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It took all 14 weeks, but the SEC Championship is set.
Texas-Georgia, Part II. Both teams should have a Playoff berth already clinched, yet both should have plenty to play for with a first-round bye on the line.
You know this. We don’t know how that matchup will go, nor do we know how far a loser will fall in the final Playoff Poll. We’ll have plenty of time to dissect that this week.
That wasn’t the only thing that happened during Rivalry Week.
Here were the biggest SEC takeaways from that.
How Texas clinched its SEC Championship berth was darn impressive
Before you tell me that Texas didn’t have a tough schedule and that the Longhorns just got a favorable Year 1 draw, answer me this. If the Longhorns were frauds, would they have gone into Kyle Field and won by double digits? Would that defense have pitched a shutout (the lone touchdown for A&M came on a pick-6)?
Nah. Give Texas credit.
In a year in which they endured a multi-game injury to Quinn Ewers and they had multiple season-ending injuries in the backfield, the Longhorns continue to be a model of resiliency. There was no better illustration of that than watching Tre Wisner rip off 33 carries for 186 yards to send Texas to Atlanta.
I’m not sure if you heard, but Texas will be making a trip to Atlanta in Year 1 in the SEC while A&M … you know. Sorry, Aggies fans, Mike Elko didn’t deserve that kind of heat. He led A&M to the last unbeaten mark in conference play, and while that LSU win was the high point of the Aggies’ season, just hosting an SEC semifinal was a win for Year 1 of the Elko era.
OK, back to Texas.
That defense can win a national championship. There’s no denying it. Vernon Broughton was everywhere, including on top of the strip sack that Trey Moore forced to put the game on ice. That secondary continues to be the best in America. Anthony Hill Jr. might win the Butkus Award as a sophomore and Colin Simmons is going to be on every freshman All-America team.
Go figure that Texas’ defense was seen as more of a question mark than the offense after T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy left for the NFL, and defensive line coach Bo Davis left for LSU. But heading into Atlanta, the Texas offense is the group that’s been closer to a liability.
Kelvin Banks Jr. getting hurt early wasn’t great, and neither was Quinn Ewers turning the ball over in the red zone twice. But thanks to Wisner, who suddenly turned into the bell-cow back, Texas’ offense picked up first downs. Shoot, it even got an Arch Manning touchdown run to get the offense going.
Texas is versatile. Does it have national championship upside? We’ll see. That’s a good question to be asking at the end of the regular season.
Georgia “clinching” a Playoff spot with 8 overtimes felt like a microcosm of the season
You might’ve rolled your eyes every time that Joe Tessitore declared that a Georgia victory “clinched” a Playoff spot, but think about it: UGA’s 8-overtime marathon clinched the 10th win for a team that was No. 7 coming into the weekend. Do we really think a loss in the SEC Championship would prompt the selection committee to drop the Dawgs out of the field and put in an idle team? I’d push back on that.
What I won’t push back on is the notion that Georgia is much more of a wild card than a tone-setter moving forward. The Dawgs falling behind 17-0 at half was stunning in some ways for a team that hadn’t lost a home night game in 15 years (the broadcast crew insisted on making sure you went to bed knowing that UGA won 30 consecutive home games). For the majority of that game, we saw the issues that plagued this team all year. Georgia couldn’t stop rushing lanes, Haynes King got whatever he wanted coming off the shoulder injury, the Dawgs couldn’t catch passes to help out Carson Beck and it didn’t have that sense of urgency on either side of the ball.
But just as it did against Alabama and Tennessee, albeit with different results, UGA overcame that double-digit deficit. There won’t be an unfamiliar scenario for UGA in the Playoff. The question for the Dawgs is when and if those slow starts will finally cost them a shot at a national title.
That’s the strange thing about Friday night. UGA could’ve lost that game and still made the Playoff with potentially a first-round bye if it won the SEC Championship. Consider that an unfortunate, bizarre result of the 12-team Playoff. Fortunately for UGA, it didn’t face that scenario.
At the same time, let’s not forget about the potential impact of the SEC Championship. At worst, UGA could lose and likely have to travel for a first-round Playoff game. Alternatively, it could win and get a much-needed bye.
Either way, it’s bananas to think after this roller-coaster regular season that UGA can still win its 3rd national title in 4 years.
Tennessee could’ve been a chaos casualty, but it turned into a chaos benefactor (again)
If you had told Tennessee fans entering the season that all they’d have to do to earn a Playoff berth was beat Vandy, they would’ve cackled and patted themselves on the back for making the first 12-team field. Little did we know that this wasn’t your dad’s Vandy team. Shoot, this wasn’t even your older brother’s Vandy team. Also, little did we know that Tennessee would allow an opening-kickoff touchdown, lose a fumble in its own territory and fall behind 14-0 on the road.
Chaos was staring Tennessee in the face. Then, simply, the Vols cackled at it and moved on.
By scoring 36 of the next 39 points, the Vols all but clinched a Playoff berth. Mind you, that came with a pregame injury to Bru McCoy, an in-game injury to Dont’e Thornton after he cooked Vandy for 2 touchdowns and both Squirrel White and Dylan Sampson got banged up on the same play and left the game with 2:25 to play. But with 3 weeks to play, the Vols have plenty of opportunity to get healthy as it scoreboard watches throughout the next week.
Tennessee put itself in position to earn a home Playoff game if it can hold onto one of those top-8 seeds.
South Carolina?!?
I don’t know what awaits South Carolina’s Playoff path after beating Clemson … all I know is that the LaNorris Sellers-led Gamecocks have been a revelation.
Here’s what I believe.
Sellers is awesome. This South Carolina defense is awesome. This South Carolina team is awesome, and if the selection committee decides to reward a team that won 6 in a row — something that hadn’t happened since 2013 — with 4 vs. teams in the AP Top 25, it’d be a terrifying squad to face.
I also know that Shane Beamer got his wish by Syracuse taking down Miami. It remains to be seen how much benefit of the doubt the selection committee will give the Canes after they blew a 21-0 lead and fell to an unranked team for the second time. But there’s no denying that it’s a better result for the Gamecocks, who won’t have to worry about Clemson getting in as an at-large team.
Playoff or not, though, that’s still a remarkable way to close the regular season. Sellers’ brilliance was the difference in South Carolina winning 9 regular-season games for the first time in the Playoff era. Beamer not only did that, but he also became the first coach to win in consecutive trips to Death Valley since … Spurrier. That matters. So, too, is the fact that Sellers and Dylan Stewart will return as 2 of the most popular players in the sport.
That’ll matter regardless of what the selection committee decides. What’s clear is that anyone who watches South Carolina can see a team that’s even better than what that 9-3 record suggests.
3-loss Alabama didn’t do enough to be a Playoff team, but at least it avoided a new low
That would’ve been losing to Auburn at home. Like, this Auburn team. As in, the one that was 5-7 and 2-6 in SEC play with Payton Thorne at quarterback.
Alabama didn’t take care of the football, but it took care of business. Jalen Milroe’s legs were an asset again and Kane Wommack’s defense was mostly impressive after losing Deontae Lawson to a season-ending injury last week in Norman. That’s the good news. For a team that will endure the transfer portal window opening as it spends SEC Championship weekend at home for just the second time in the 2020s, losing to Auburn for an 8-4 season would’ve made even the biggest Kalen DeBoer supporters wonder where this is all heading.
The Tide will face a ton of questions this offseason, most notably at quarterback with Milroe. His NFL future is to be determined. He’s still got another season of eligibility after an up-and-down regular season, which saw him tie Cam Newton with 20 rushing touchdowns in his second Iron Bowl victory.
But unfortunately for Milroe and the Tide, losing 3 games, including 2 to unranked teams, will likely prevent Alabama from playing for a national title.
Hugh Freeze deserves to be on every hot-seat list in America this offseason
It just didn’t work. Not the Iron Bowl effort. The Year 2.
A 5-7 season wasn’t just the byproduct of playing a ton of underclassmen. That doesn’t explain some of the decisions that Freeze made, both at the quarterback position and as a play-caller. The 4th-and-2 decision to try and get an offsides penalty and instead kick a field goal was maddening, as was the overall game plan. A week after Alabama allowed 257 rushing yards to a lifeless Oklahoma offense, Freeze had Thorne attempt 41 passes while Jarquez Hunter got 13 carries for 56 yards.
Mind you, Alabama was without linebacker/defensive signal-caller Deontae Lawson, who suffered a season-ending injury last week at Oklahoma. Auburn didn’t test that nearly enough. Instead, 23 of the first 33 offensive play-calls were passes. Even if Alabama was putting 9 defenders in the box, that felt like a coach trying to run his offense instead of paying attention to what his team actually needed.
Shoot, even Hunter was asked to throw the ball on a trick play … and was intercepted. Here’s what Freeze said about that:
Freeze says Jarquez Hunter should have thrown the ball back to Payton Thorne on the double-pass, with Alabama having a safety deep. Freeze said they “obviously” didn’t coach Hunter well enough.
OK.
— Justin Hokanson (@_JHokanson) December 1, 2024
Weak. Hunter instead had to wonder why he had less than 15 carries in 5 of Auburn’s 9 Power Conference games in 2024. Freeze’s usage of the All-SEC running back was maddening, to say the least.
Freeze deserves an 8-month offseason of heat after an 11-14 start, including a 5-11 mark vs. SEC competition. Elite recruiting class or not, we still don’t know that he’ll get rid of his in-game decisions that proved costly in a handful of games, nor do we know that he has the answers at quarterback.
Year 3 will be everything for Freeze on The Plains.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
