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On the final weekend of September, the SEC slate delivered.
Shocking, I know. Even in a week when there were only 6 SEC games, we had entertaining games in each window.
Between the home blunders by Lane Kiffin and Hugh Freeze and statement road wins by Mark Stoops and Brent Venables, Saturday afternoon wasn’t for the faint of heart.
And if that wasn’t for the faint of heart, I’m not sure how to describe what Saturday night in Tuscaloosa was. Incredible? Classic? Unforgettable? All apply.
Here were the biggest SEC takeaways from Week 5 in the SEC:
Alabama and Georgia, let’s do that again sometime
Good luck, future games. That’s the game of the year until further notice. A 28-0 Alabama lead wasn’t safe. A go-ahead score in the final 3 minutes after overcoming a 28-0 lead wasn’t safe, either. That game was pure cinema.
I suppose for those with a dog in the fight, they’d beg to differ and tell us that what played out on Saturday night took years off their lives. That’s fair.
Where should we start? How about checking Ryan Williams’ birth certificate? I know it gets said every time he touches the football, but there’s no way that he’s 17. The body control, the toughness, the tracking … it’s already NFL level.
Been doing this scouting thing a long time and this is one of the wildest plays I’ve ever seen a wideout make. pic.twitter.com/tKkrrJZZKb
— Jim Nagy (@JimNagy_SB) September 29, 2024
Lost in the shuffle of his spinning, ridiculous, for-the-ages game-winning touchdown catch and run was that, for the 4th consecutive game, he led Alabama in receiving.
Of course, he couldn’t have done that without his connection with Jalen Milroe. Sure, Milroe cooled off a bit in the 3rd quarter after he fueled a 355-yard first half that stunned Georgia, but the poise to trust a true freshman to make a grab in that spot was the stuff of legend. Speaking of “legend” status, Milroe just became the second quarterback to beat Kirby Smart twice. The first? Joe Burrow.
Georgia deserves credit for battling like that on the road and nearly pulling off what would’ve been a historic comeback. If there’s a silver lining to the gut-wrenching loss, it’s that Carson Beck turned the worst first half of his career into perhaps the most impressive second half. Beck was masterful throughout the 4th quarter. His 67-yard touchdown pass to Dillon Bell to take the lead in the final 3 minutes was straight out of the Stetson Bennett IV manual.
Let’s also not dismiss the adjustments we saw from the Georgia defense after it got punched in the mouth. From the 12:24 mark of the second quarter to that final Williams score, Alabama didn’t reach the end zone. Georgia did a much better job setting the edge and limiting the outside run, and the Tide lost the offensive rhythm it had early.
In the 12-team Playoff era, a performance like that can be a silver lining for Georgia. There was no quit for Smart’s squad. But there was also no victory, which means that the 42-game regular season winning streak is over. Georgia’s path to Atlanta certainly just got a lot more difficult with games vs. Texas, Tennessee and Ole Miss remaining.
As for Alabama, Kalen DeBoer certainly looks more than capable of replacing the G.O.A.T. He improved to 13-2 vs. AP Top 25 teams after the Tide entered the night as a home underdog for the first time in 17 years.
The first chapter of DeBoer-Smart was even better than advertised. Here’s hoping it’s not the last one in 2024.
Kentucky isn’t dead. It’s alive and ready to play with anyone in the SEC
Holy cow. In no world did we have any reason to believe that UK would be in a 60-minute game as a 3-score dog in Oxford. Mind you, that was before we found out that top corner Maxwell Hairston was ruled out. Surely Brock Vandagriff wouldn’t outplay Jaxson Dart and Mark Stoops wouldn’t out-coach Lane Kiffin.
Yeah, about that.
Kentucky finally got the breaks it needed — most notably in the form of a fumble-turned-go-ahead-touchdown-recovery — and closed the best win of the Stoops era. That was the first time that UK defeated a top-6 team on the road since 1977. Speaking of things that Kentucky hadn’t done since the Jimmy Carter administration, that was the first win in Oxford since 1978.
Vandagriff’s 63-yard pass to Barion Brown on 4th and 7 from the UK 20-yard line will go down as one of the most clutch plays in program history, but the Cats were only in that position because they stymied the nation’s No. 1 offense. Deone Walker and that UK front held Ole Miss to just 92 rushing yards. That was the fewest total for a Kiffin offense since Sept. 23, 2023 vs. Alabama.
Kentucky got the type of win that had been impossible in the Stoops era. The stat about him having 2 wins against SEC teams that finished with winning conference records followed him into 2024. Ole Miss will likely give Stoops win No. 3 in that department. But Saturday was all about avoiding SEC loss No. 3 for Kentucky. Against a national championship contender, the Cats took care of business at the line of scrimmage and avoided the colossal mistakes.
Go figure that Kentucky’s dud against South Carolina now looks like more of a fluke than the nail-biter against Georgia, just as we all predicted.
Ole Miss got exposed (on the offensive line) by a blue-collar Kentucky team
Oh, Lane Kiffin. That was exactly the type of loss that put him on a tarmac at USC.
OK, so losing to Kentucky isn’t a fireable offense, but here’s what I mean by that. In 2012, Kiffin’s USC squad was the preseason No. 1. It then watched its national championship hopes go up in smoke in late October when it suffered loss No. 2 against 4-3 Arizona and never recovered. That was the first of 5 losses in USC’s final 6 games, which included a Sun Bowl loss and an unranked finish.
Do I think Ole Miss is in for a tailspin like that? No, but after a favorable first 4 weeks, Kiffin’s squad didn’t manage major aspirations well against a blue-collar Kentucky team. It struggled against the UK defensive line and Jaxson Dart didn’t have the urgency needed, especially when he took that sack on the final drive. The Ole Miss quarterback never got into a rhythm and the nation’s No. 1 offense was contained, all the way down to that last shanked field goal.
Yes, there’s more grace in the 12-team Playoff era. No, there’s not much grace for teams who can’t overcome struggles on the offensive line against solid defensive fronts. That’s the issue for Ole Miss. For all the talk about how the defensive line was going to be the difference in making that Playoff push, it’s fair to wonder if we overlooked the offensive struggles against better competition.
Kentucky got to Dart 4 times, and it had 7 tackles for loss en route to Ole Miss’ worst rushing performance in over a year. It was exactly the type of day that made you wonder if that cake schedule to start the season would catch up to Ole Miss.
That certainly played out on Saturday.
Holy blunder, Auburn
When they write the Hugh Freeze eulogy at Auburn, that game will be the lede. Goodness. Stop me at the most embarrassing part.
Oklahoma entered Saturday’s game at Jordan-Hare without its top 5 receivers. It did so with a true freshman quarterback in his first career start. Oh, and that true freshman quarterback trailed by 11 with just over 9 minutes left having not led a touchdown drive since the opening drive.
Now open your eyes (if they were closed even though I never told you to close them … I just assumed you did). Auburn lost that football game.
How? A bomb to JJ Hester set up an Oklahoma touchdown drive and then, well, Payton Thorne happened. A pick-6 on the next series blew Auburn’s lead for good and left the Jordan-Hare crowd in shock.
KIP. LEWIS. PICK-SIX.
OU 24, Auburn 21 #VamosSooners #BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/OXjdUziOPS
— Los Sooners (@LosSooners) September 28, 2024
The least shocking thing was Thorne having a costly turnover. But it came on the heels of a solid day in his return to the starting lineup.
Well, let’s not dismiss the fact that after Towns McGough missed field goal attempts from 31 and 27 yards in the first half, Freeze sent his kicker out to attempt a 51-yarder with 10 minutes left in a 21-10 game. It didn’t have a chance and Oklahoma immediately took advantage of that.
Freeze is now 0-3 at Jordan-Hare Stadium vs. “Core 4” opponents in 2024. By the way, that’s the first time in Auburn’s history that it suffered 3 pre-October losses at home. His team simply can’t get out of its own way. Next? A trip to Georgia, where Auburn hasn’t won since 2005.
Holy miracle, Oklahoma
That wasn’t the way that Brent Venables drew it up. For the vast majority of that game, things didn’t go Oklahoma’s way. Venables’ bold move to start true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. resulted in 1 touchdown drive in the first 51 minutes and his defense let Payton Thorne surpass the 300-yard mark without a turnover.
But my, how things changed in the final 9 minutes.
Hawkins stayed calm and connected with JJ Hester, and Venables’ defense dialed up the perfect disguise to bait Thorne into a go-ahead pick-6. Venables was staring at an 0-2 start to SEC play with a long bye week ahead of the Red River Rivalry with No. 1 Texas. Instead, it found its offensive identity and reminded us that a veteran-laden defense is never one to count out.
Maybe that’s exactly the type of victory to get on the board in SEC play that can spark Oklahoma to manage a daunting schedule.
Arch Manning’s first career SEC start wasn’t blistering, but it was important
It was important because it allowed Quinn Ewers to get an extra week of rest to heel his oblique injury ahead of the Oklahoma game. That’s why Manning was out there against SEC cellar dweller Mississippi State.
But it was also valuable to get Manning actual reps against an SEC defense. In a weird way, it was also valuable that Texas’ ground game was held to 10 first-half rushing yards. Manning was asked to pick up key third downs instead of playing in a game that was over by the middle of the second quarter. Texas didn’t have anywhere near its best day offensively, yet we saw Manning execute the scheme and also show that mobility.
He did have a moment late when he walked a bit gingerly off the field, but it didn’t appear to be anything serious. Plus, a healthy Ewers should be back for the Oklahoma game. Avoiding disaster was all Texas could’ve asked for in its SEC debut. Mission accomplished.
Mike Elko has a legitimate QB decision to make
For the third consecutive game, Conner Weigman was inactive with the AC joint injury. As a result, Marcel Reed won his 3rd consecutive start in yet another 1-score victory against Arkansas at AT&T Stadium. So what does that mean for an A&M team that’ll face a top-15 team next week when Mizzou travels to College Station?
It means Mike Elko will likely be tasked with picking between a healthy Weigman and Reed. There’s no denying that Reed’s ability to keep defenses honest with his legs has been an asset for a ground game that found its identity. There’s also no denying that the sample size of Weigman was extremely limited in the Collin Klein offense. Did Reed do enough to show that he deserves to be QB1? Or will Elko opt for the former 5-star recruit?
My guess is that Reed will win the job with a short leash. I’d expected the defensive-minded Elko to keep that close to the vest leading up to Mizzou.
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.
