 3 turnovers while forcing none. Under Kirby Smart, they’ve only finished -3 or worse in turnover margin in 2 other games: Against LSU in 2018 (-4) and South Carolina in 2019 (-4), both losses. (Last week: 1⬌)

2. Tennessee (8-0). Vols have been more impressive with each passing week. Barring a total meltdown in Athens, they’ll remain prominent in the CFP discussion win or lose. (LW: 2⬌)

3. Alabama (7-1). I’ve always been an agnostic re: home-field advantage, but Bama’s track record on the road the past 2 seasons speaks for itself. Five of their 7 true road games in that span have come down to the final play, including both losses. (LW: 3⬌)

4. LSU (6-2). Are the Tigers at risk of being overhyped this week for the sake of ginning up a little drama against the Tide? TBD. Will the crowd in Death Valley this weekend care? Absolutely not. (LW: 4⬌)

5. Ole Miss (8-1). We’ll see how it ends against a backloaded schedule, but so far Kiffin’s bid to replace half of last year’s starting lineup with transfers is a ringing endorsement for the portal. The Rebels lost more talent from last year’s Sugar Bowl lineup than any other SEC team and arguably got better. (LW: 5⬌)

6. Kentucky (5-3). Wildcats went into Neyland with an opportunity to take the next step as a program and limped out with a much clearer picture of just how steep that step really is. (LW: 6⬌)

7. Mississippi State (5-3). Bulldogs aren’t playing for anything in particular down the stretch, but don’t overlook their spoiler potential against Georgia and Ole Miss. (LW: 7⬌)

8. Arkansas (5-3). Last year the Razorbacks pulled out of a 3-game midseason losing streak to win 5 of their last 6. This year, they’re off to a 2-0 start in their bid to do it again. (LW: 8⬌)

9. Florida (4-4). Gators put up enough fight against Georgia after trailing 28-3 at the half to maintain their dignity, but there are no illusions about how far behind the curve the overall talent level is from where they need it to be to actually compete. (LW: 10⬆)

10. South Carolina (5-3). Just when they were starting to feel themselves, the Gamecocks flopped big time against Mizzou, limping in with 203 yards of total offense in a loss that erased all of the momentum of a 4-game win streak. We’re going to look back and remember the one week South Carolina was ranked in late October as one of the most random episodes of the season. (LW: 9⬇)

11. Texas A&M (3-5). Holding a losing hand, Jimbo is playing the best card he has left: Just wait till next year. (LW: 11⬌)

12. Missouri (4-4). Tigers’ upset at South Carolina was a big one for a team that’s been fighting an uphill battle against negative vibes all season, but was also a reminder of how costly their missed opportunities against Auburn and Georgia really were. With Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas left (along with a nonconference date against New Mexico State), bowl eligibility still requires another upset. (LW: 13⬆)

13. Auburn (3-5). Tigers have lost 8 of their past 9 in SEC play dating to last year, and the only thing standing between them and a 9-game losing streak is Missouri’s Nathaniel Peat fumbling away the game-winning touchdown in overtime in Week 4. (LW: 12⬇)

14. Vanderbilt (3-5). Commodores’ bid to snap their 27-game conference skid resumes this week against South Carolina, likely their best remaining shot this year. They’re closing in on the 1976-81 ‘Dores, who lost 33 straight in SEC play, but the all-time record of 37 straight by Sewanee from 1933-40 is still a ways off. (LW: 14⬌)

Moment of Zen of the week

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