Takeaways, trends, and technicalities from Week 13 in the SEC.

Deep in the archives of the long-running webcomic xkcd, there’s a single-panel entry that I think about often. It’s captioned “All Sports Commentary,” which sums up the sprawling edifice of 24/7 jabber that is sports media in 18 words.

It’s kinda funny because it’s kinda true, especially if (like me) your lane is more of the analytical, “Here’s what the games mean” bent than the human-interest, “Meet the actual human being under the helmet” bent. At the end of the day, every wild, emotional, mercurial college football Saturday boils down to a new batch of numbers: scores and stats that, added to the infinite pile of scores and stats we already have, help us put the games in perspective, test and update our assumptions and, yes, build narratives. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s breaking out? Who’s crashing and burning? Whose buyout is within the realm of plausibility? Who’s got the juice to go all the way? The numbers don’t always make perfect sense, but by this time of year — rivalry week, the last chapter of the regular season — they have usually coalesced into something like a coherent story.

Thirteen weeks in, what is the story of the 2024 SEC football season? Whatever it is, it’s certainly not coherent. The “weighted random number generator” has rarely been more random. On Saturday, when 3 would-be SEC heavies saw their Playoff hopes dealt a mortal blow by unranked underdogs, it wasn’t even weighted. Narrative threads are lying abandoned all over the place, some of which have been picked back up only to be promptly abandoned again. If anything, the grand unifying theme across the sport has been chaos — the feeling that nothing is certain and everything could change on a dime.

If your job is to make some kind of sense of the results, let me tell you, this season has felt a little like building a sand castle you know is at the mercy of the tide. For most of the 9 years (!) that I’ve been cranking out this column, I’ve been griping that Alabama and/or Georgia lording over the rest of the conference year after year was boring; inevitably, one or the other — or both — represented the SEC in the Playoff in all 10 seasons of the 4-team CFP era except 2019. If there was any uncertainty, it was only over which it would be. It took one of the greatest college offenses ever assembled to break the UGA/Bama grip on the league, and even then it was only for a single season. At no other point in that span was the outcome in any real doubt.

But it turns out a season when nearly everything is in doubt has not made the job easier. In conference play, last week’s takes have been in danger of being washed out to sea on a weekly basis. Beginning with Kentucky’s Week 5 upset at Ole Miss, at least 1 top-10 SEC team has lost to a lower-ranked or unranked opponent on 9 consecutive Saturdays, a ritual bloodbath that has left no contender unspared. In fact, with its 24-17 loss at Florida, Ole Miss alone has been on the wrong end of that streak 3 times, blowing its investment in a $10 million roster and canceling out a landmark win over Georgia in the process.

For the record, so has Alabama, whose bizarre, boom-or-bust campaign just landed definitively on BUST in a 24-3 meltdown at Oklahoma that defied everything we thought we knew about both teams. It took less than a year after Nick Saban’s retirement for the most famously upset-proof outfit in the sport to become a full-blown basket case. Actually, on the field it took barely a month: This was the same team, of course, that followed up its epic Week 5 win over Georgia — an instant classic that vaulted Bama to No. 1 for the 1st time in 2 years — by losing to Vanderbilt for the 1st time in my lifetime against the backdrop of a literal construction zone.

The mistake, it turns out, was assuming the peak was real and the valley a blip. Not in 2024! As soon as the Tide played their way back onto the championship track in blowout wins over Missouri and LSU (both ranked at the time), they bottomed out in even ghastlier fashion against a shorthanded, demoralized OU team that came in 1-5 in conference play. Jalen Milroe, 2 weeks removed from arguably the best outing of his career in Baton Rouge, served up indisputably his worst in another game Bama had to have. At kickoff, he was the SEC’s best bet to mount a late Heisman surge. By time the whiplash wears off, a flurry of interceptions in Norman might be the last thing most people remember before he makes his decision to stay or go pro in 2025.

But Bama’s volatility is notable mainly for being out of character for Bama, not for the conference as a whole, which boasts more volatility right now — or “parity,” if you’re on Greg Sankey’s payroll — than it has in many years. Two teams, Texas and South Carolina, share the longest active winning streak vs. FBS opponents at 4 games apiece; no other team has won more than 2 straight against any opponents, SEC or otherwise. Whom do you trust as a potential standard-bearer for the league heading into the postseason? Texas? The 10-1 Longhorns are in the driver’s seat thanks to their consistency against a middling schedule, but they lost decisively against the only remotely CFP-caliber opponent they’ve faced, Georgia, back in Week 8. Georgia? Only 2 weeks ago, the Bulldogs were exposed on both lines of scrimmage in a 28-10 beatdown at Ole Miss, the culmination of an underwhelming month since their September loss in Tuscaloosa. Are we supposed to pretend that a come-from-behind win over Tennessee in Week 12 suddenly refreshed their status as The Team No One Wants to Play with the season on the line? Tennessee? Get back to me when the Vols win a road game that matters. Uh, Texas A&M? You get the point.

The narrative is elusive, and not only where it concerns the Playoff. Barring a surprise (never say never), no SEC head coach is poised to lose his job, a pretty remarkable situation given the stakes and the number of potential candidates before the season. In September, Billy Napier is a dead man walking; by November, he’s not only surviving but, against all odds, thriving following season-saving, momentum-generating upsets over LSU and Ole Miss. Meanwhile, Brian Kelly’s stock at LSU has plummeted; a 6-game winning streak collapsed abruptly into a 3-game losing streak, followed by the defection of the No. 1 recruit in the 2025 class to Michigan. Arch Manning comes off the bench in September, looks the part in relief of an injured Quinn Ewers, inspires visions of a bona fide controversy, then barely sees the field over the next 2 months despite squarely middle-of-the-road production from Ewers. The conference has not produced a 1st-tier Heisman candidate bound for New York. The hottest team in the conference in the home stretch is … South Carolina? Okay?

The Shape of the Bubble

As a writer, that constant shifting of solid ground can leave you feeling adrift, desperate to plant your feet whether the position is still going to be load-bearing in a week or 2 or not. As a fan, on the other hand — of the sport, not of any team in particular — watching this season unfold in real time has been a blast. I’m having as much from 1 Saturday to the next as I can remember, precisely because the more I watch, the less I feel like I know how the story is going to end. It has been a long time since this much uncertainty loomed this late on the calendar, by which point the Playoff math has usually narrowed to a few relatively clear-cut scenarios involving the usual suspects. But the arrival of the expanded CFP has meant more suspects and less urgency to plot out every possible course the field might take. For one thing, who has the time? And for another, what would be the point? The absence of a plainly dominant team or narrative through line has reinforced over and over again that anything can still happen, and probably will.

Consider that, with 2 Saturdays to go before the bracket is filled, 20 teams still have at least a 10% chance of making the cut per ESPN’s Football Power Index, including the likes of Indiana, Arizona State, Iowa State, BYU, UNLV and Army — 6 teams that combined to finish 9 games below .500 last year and (with the possible exception of Indiana) would have no shot at making the cut if the 4-team bracket was still in effect this year. It’s Rivalry Weekend, and all of these teams matter. One member of that list is almost certainly going to earn an automatic CFP ticket out of the Big 12, where ASU (picked to finish dead last in the preseason media poll), ISU and BYU are part of a 4-way tie atop the conference standings along with Colorado. Indiana, coming off its 1st loss of the season at Ohio State, is playing to lock up an at-large bid this weekend against 1-10 Purdue in what might be the 1st nationally relevant edition of the Old Oaken Bucket ever. Games that would be a footnote at best to the rest of the country are suddenly integral to the story.

Notably, the 10% Club does not include Texas A&M, which — despite the fact that the Aggies just suffered their 2nd consecutive loss in conference play at the hands of an unranked opponent — still controls its own destiny in the CFP race if it bounces back to beat Texas this weekend (in College Station) and Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Usually, this would be the point to say something like “stranger things have happened,” but as far as the national championship picture is concerned, they haven’t. We’re in a strange, compelling new world that’s refreshing the outlook by the week without necessarily making it any clearer.

The most compelling part is the simple fact that somebody has to win it. The best current odds to win the national title per FPI belong to Ohio State (21.7%) and Texas (21.2%), followed by Notre Dame (11.2%) and Georgia (10.9%). The unanimous No. 1 team in both of the traditional polls, Oregon, checks in at 7.7%, reflecting the general analytical skepticism of the Ducks despite their 11-0 record. Along with Penn State (5.9%), that adds up to a little more than 75% chance that the eventual champ is 1 of those 6 teams. Not coincidentally, all 6 were all ranked in the top 8 in the preseason AP poll, and have spent all season there, while the bottom two-thirds of the poll has undergone upheaval. If (or when) 1 of them does win it all, it will probably feel inevitable in hindsight, like we all saw it, or should have seen it, coming all along.

But that is not the case right now: Let the record show that, as the curtain prepares to drop on the regular season, when it comes to singling out any given contender, the smart money is still on the field. There are plenty of doubts about all of the would-be frontrunners, including Ohio State, which may boast the nation’s most expensive roster but has also lost 5 straight winner-take-all games with a championship on the line. That could always change, too. But until the confetti falls, this is a season when any and all assumptions are up for revision right up to the end.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Ole Miss DL Walter Nolen. Nolen was the best player on the field in the Rebels’ 24-17 loss at Florida, routinely wrecking the Gators’ plans in the backfield in a losing effort. Pro Football Focus credited him with 4 QB pressures, 2 sacks and 7 stops, which PFF defines as tackles that constitute a “failure” for the offense based on down and distance. If he’s not an All-American on the interior D-line, something has gone wrong.

2. Florida DL Tyreak Sapp and Caleb Banks. Sapp and Banks shared this position last week following a breakout afternoon against LSU, and they’re back after a nearly identical effort in the Gators’ win over Ole Miss. Together, they combined for 12 QB pressures and 6 tackles for loss against the Rebels, including 4 sacks. Everyone in Gainesville is rightfully excited about burgeoning face-of-the-program QB DJ Lagway, but keeping these 2 in the fold should be a major offseason priority.

3. Auburn WR Cam Coleman and KeAndre Lambert-Smith. Auburn has been waiting for Coleman, the gem of the 2024 recruiting class, to show up in SEC play. Finally, he broke out in a big way against Texas A&M, hauling in 7 receptions for a season-high 128 yards and 2 touchdowns in an emotional, quadruple-overtime thriller. Lambert-Smith didn’t get as many balls thrown his way, but he made them count: His 2 receptions in regulation covered 60 and 44 yards, respectively, and he hauled in what turned out to be the game-winning 2-point conversion in traffic in the 4th and final OT session.

4. Oklahoma CB Eli Bowen. Bowen, another true freshman, was no secret to Oklahoma fans, his emergence a silver lining in a disappointing season. He introduced himself to a national audience in the Sooners’ 24-3 romp over Alabama, picking off 1 pass, breaking up another and allowing just 1 reception on 5 targets. His 3rd-quarter INT off Jalen Milroe set up a short-field Oklahoma touchdown that put the Sooners up 17-3 and turned a simmering upset bid into a party that went on the rest of the night.

5. Texas RB Quintrevion Wisner. Texas’ backfield typically works by committee, but Wisner pulled workhorse duty in a 31-14 win over Kentucky, churning out 158 yards and 1 touchdown on 6.1 per carry; per PFF, nearly 60% of that total came after contact, as a result of a conference-best 9 missed tackles forced. Wisner’s running mate, Jaydon Blue, also comes in for an honorable mention, adding 96 yards on 6.4 per carry on an emphatic afternoon for the Longhorns’ ground game.

Honorable Mention: Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr., who recorded a team-high 10 tackles, 3 TFLs and 1 forced fumble on a dominant afternoon for the Longhorns’ front 7 as a unit. … Tennessee edge James Pearce Jr., who had 4 QB pressures and 2 sacks on just 14 pass-rushing snaps in the Vols’ blowout win over UTEP. … Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter, who churned out 130 yards and 3 touchdowns on a career-high 28 carries in the Tigers’ emotional win over Texas A&M. … Texas A&M WR Noah Thomas, who hauled in 5 catches for a career-high 124 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Tigers. … Missouri WR Luther Burden III, who did Luther Burden things in a 7-catch, 91-yard outing at Mississippi State. … LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier, who threw for 332 yards and 1 touchdown on 9.0 per attempt in a 24-17 win over Vanderbilt. … South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers, who accounted for 360 total yards and 4 touchdowns in a blowout win over Wofford. … And Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold, whose 131-yard rushing effort against Alabama potentially changed the trajectory of his tenure as the Sooners’ starter.

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The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for second, 5 for third, 4 for fourth, 3 for fifth and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.



SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. TEXAS (10–1). The Longhorns’ transformation into a line-of-scrimmage team is complete on both side of the ball. Now they have to figure out how to start generating more sparks from the downfield passing game against opponents who aren’t as readily pushed around as Kentucky. | Last Week: 1 ⬌

2. GEORGIA (9–2). Not to read too much into a routine 59-21 romp over UMass, but the Minutemen piled up more rushing yards (226) than Georgia has allowed to any opponent on the ground since a 2018 loss to LSU. | Last Week: 4 ⬆

3. TENNESSEE (9–2). The Vols got exactly the breaks they needed from Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M losses, setting up a near-certain CFP-clinching opportunity at Vanderbilt. For some reason, that sentence sounds a lot more ominous than it should. | Last Week: 5 ⬆

4. OLE MISS (8–3). Sympathies to Jaxson Dart, who made some elite throws in Ole Miss’ loss at Florida before serving up a pair of game-clinching, season-killing picks in the closing minutes that everyone is going to remember instead. The Rebels really lost the game on their only 3 trips in the red zone, failing on a pair of 4th-and-1 conversions and missing what should have been a chip-shot field goal. | Last Week: 3 ⬇

5. ALABAMA (8–3). I’ve been waiting for the Crimson Tide to be eliminated from the Playoff race to shovel dirt on the Bama dynasty — What if they looked like the best version of themselves down the stretch on their way to a postseason surge? — but as the clocked ticked down on Saturday night’s 24-3 debacle at Oklahoma, it was already too late. At their absolute worst, the Saban-era Tide never looked that listless and dysfunctional, even in defeat, and certainly not against an unranked, 2-touchdown underdog just playing out the string on a deflating season of its own. Alabama was supposed to be the side in that game with something to play for. It wouldn’t have come as any great shock in August to imagine Kalen DeBoer losing 3 games in his debut season. But when 2 of those losses are against Vanderbilt and Somehow Worse Than Vanderbilt, the brand is cooked. | Last Week: 2 ⬇

6. SOUTH CAROLINA (8–3). The Gamecocks are playing as well any team in the conference right now, riding a 5-game winning streak that includes wins over Texas A&M and Missouri. Is there a path to the Playoff? With a win over Clemson this weekend, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. (The game is at Clemson, for what it’s worth.) The Gamecocks would need some combination of the following scenarios, from most important for their chances to least:

1. Texas A&M eliminated by loss to Texas or Georgia in SEC Championship Game
2. Tennessee eliminated by loss at Vanderbilt
3. ACC chaos: SMU/Miami loss(es) vs. Cal/Syracuse, potentially eliminating loser of ACC Championship Game
4. A decisive result in the Big 12 Championship Game, eliminating the loser
5. B1G chaos: Indiana/Penn State loss(es) vs. Purdue/Michigan State, dropping Hoosiers/Lions to the bubble

I wouldn’t bet on it, but other than the last line (Indiana is not losing to a hapless version of Purdue), nothing on that list is outlandish on its own. Even if everything breaks Carolina’s way, though, it would still need the committee to elevate it above Alabama and Ole Miss despite head-to-head losses to both at midseason, before the Gamecocks hit their stride. | Last Week: 6 ⬌

7. TEXAS A&M (8–3). The Aggies can still get where they want to go, but blowing their margin for error in 4 overtimes at Auburn is going to sting if they come up short the next 2 weeks. | Last Week: 7 ⬌

8. MISSOURI (8–3). Mizzou has struggled against some of the top teams on the schedule, but it never gets caught with its pants down against teams it should beat. Saturday’s 39-20 win at Mississippi State was the Tigers’ 14th straight against unranked opponents (as of kickoff). | Last Week: 8 ⬌

9. FLORIDA (6–5). I’ll have more on Lagway’s performance against Ole Miss in this week’s SEC quarterback rankings, but suffice to say he is well on his way to justifying the hype and singlehandedly salvaging the Napier era. Consistency remains an issue, but Lagway easily passes the most important test for a freshman: When he looks good, he looks like a star. | Last Week: 11 ⬆

10. LSU (7–4). The Tigers delivered a badly-needed win over Vanderbilt, and they got something even better in the meantime: bad losses by 3 different rivals that helped to deflect some of the heat that has been directed lately at Kelly. | Last Week: 9 ⬇

11. OKLAHOMA (6–5). The SEC fined Oklahoma not just once but twice as a result of fans storming the field following the Sooners’ ambush of Alabama. The league tacked on the 2nd fine because the crowd initially poured onto the field with a few seconds still on the clock, causing a lengthy delay so they could be ushered off, only to storm the field again as the clock actually hit zeroes. Yeah, $200k is chump change for a big-time SEC outfit these days, but seriously folks: How hard is it to wait until the clock runs out? It’s getting a little ridiculous. | Last Week: 13 ⬆

12. ARKANSAS (6–5). The Razorbacks beat Louisiana Tech, 35-14, in what for them qualified as a relatively subdued outing. Up next: at Missouri, where they’re looking to ensure a winning record. | Last Week: 12 ⬌

13. VANDERBILT (6–5). Diego Pavia has been a godsend for Vandy, but he hasn’t had enough help as the offense has stagnated over the 2nd half of the season. Altogether, he has accounted for just shy of 75% of the Commodores’ total yards on the year, the highest individual share in the conference. | Last Week: 10 ⬇

14. AUBURN (5–6). Hugh Freeze desperately needed a win like the Tigers’ triple-OT triumph over Texas A&M, especially at home: Prior to Saturday, Auburn was 1-7 against Power 5 opponents in Jordan-Hare under Freeze, including 0-4 this year — all in games the Tigers were favored to win. Maybe they just needed to be underdogs to get the vibe right. | Last Week: 14 ⬌

15. KENTUCKY (4–7). True freshman Cutter Boley is not necessarily the quarterback of the future, but after coming off the bench to take most of the snaps in the Wildcats’ loss at Texas, he’s getting his chance to be. His next audition will come in this weekend’s finale against Louisville. | Last Week: 15 ⬌

16. MISSISSIPPI STATE (2–9). The Bulldogs won’t complain about watching Ole Miss’ Playoff hopes go up in smoke in The Swamp, but you know they want to play spoiler in the Egg Bowl themselves. | Last Week: 16 ⬌

Moment of Zen of the Week

https://bsky.app/profile/redditcfb.com/post/3lbnh6bsbr22b

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Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.