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O’Gara: The biggest SEC takeaways (Diego Pavia and non-Diego Pavia) from Week 6

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:

This sport never disappoints. If you take away anything from Week 6, that’s it.

On a day in which there was only 1 matchup of ranked teams (Mizzou-A&M), how fitting it was that we got an all-time upset.

On second thought, nothing about Vanderbilt stunning Alabama was “fitting.” It was pure chaos to see the Tide fall a week after an iconic win against Georgia. To suggest anything but that would be unfair to the madness that unfolded on Saturday.

Go figure that was only part of the madness of Week 6. Arkansas beating No. 4 Tennessee meant that for the first time, we watched a pair of AP Top 5 teams in the SEC lose to unranked teams. It was a day full of so much carnage that Texas is now the last unbeaten team in the SEC … and the Longhorns might’ve only avoided that because they were on bye.

Here were the biggest takeaways from a wild Week 6 in the SEC:

We’re all Diego Pavia witnesses

They said on the broadcast that Pavia watched Johnny Manziel’s 2012 performance against Alabama over 100 times, including this week leading up to the Alabama game. It’s one thing to do that. It’s one thing to wear No. 2 and play for an SEC team. Shoot, it’s one thing to mimic Manziel’s style while doing those things.

But to deliver a Manziel-like performance against Alabama? Iconic. Pavia did that just as we all predicted.

Alabama had the answers for Carson Beck, but it didn’t have the answers for the mobility/precision/guts of Pavia. Of course. Any time Vandy needed a play, Pavia found the open man. That’s why Vandy held the ball for 42:08. Alabama couldn’t get off the field against the Pavia-led offense, which picked up 418 yards of offense.

Never mind the fact that Vandy got its first SEC win since beating Anthony Richardson-led Florida in 2022. That was what helped Vandy clinch its first win vs. an AP No. 1 team in program history. The Dores were 0-60 all-time against AP Top 5 teams pre-DP. That is, “pre-Diego Pavia.”

Sorry. He earned it. He might’ve earned himself a corner of Vandy’s new-look stadium, which darn near collapsed on Saturday. The New Mexico State transfer is now 2-0 against SEC teams from the state of Alabama in the last year.

And to be fair, it’s not just Pavia who deserves credit. It was a masterful offensive game plan from Tim Beck. Fellow New Mexico State transfer Eli Stowers was a machine with 113 receiving yards, 83 of which came after the catch. Clark Lea deserves credit for loving the 2023 version of New Mexico State so much that he brought over all the best parts of it. Lea finally rebuilt Vanderbilt in the transfer portal and that was the culmination of it. Go figure.

Also, go figure that it was Lea and not Kirby Smart who gave Alabama the first “Nick Saban isn’t here anymore” realization. Speaking of that …

Let me be the first to say that the Alabama defense misses Nick Saban

Did the 40 Vandy points convince you of that? Or did you need me to point out that including the second half against UGA, that’s now 67 points allowed in the past 6 quarters? Well, to be fair, Alabama threw a pick-6, so that wasn’t all on the defense. Still, though. Saturday was the first real reminder that Saban wasn’t on that sideline to troubleshoot those defensive woes.

Alabama struggled mightily not just with Pavia’s mobility, but with the scheme. That’s how Vandy converted 12-for-18 on 3rd down. The only inevitability by day’s end was that Vandy was going to find a way to convert and Alabama would be on its heels.

That’s a tough look for new DC Kane Wommack. His unit showed up like it would be able to go through the motions and roll in Nashville. Not against this version of Vandy.

It begs the question — will other mobile quarterbacks find success against the Tide? Up next is LaNorris Sellers, then Nico Iamaleava and Brady Cook. All of those guys shift the pocket and force defensive backs to cover for extended time. That appears to be a major Achilles’ heel.

When Saban predicted at SEC Media Days that Alabama would fail to reach the SEC Championship, he cited the secondary as the potential deterrent. The GOAT might’ve been on to something.

Arkansas knocking off Tennessee should have us all wondering if this is about to be 2007

Sure, upsets happen. But that game, wherein Arkansas lost its 2 best offensive players late, showed why this might be 2007 levels of chaos with elite teams dropping like flies.

Tennessee had a bye week after the monumental Oklahoma win. It had one of the top rushing attacks in America. It had a healthy Nico Iamaleava. It had a defense that should’ve teed off on an Arkansas offense that couldn’t stop turning the football over. Shoot, the Vols even had the advantage of holding Arkansas without a first-half touchdown.

And yet, Arkansas found a way.

After Taylen Green suffered a lower-leg injury, backup Malachi Singleton waltzed his way in for the go-ahead touchdown on a play where the Tennessee defense appeared to let him score to get the ball back. Arkansas hadn’t beaten an AP Top-5 team at home since the 1999 upset of Tennessee, and it was the program’s highest-ranked win since taking down No. 1 LSU in 2007.

Hence, why 2007 feels appropriate.

What’s clear is that even teams like Arkansas, Kentucky and South Carolina all have elite defensive lines that can keep them on the field with virtually anyone. In the transfer portal era, perhaps we’re seeing floors elevated to make the “any given Saturday” cliché a bit more believable.

That’s also perhaps the “sky isn’t falling” takeaway for Tennessee. It was an awful offensive day for Josh Heupel, who watched his team get shut out in the first half for the first time in his career as a head coach. Iamaleava struggled to find any rhythm against a suddenly lights-out Arkansas pass rush, and it didn’t help that he had a banged-up group of receivers.

Tennessee ran into the buzzsaw that was the Arkansas defense. Travis Williams has done a whale of a job with that group. Sam Pittman knocked that DC hire out of the park 2 years ago. As a result, Pittman going into the bye week at 4-2 with wins against Auburn and Tennessee shouldn’t be on anyone’s hot seat.

It pays to be on the right side of chaos.

Texas A&M, welcome to the Playoff conversation. Mizzou, you’re not worthy of that until further notice.

I don’t care if they are both 1-loss teams. Saturday was telling. It was a beatdown. It was a statement. It was the type of game that confirmed a lot of those September issues with Mizzou, and it perhaps made us think new November expectations are in store for A&M in Year 1 of the Mike Elko era.

On the Mizzou side, it was a bad day at the office in many ways. You can tell yourself that the reversed defensive pass interference on 4th down and the waved-off Luther Burden III touchdown totally changed the complexion of the day. You can throw away the collapse after that, as well.

But if you’ve been paying attention, you could see a Mizzou dud coming. It was a rather uninspiring 4-0 having fallen behind by double digits at home to Boston College in Year 1 of the Bill O’Brien era, and needing overtime to survive Vanderbilt at home. So naturally, Mizzou’s first road game saw all of those issues come to the surface.

Mizzou has been undisciplined, the post-Blake Baker defense has been more vulnerable, Brady Cook hasn’t looked like the guy who emerged as one of the nation’s better quarterbacks in 2023 and Burden has been too unhinged at times. All of those things were evident at Texas A&M. The Tigers have issues that might not always surface with a favorable schedule, but against a team like A&M in a hostile atmosphere, Mizzou looked every bit like a middle-of-the-pack SEC team.

A big part of that was how surprised Mizzou looked to see Conner Weigman. His return came at the perfect time. A&M was 3-0 with Marcel Reed, but the passing game had been a work in progress. With Weigman back after the AC joint injury he suffered in Week 2, it was painfully obvious how much more versatile A&M was on offense. He threw just 4 incompletions all day and he averaged 12.5 yards/attempt.

Credit A&M OC Collin Klein. Unlike in Week 1 when Weigman was swallowed whole by Notre Dame’s blitzes, he looked like he was in control against a less aggressive Mizzou attack. Ten different A&M players caught passes, and A&M scored on 7 of its first 9 drives.

Of course, a big part of that was A&M running back Le’Veon Moss, who racked up 138 on the ground and finished off 3 drives with touchdowns. That was the first time since the Kentucky game last year that Mizzou allowed a 100-yard rusher. Moss could’ve had an even bigger day if not for how lopsided it was.

Even if Mizzou’s top-10 ranking was a bit 2023-skewed, A&M now deserves to have its Playoff aspirations reexamined after that. A bye, at Mississippi State and home against LSU will round out the November schedule. For a team that got punched in the mouth out of the gate by Notre Dame, the Aggies have responded nicely.

Year 1 Elko is in full effect.

Georgia still can’t do what Kirby Smart wants

That is, start fast, play complementary football and play a complete game. Did that happen on Saturday? Nope. Instead, Georgia had to grind away at a 3-loss Auburn team and a 31-13 victory never felt like vintage UGA dominance.

To be fair, Carson Beck was better than he was in a mistake-filled first half at Alabama. He wasn’t seeing ghosts like he did in Tuscaloosa. Beck wasn’t perfect — he had a couple of balls that looked like they came out of his hand a bit off — but he was good enough to prevent the result from ever being in doubt.

That’s the positive. The negative is that Georgia’s gap-discipline issues surfaced at moments again on Saturday. Jarquez Hunter took advantage of that with Auburn’s lone touchdown of the day and Auburn averaged 5.8 yards/play, including 5.6 sack-adjusted rushing yards/carry. Sure, it was only 13 points allowed. That was the most Auburn scored at Sanford Stadium since 2009.

In the current context, Georgia doesn’t look like a world-beater yet. It looks like a team that played a dominant second half in its 2 toughest matchups, and it played so-so football in the 2 other games. It’s a good thing that this is the 12-team Playoff, but it’s not a good thing that UGA is 2 weeks away from that monumental showdown at Texas and there’s nothing that can happen against Mississippi State that’ll suggest the Dawgs are out of the woods.

Ole Miss, that’s how you respond when your back is against the wall

A week after Kentucky humbled Lane Kiffin in his 2024 SEC opener, there was a world in which his team dropped to 0-2 against an upset-minded South Carolina squad. It wasn’t crazy to imagine the Ole Miss offensive line getting overwhelmed by South Carolina’s pass rush coming off the bye.

Instead, Ole Miss reminded us why it had its best preseason AP ranking since the Richard Nixon administration. That defense is the best that Kiffin has had, and it certainly looked the part in Columbia. Even without Princely Umanmielen, Ole Miss dominated with its defensive line. Walter Nolen continues to be as advertised since coming over from Texas A&M, and Jared Ivey continues to be one of the most underrated players in the SEC.

By day’s end, Ole Miss had 10 TFLs and 6 sacks. LaNorris Sellers couldn’t do much of anything in his first game back and South Carolina’s offense couldn’t muster those chunk plays. It was telling that Shane Beamer opted for the fake punt in his own territory early. The Gamecocks were overmatched by an Ole Miss team that came into Saturday with some bad intentions after the Kentucky loss.

Oh, and what else should you do when your back is against the wall? Give the ball to JJ Pegues out of the wild cat and let him get 6. Twice.

 

Florida avoided disaster and found a defensive pulse

The Gators hadn’t shown any sign that they could stop the run, so naturally with the No. 2 ground attack in FBS rolling into The Swamp, what did Florida do? Stop the run. UCF didn’t pass the 100-yard mark until the final minutes, and it was held to 108 yards by night’s end.

Florida might’ve struggled offensively in the second half, but because of how well the offense started and how that ground game defense held up, it wasn’t a game that was in doubt. The bye week appeared to serve Florida well.

That marked the Gators’ first win at home vs. an FBS team since Oct. 7, 2023 against Vandy. It had been a minute since the home crowd left with anything to feel good about. It beat the alternative of watching Miami fans take over The Swamp.

On a day of chaos, Florida breathed a sigh of relief.

Connor O'Gara

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.

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