Ad Disclosure
It’s getting real now.
The final weekend of October had plenty of games with SEC Championship implications. For those of us who want a bit of chaos, we’re going to get plenty of matchups like that in November, as well because only 1 SEC team without a conference loss remains.
Shoutout to you, Texas A&M. Somehow, while facing a double-digit deficit, you flipped the Marcel Reed switch and made it happen.
Week 9 was loaded with intrigue. After all, the SEC had 3 matchups of ranked teams.
Here were the biggest takeaways from Saturday:
A&M just shook up the entire SEC race in roughly half a quarter of football
Stunning. Drastic. Unthinkable.
Pick any way you’d like to describe A&M’s comeback and subsequent beatdown of LSU. They all work.
In what felt like the biggest game at Kyle Field of the post-Johnny Manziel era, the Aggies went from letting a winnable game slip away to dominating. The switch from Conner Weigman to Marcel Reed, much like when the former replaced the latter ahead of Mizzou, was the exact right button to push in that moment. LSU’s defense had no response whatsoever for Reed, who led 5 scoring drives in the final 23 minutes, 4 of which were touchdowns.
Don’t forget it was the A&M defense that sparked that run with an interception of Garrett Nussmeier after he looked like he was rolling in the first half. He forced a throw on 3rd and 2 that was picked off by BJ Mayes, which was when Mike Elko pulled the trigger on putting in Reed.
That sent Kyle Field into a frenzy that it never looked back on. The question is if A&M will do the same en route to Atlanta.
For the first time since joining the SEC, the Aggies are the last remaining unbeaten team in conference play. This isn’t just “controlling its own fate” type of stuff. A&M has 2 quarterbacks who did the heavy lifting to beat top-10 teams. What can derail A&M at this point? With 3 conference games left, A&M will have to win conference games at South Carolina and Auburn to set up a monumental showdown in the Texas renewal.
With how well the Aggies responded late in a game in which they looked buried, who would rule that out?
I went from crowning Garrett Nussmeier to feeling like he was helpless
In the first half, Nussmeier looked completely unfazed in a hostile atmosphere. He showed NFL throws and looked every bit like a sneaky Round 1 prospect for an LSU team that looked poised to take control of the SEC race.
But that 1 forced throw on 3rd down torpedoed Nussmeier. He threw 2 more interceptions, and honestly, he got away with a throw to Mason Taylor on the opposite side of the field that probably should’ve been intercepted. Nussmeier was so rattled that he didn’t even seem to have any concept of the clock in the final minutes with LSU down 2 touchdowns.
Nussmeier didn’t get much help from an LSU rushing attack that had -2 rushing yards in the first quarter, nor did the kicking game do its part even before Reed took over. But it was clear that the LSU quarterback was helpless against the Aggies once that crowd got back into it. A&M even got to Nussmeier twice after he had only been sacked twice all year.
It was a stunning collapse from someone who looked like he was shaping up for an All-SEC season. That’s still on the table, but it’ll have to wait a couple weeks until Nussmeier tries to keep LSU’s Playoff hopes alive against … Alabama.
A crazy thought? Texas played mostly well at Vandy and won by 3
Yeah, Vandy took advantage of a couple of tipped passes and the Texas offensive line has had better days. I get that. It wasn’t a vintage Texas performance, especially when you consider that the Longhorns committed 10 penalties for 108 yards.
But if you had told anyone in the preseason that Texas would play in a 3-point game at Vandy, the takeaway would’ve been “what in the world is wrong with the Longhorns?” Instead, the takeaway from Saturday in Nashville was, “wow, Vandy is anything but a fluke.” Texas had to battle to avoid a repeat of Alabama.
The difference between the Longhorns and the Tide was what happened on 3rd down. Texas held Vandy to 3-for-12 on 3rd down while Alabama was gashed for 12 3rd-down conversions in its loss in Nashville. Vandy didn’t have a touchdown drive of longer than 38 yards until the final minute when it trailed by 10. Credit the Texas defense for preventing the Diego Pavia Heisman Trophy campaign from getting even more life.
Pavia left the game briefly with what appeared to be a leg injury similar to what he suffered against Kentucky. But as expected, that absence was brief. He still made plays with his legs and proved to be a nightmare to bring down. Texas didn’t sack him once, though Pavia did see pressure and he was picked off twice (it could’ve been a third interception but a roughing the passer penalty called off a pick-6). Vandy’s offense was held to 4.3 yards/play and it had 1 play of 20 yards.
In other words, Texas’ defense didn’t have any sort of Georgia hangover. I’d argue the offense didn’t, either. Ewers responded well after that rough start even though he was without top target Isaiah Bond. It’s not an elite downfield passing attack without Bond, but Saturday was about survival.
Welcome to the 2024 Vandy experience — anyone should be considered fortunate to survive Pavia and the Dores.
Also, Quinn Ewers is still QB1 in Austin
Sorry.
Just needed to say that in case someone thought Arch Manning was about to get reps at Vandy after Ewers’ brief benching last week against Georgia. He didn’t play and after a slow start, Ewers reminded us all why he’s one of the nation’s better signal-callers.
Moving along.
Alabama beat Mizzou in a Playoff elimination game, but it’s fair to have questions about the Tide even after a 34-0 beatdown
The Tide deserved the right to feel good after a day in which it earned its first multi-score win against SEC competition since last year at Kentucky. It wasn’t just a comfortable victory. It was a shutout in which the Tide rushing attack ran for 282 sack-adjusted yards and it scored all 4 touchdowns. That’s a positive, as was the fact that Alabama didn’t turn the ball over for the first time since the Wisconsin game. Beating a ranked team 34-0 shouldn’t be taken for granted after the year that was, even if it did come against a Mizzou offense that lost an already banged-up version of Brady Cook.
But if we’re speaking big picture, here’s the issue with Saturday’s showing. Those penalty yards are still a problem. Alabama entered Saturday with an average of 78 penalty yards per game, and yet even in a favorable matchup against an overwhelmed Mizzou team, the Tide racked up 85 penalty yards.
Discipline is a problem. That’s not something you want to have hanging over you in the final month of the season, especially when the margin for error is gone. It wasn’t the difference in a game like this because Alabama took advantage of some short fields via Mizzou turnovers and then it leaned on the ground game in the second half.
What’s troubling to think about is what that’ll mean on the road, where Alabama already had 2 losses in which it had double-digit penalties. I’m not sure a bye week will fix that. If not, the Tide could watch those Playoff dreams die in Death Valley.
Mizzou’s future won’t include the Playoff, and now the questions begin
Stick a for in the Tigers’ favorable path to the Playoff. Loss No. 2 was also blowout loss No. 2. A week after Brady Cook returned from the hospital to rally late against Auburn, he didn’t make it to halftime against the Tide, which prompted the Drew Pyne experience.
Yeah, no need to dig into that.
But it’s worth digging into Mizzou’s future beyond this Playoff-less season. You’ve got an incredibly experienced team — Mizzou was No. 18 in FBS in percentage of returning production — who’ll undergo a major offensive transformation this offseason. Brady Cook and Theo Wease are out of eligibility. Luther Burden III is all over the early mock drafts. Both running back transfers are veterans. We don’t know what’s in store for OC Kirby Moore, who could be in line for another opportunity at season’s end. On top of that, former QB of the future Sam Horn had Tommy John surgery in February and could be out all of spring, as well.
That’s a troubling thought because it feels like a Playoff window was missed with what Mizzou returned on offense and how favorable that SEC schedule appeared to be. Eli Drinkwitz will have his work cut out for him at season’s end. Fortunately, the Corey Batoon defense could be the new foundation.
Not so fortunately, Mizzou will close 2024 wondering why it couldn’t recreate its 2023 magic.
As nasty as that pass rush is, Ole Miss won’t have a chance to weather the storm unless …
“Tre Harris is healthy.”
That’s reality. And again, I’m not trying to take away from the fact that Ole Miss had 15 tackles for loss with a pass rush that was virtually unstoppable, though it’s worth remembering that was against an Oklahoma offensive line that was on its 7th different combination of starters and it was without its top 5 receivers.
But without Harris, Ole Miss struggled to do much of anything in the first half. It was an ineffective Jaxson Dart, who lacked someone who could stretch the field. Harris, who entered the day as the FBS leader in receiving yards, was out with a lower-body injury that sidelined him down the stretch at LSU. In the first half, Dart led just 1 touchdown drive and it trailed as a 3-score favorite to an Oklahoma team that was without its top 5 receivers.
To make matters worse for Ole Miss, it was bottled up in the ground game with 43 rushing yards in the first half. Credit the Oklahoma defense, which continued to show it has a pulse even though the Sooners’ depleted offense has been in shambles all season.
While Dart led a much more efficient offense in the third quarter — he shook off a 3-for-8 start by completing 19 of his next 22 passes — it’s hard not to think about Harris’ status moving forward. Juice Wells hasn’t turned into the go-to receiver that Ole Miss hoped he’d be after he transferred from South Carolina, and while Jordan Watkins made plays in Harris’ absence, there wasn’t a true deep threat.
It’s become obvious watching the Ole Miss offense — if it doesn’t have a healthy Harris down the stretch, it has at least 1 more loss ahead (and maybe more). That could be on display as soon as next week when Kiffin’s squad travels to face an improved Arkansas squad.
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.
