O’Gara: Week 1 in the SEC is here, so here’s what I’ll be thinking about all week

Now we’ve really made it. Game week.

With all due respect to Week 0, this is the real Game Week. A full weekend of football is upon us. Four consecutive days of SEC football will begin Thursday with Mizzou and Arkansas taking on FCS programs that they should beat by roughly a billion points.

Sorry if that’s bulletin board material for Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Murray State. If Arkansas and Mizzou can’t overcome that “disrespect,” that’s on me, I guess.

That’s not a pressing thought on my mind as the real Game Week approaches. These are the SEC things that I’ll be thinking about all week:

Georgia making a statement against Clemson would be ________

“Unsurprising.”

A 2-touchdown spread suggests as much. Much has changed since Georgia and Clemson last met. For starters, UGA was still trying to shake off 1980 jokes while Dabo Swinney was leading the team with the longest active Playoff streak (6). To say that they’ve gone in different directions in the past 3 years would be an understatement. Clemson had twice as many ACC losses last year (4) than UGA has total losses in the past 3 seasons (2). And in case you forgot, both of those UGA losses were against Nick Saban in the SEC Championship.

If the Dawgs treat Clemson like they beat Oregon in the 2022 opener at Mercedes-Benz, what will that really change? We’d all still believe that UGA is the standard of the sport while Clemson is no longer a top-tier program.

But let’s say that doesn’t happen and Clemson actually makes it a 4-quarter game. Would that mean the Tigers are in for a bounce-back year? Could Kirby Smart’s No. 1 program have some potential issues to figure out. Sure.

If Clemson pulls off an upset, strangely, it would send some shockwaves through the sport. Georgia hasn’t lost to a team outside of the SEC since Sam Ehlinger declared that Texas was baaaaaaaaack after a 4-loss 2018 season. Even against the coach responsible for 40% of the titles won by active coaches, a Georgia loss would get the 2010s Alabama loss treatment.

That is, maybe someone else has a shot.

If Riley Leonard navigates Notre Dame debut? Impressive

I’m not locking in my Heisman Trophy vote in August, but let’s think about the circumstances the new Notre Dame starting quarterback faces in his debut Saturday night.

The Duke transfer will oppose Mike Elko, AKA the defensive-minded coach who saw Leonard every day for the past 2 seasons. Do I think Elko might know a thing or 2 about Leonard’s strengths and weaknesses? Absolutely. Perhaps more than any other coach in the sport, Elko should have his defense ready for Leonard.

Let’s also remember that Notre Dame has 2 new starting offensive tackles after Joe Alt and Blake Fisher were selected No. 5 and No. 59 overall, respectively, in the 2024 NFL Draft. That’s significant for all the normal reasons. Trusting the protection is important for a new quarterback, who’ll also be working with a new coordinator (Mike Denbrock) and a new playbook. That takes time.

Speaking of time, something tells me that Nic Scourton and Shemar Turner will try and give Leonard as little of that as possible. Those 2 might lead the best defensive line that Leonard will face all year. Scourton led the Big Ten in sacks as a 19-year-old last year and he’s been the talk of the offseason after returning home to College Station for his pre-Draft year. Scourton should be at the top of Notre Dame’s scouting report. Leonard’s mobility will need to be at midseason form coming off his second ankle surgery since he last saw the field in live action.

On top of all of that, he’ll be battling 108,000 fans in a night game at Kyle Field. College GameDay will be in the house for the first time since Year 1 of the Jimbo Fisher era in 2018. That turned into a thrilling 4-quarter game with Clemson.

It shouldn’t be surprising if the same ensues with Leonard battling that A&M defensive front.

Speaking of transfer quarterbacks, welcome to the pressure cooker, Cam Ward

I had to remind myself that Ward played high school ball in Texas. Why is that significant? In case you haven’t looked at the forecast for Saturday afternoon in Gainesville, it’ll be a bit toasty. Like, hotter than any game that Ward probably played at his previous stops (Washington State and Incarnate Word).

That doesn’t guarantee that Ward will take his Miami debut in stride. It’s been an eventful offseason for the decorated signal-caller. A transfer portal entry, an NFL Draft entry and then another transfer portal entry concluded with him ending up in Coral Gables. That set the stage for an offseason of Miami buzz, which could go out the window if Ward melts down in The Swamp.

Ward and Florida have something in common. Both played for 5-7 seasons. Of course, the former has much more external optimism that 2024 will be a different story. For Florida, the historically daunting schedule will feel slightly more manageable if it can do something that was a weekly struggle during last year’s 5-game losing streak to close the season. That is, get off the field on third down.

Mario Cristobal brought Ward in to make a difference in games like this. If he navigates the new surroundings — and some scorching game-time temps in a hostile atmosphere — that hype train will pick up some steam.

The Kalen DeBoer game plan will be one worth watching, even in a favorable matchup

I’m fascinated to see how DeBoer approaches the Western Kentucky matchup. On one hand, he has an interior offensive line that should dominate the matchup in the trenches, which would suggest that Justice Haynes, Jam Miller and Jalen Milroe should have a heavy workload early.

But at the same time, something tells me that DeBoer would like to get his passing game some positive early reps. Getting Milroe to trust his progressions in this offense will be important for DeBoer and play-caller Nick Sheridan. He has a new-look group of receivers who have earned positive practice reviews, but it’s a different story to see it in real-time. Developing that rapport takes reps.

It’ll also be interesting to see if Washington transfer Parker Brailsford and Milroe are on the same page with the snaps. That was a well-documented issue down to the very last play of Alabama’s season. If it can be an issue-free day for Brailsford, who was the center on the Joe Moore Award-winning Washington offensive line, that would go a long way.

All eyes will be on DeBoer in the first Saban-less Alabama game since the George W. Bush administration.

Oh! I almost forgot! Alabama fans will start sweating bullets if the post-Saban era defense lets TJ Finley — that TJ Finley — carve it up. That probably wouldn’t be the best sign for a defense that’ll face the likes of Carson Beck, Nico Iamaleava and Brady Cook.

The stat that seems impossible but is true that I’ll say a thousand more times …

The last time LSU won a season-opener was 2019. That’s just … impossible. To be fair, LSU faced Power 5 teams in all of those season-openers in the 2020s, the past 2 of which were Florida State teams that won double-digit games. Of course, that’s a touch different than a 4-win Mississippi State team that set SEC passing records because Bo Pelini’s 8-month preparation for the Air Raid offense was to stick in man coverage.

But yeah, there’s more optimism that LSU’s defense should at least have a clue against USC. Blake Baker was brought in from Mizzou after Brian Kelly gutted his entire defensive staff. Baker’s usage of Harold Perkins Jr. — LSU’s newest No. 7 — will be dissected ad nauseam, as will the progression of the secondary. The worst-case scenario is that LSU fans once again watch a defense that seemingly doesn’t have a clue whenever the ball is in the air.

Look at how bad LSU’s pass defense has been in season openers during the 2020s:

• 2020 — 623 passing yards, 10.4 yards/attempt, 5 passing TDs
• 2021 — 260 yards, 16.3 yards/attempt, 3 passing TDs
• 2022 — 260 passing yards, 7.9 yards/attempt, 2 passing TDs
• 2023 — 359 passing yards, 11.2 yards/attempt, 4 passing TDs
• 2024 — TBD

Three different LSU defensive coordinators took part in that.

So naturally, LSU will face the coach (Lincoln Riley) who posted a top-20 passing offense in 6 of his 7 seasons as a head coach and a top-7 passing offense 4 times, including each of the past 2 years at USC. Of course, Miller Moss doesn’t quite have the pedigree of Caleb Williams. That’s the good news for LSU.

The bad news is that it’s still a bottom-15 pass defense from 2023, so a return to “DBU” might not be evident from the jump.

Which SEC team will have the most embarrassing Week 1?

All of those aforementioned teams face power conference squads, so it’s probably not fair to say that they’re prime candidates for “embarrassment.” That’s different than playing a 4-quarter game with an FCS foe. Tennessee didn’t lose to an FCS foe, but that Georgia State loss to open 2019 will always qualify for an “embarrassing Week 1” showing. That’s the standard here.

Nine SEC teams are starting in the AP Top 25. Those are extremely unlikely candidates to suffer some Group of 5/FCS embarrassment. More likely would be South Carolina against Old Dominion or Kentucky against Southern Miss.

Obviously if any SEC team gets upset, you can bet the anti-SEC crowd will argue that the conference is in for a down year and that it won’t be worthy of getting a certain amount of Playoff bids.

That’s probably the safest bet for Week 1.

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.