Everything you need to know about the Week 13 SEC slate, all in one place.

Game of the Week: Ole Miss (–10.5) at Florida

The stakes

Playoff-or-bust mode is in full effect in Oxford. Ole Miss has been as aggressive as any team in the portal era in its determination to build a Playoff-caliber roster, and its investment is on the cusp of paying off. Following their landmark win over Georgia in Week 11, the Rebels appear safely in the field, coming in at No. 9 in the CFP committee’s weekly rankings — crucially, just ahead of the other 2-loss SEC teams on the bubble, Georgia and Tennessee — and boast good odds of making the cut according to the forecast models at both ESPN (67%) and The Athletic (70%). Those numbers go way up if you plug in wins the next 2 weeks against Florida and Mississippi State.

Are the models foolproof? They are not, especially when it comes to predicting the results of a 100% subjective process. But as the picture begins to come into focus, the implications are clear enough: If they close out a 10-2 regular season, the Rebels have every reason to expect a CFP ticket will be waiting for them on Dec. 8. (Of course, the way the bracket is shaping up, it might be a ticket to somewhere cold, but if you don’t want to pack an extra layer or 2, you know, don’t lose to Kentucky.)

First, though, all of that requires surviving the next 2 weeks, and Ole Miss is in no position to mentally sim past a trip to The Swamp. For all the angst they’ve endured this year, the Gators remain a live threat. Since midseason, Florida has taken Tennessee to overtime; blown out Kentucky; held its own against Georgia in a game that was tied with 5 minutes to go in the 4th quarter; and, last week, turned in its best performance of the season in a 27-16 upset over LSU. At 5-5, bowl eligibility and a winning record are on the table, no small benchmarks for a program that missed a bowl game last year and hasn’t finished above .500 overall since the 2020 plague season. For a long time, it looked like the home finale against the Rebels would be part of a doomed effort to save Billy Napier‘s job amid a brutal November schedule; instead, Napier has already been assured he’ll be back in 2025, and the gauntlet the Gators have been dreading all year has been recast as an opportunity to sail into the offseason with the wind at their backs.

The stat: 75.6%

That’s the percentage of Ole Miss’ offensive and defensive snaps in its Week 11 win over Georgia manned by transfers, according to snap count totals via Pro Football Focus.

Whoever said you can’t build a contender through the portal? Seventeen of the Rebels’ 22 starters against the Bulldogs began their careers elsewhere, including starting QB Jaxson Dart (USC); three-fifths of the starting O-line; and 8 of the 9 skill players who touched the ball on offense. (Notably, it did not include the Rebels’ leading rusher for the season, Miami transfer Henry Parrish Jr., or their leading receiver, Louisiana Tech transfer Tre Harris, neither of whom played against UGA due to injuries. Parrish remains on the shelf this week, but Harris is listed as probable to return to the lineup for the 1st time in a month.) The mercenary trend was even more dramatic on defense, where 12 of the top 14 in terms of snap counts were former imports from other FBS schools. And let’s not forget the kicker, Texas A&M transfer Caden Davis, who was 5-of-5 on field-goal attempts against UGA with a long of 53 yards.

Every aspect of the roster has been overhauled by the portal to some extent, but none more thoroughly than the defensive line, which has transformed over the course of Lane Kiffin‘s tenure from arguably the team’s biggest liability into arguably the most productive front in the country. Between Jared Ivey (Georgia Tech), Walter Nolen (Texas A&M), JJ Pegues (Auburn), and Princely Umanmielen (Florida), all of the Rebels’ big-ticket portal additions on the D-line over the past 2 seasons have been hits, as has have blue-chip recruits Zxavian Harris and Suntarine Perkins, the highest-rated players in Ole Miss’ 2022 and ’23 recruiting classes, respectively. Throw in highly disruptive linebacker Chris Paul Jr. (Arkansas), and the result is a unit that leads the nation in sacks, tackles for loss and overall havoc. Against Georgia, the edge-rushing rotation alone — Ivey, Perkins and Umanmielen — combined for 15 QB pressures, 5 sacks and a pair of forced fumbles, harassing Carson Beck into the worst game of his career without having to expend extra rushers to do it. If the Rebels can continue to count on that kind of pressure on a weekly basis, they’ve got a shot at playing well into January.

The big question: Has DJ Lagway arrived?

Lagway is still just getting his feet wet as Florida’s starting quarterback, completing barely half of his passes in SEC play with as many interceptions (4) as touchdowns. In keeping with his 5-star recruiting hype, though, the half that he has connected on have been impressive. Per PFF, 11% of Lagway’s 121 attempts on the season have qualified as Big Time Throws — “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window” — the highest rate of any quarterback nationally with at least 100 dropbacks. Yeah, there’s as much art behind that number as verifiable data, so take it for what it’s worth. But on attempts of 20+ air yards, specifically, he also leads the FBS in both completion percentage (61.5%) and yards per attempt (24.5), easily passing the eye test in the process. You don’t need any data to confirm the kid can spin it.

This is a hell of a play from Lagway, they did get it in on the next play

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero.bsky.social) 2024-11-16T23:32:31.569Z

In that sense, Lagway has already supplied the offense with the 1 element it was sorely lacking under his injured predecessor, Graham Mertz: downfield juice. The next step is improving at … well, everything else. Lagway’s 16 completions on attempts of 20+ air yards have accounted for almost exactly half of his total passing yards and 5 of his 7 touchdowns — 3 of which came in target practice against an FCS doormat, Samford, way back in Week 2. In particular, Lagway has struggled on intermediate attempts (10-19 air yards), completing just 13-of-35 with 4 interceptions. Typical freshman stuff.

But Lagway isn’t a typical freshman: He’s an emerging face of the program whom the Gators are banking on leading them back to national relevance ASAP. Boom-or-bust tendencies notwithstanding, all the lights are green coming off his 1st really high-profile win over LSU. Adding a top-10 skin to the wall this early in his career would mark a potential turning point of Napier’s tenure.

The key matchup: Florida WR Elijhah Badger vs. Ole Miss CB Trey Amos

No one has benefited more from Lagway’s bombs-away mentality than Badger, an Arizona State transfer who has emerged as the Gators’ favorite downfield target. For the season, Badger ranks 2nd nationally at 23.0 yards per catch, and he has eclipsed the 100-yard mark in all 3 games that Lagway has started and finished. On the other side, Amos has quietly been one of the SEC’s most bankable corners in his 1st year as a Rebel, chalking up a league-best 14 passes defensed (3 interceptions, 11 passes broken up) vs. 2 touchdowns at his expense, per PFF. More relevant to his matchup with Badger: Amos has not been beaten deep, with a long gain allowed of just 24 yards on 53 targets.

The verdict

“10-point favorite in a November road trip” is such a classic trap-game scenario for Ole Miss that the trap is visible from miles away. Many promising seasons have run aground under exactly such conditions. Florida has been left for dead on multiple occasions, most recently following a blowout loss at Texas in Week 11 with Lagway and half the starting defense on the shelf with injuries. But last week’s rebound win over LSU felt like a potential turning point. The Gators have won 4 straight at home since getting booed out of the stadium in ugly September losses to Miami and Texas A&M, salvaging a kernel of dignity as well as their head coach’s job. With Lagway’s rapid growth, this weekend is an opportunity to convert that kernel into honest-to-god momentum.

Just how fluidly the Rebels handle the moment can tell us something about their postseason potential. Championship teams navigate these kinds of tests with a minimum of drama. The injury report offers no excuses. If they’re really thinking big, this needs to be a routine business trip that the rest of the country can safely ignore while glued to Indiana-Ohio State.
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Ole Miss 29 | • Florida 20

Alabama (–13.5) at Oklahoma

Hey, remember Ryan Williams? After a blistering September, Bama’s electric freshman wideout has leveled off in the weeks since his breakout performance against Georgia. The Tide certainly haven’t forgotten about him: Over the past 6 games he has been targeted 46 times, including an astounding 19 targets in their Week 8 loss at Tennessee. But the volume hasn’t translated into production, yielding a pedestrian 6.6 yards per target in that span and more drops (5) than touchdowns (3). Alarmingly, he doesn’t have a reception on a pass of 20+ air yards since his spectacular touchdown catch against Vanderbilt in Week 6.

It speaks to just how big an impression Williams made in the early going that he was voted as one of 11 semifinalists for the Biletnikoff Award with notably less overall production than any of the other semifinalists. (I had him on my ballot, for the record.) It’s also worth noting that the offense has been far more balanced in its past 2 SEC games, blowout wins over Missouri and LSU, than it was in any of the games where Williams was a focal point, and it has been better off as a result. The Tide simply haven’t needed him to pull phenom duty in games the defense and ground game have had well in hand. But they will if they’re going to pull off a sustained Playoff run, and he’s past due to refresh the hype.
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• Alabama 31 | Oklahoma 13

Kentucky at Texas (–20.5)

Steve Sarkisian‘s offense is a marvel of efficiency in many ways, but Quinn Ewers‘ inability to consistently complete passes downfield has become a glaring limitation. He was 1-of-6 on attempts of 20+ air yards in Saturday’s 20-10 win over Arkansas — the lone completion going for exactly 20 yards — and now stands at 9-of-28 for the season in 8 starts. No other SEC starter has attempted fewer downfield passes as a percentage of his overall attempts, and Ewers’ average depth of target (6.7 yards) ranks among the lowest in the entire FBS.

That’s difficult to square with his former reputation as a willing gunslinger in his underclassman years, and with the obvious arm talent that made him a prized prospect in the first place. No, he doesn’t have Xavier Worthy’s world-class speed at his disposal anymore, but Texas is hardly bereft of big-play options at receiver. In fact, that was one of the aspects of Arch Manning‘s game that made his September cameo so compelling: He was 8-of-16 on passes of 20+ air yards in a little more than 2 1/2 games, averaging 20.4 yards per attempt with 4 touchdowns. (Ewers’ downfield attempts have averaged 9.7 yards with 5 touchdowns.) Chalk it up to subpar competition, but at some point down the line the Longhorns are going to need some downfield juice against a real opponent to advance in the postseason. If there’s a lingering controversy despite Ewers’ stellar record as a starter, that’s the reason why.
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Texas 28 | • Kentucky 10

Texas A&M (–2.5) at Auburn

Behold the power of home-field advantage: One hand, we have an 8-2 team with a top-15 ranking and serious CFP aspirations; on the other, a 4-6 outfit with a single conference win to date. The point spread? Essentially a pick ’em. Where is the evidence Auburn even benefits from HFA? Under Hugh Freeze, the Tigers are 1-7 in Jordan-Hare Stadium vs. Power 5 opponents, including an 0-4 record this year against Cal, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt — all games Auburn was favored to win. (Its lone SEC win came on the road, in Week 9 at Kentucky.) I’ll grant the Tigers the benefit of keeping it respectable vs. the Aggies, but that spread is gaslighting.
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• Texas A&M 23 | Auburn 17

Vanderbilt at LSU (–7.5)

LSU is enduring a month from hell. On the field, the Tigers have plummeted from the top 10 over the course of a 3-game losing streak that has sent the season into a tailspin. Off the field, the news is worse: They suffered a potentially mortal blow on the recruiting trail this week when coveted 2025 QB commit Bryce Underwood flipped his pledge from LSU to his home-state school, Michigan — a defection months in the making, and one that could have a ripple effect on the rest of the class. The immediate catalyst for Underwood’s flip was a late NIL push from Michigan that reportedly ran into the eight figures. (Obligatory reminder that publicly available NIL figures are unregulated, mostly unverifiable and easily inflated, if not made up out of thin air.) It’s a business decision. But part of me still has a hard time believing that watching Tiger Stadium empty out in the 4th quarter of a blowout loss to Alabama during a recruiting visit didn’t have at least a little something to do with it.

Obviously, Brian Kelly needs any win he can get. Losing big to Bama, Texas A&M and Florida in consecutive games is bad enough; losing the No. 1 recruit in the entire country is a disaster. The 2024 season set up as a rebuilding year, anyway, but as long as Underwood remained in the fold, Kelly could always sell the vision of a brighter future. Now, the Tigers are bound for the Music City Bowl with no long-term QB plan beyond the increasingly uninspiring Garrett Nussmeier, who runs out of eligibility after next year. They’ll come up with something — LSU boosters have formidable bank accounts, too — and Kelly’s much-Googled $60.8 million buyout almost certainly makes him too expensive to fire anytime soon. But if the bleeding continues against Vandy, that “almost” is going to be put to the test.
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• LSU 31 | Vanderbilt 22

Missouri (–7.5) at Mississippi State

Luther Burden III has had his moments this season, but overall his (presumably) final year on campus has been a disappointment: His production has plummeted in every category, particularly in SEC play, where he has just 1 touchdown catch in the past 6 games. In his defense, Mizzou’s injury-ravaged quarterback situation has had a lot to do with that, limiting Burden’s downfield opportunities. At any rate, Brady Cook is slated to play in Starkville, and Mississippi State’s highly flammable secondary is ripe for the torching. The Bulldogs rank last in the SEC in every category related to pass defense, having allowed 9.9 yards per attempt and 16 touchdowns in 6 conference games. With nothing else in particular on the line, a big day from their brightest star for old time’s sake is all the Tigers can ask for.
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• Missouri 34 | Mississippi State 19

Massachusetts at Georgia (–42.5)

This is UMass’ 1st game since firing head coach Don Brown, who went 6-28 over 3 seasons. Just how daunting a gig is head football coach at UMass? Of the 4 coaches who have held the full-time job since the Minutemen moved up to the FBS level in 2012, Brown’s record ranks 2nd in both wins and winning percentage.
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Georgia 45 | • UMass 6

UTEP at Tennessee (–41.5)

It wouldn’t count for much in the grand scheme of things, but after an underwhelming run in SEC play, frankly Nico Iamaleava could use the kind of confidence boost that comes with shredding the 8th-place team in Conference USA. Josh Heupel has shown no hesitation to pour it on against the dregs of the schedule, either. Back in September, the Vols outscored Chattanooga and Kent State by a combined 110-0 in the 1st half alone, at one point attempting (and recovering) a surprise onside kick against the Golden Flashes with a 30-0 lead in the 1st quarter.
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• Tennessee 51 | UTEP 7

Louisiana Tech at Arkansas (–21.5)

Louisiana Tech is not a good team, by a long shot, or a particularly fun one, either. But the Bulldogs do know how to keep it interesting: 8 of their 10 games this season have been decided by 8 points or fewer, including 5 of their 6 losses and 3 games decided in overtime. (Note also that 1 of the 2 exceptions, a 30-20 loss at N.C. State in Week 2, was a tie game in the 4th quarter.) High-scoring, low-scoring or anywhere in between, they’ve all come down to the wire — since midseason Tech has lost by scores of 33-30 (against Mew Mexico State), 9-3 (against Sam Houston) and 44-37 (against Jacksonville State) and won by scores of 14-10 (over UTEP) and 12-7 (over Western Kentucky). None of that is relevant to what figures to be a lopsided affair in Fayetteville; Louisiana Tech has just had a very weird year.
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• Arkansas 41 | Louisiana Tech 16

Wofford at South Carolina (–42.5)

At (officially) 6-3, 242 pounds, South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers is bigger than every player listed on Wofford’s defensive depth chart who isn’t a D-linemen, and if he weighed in today he might balance the scales opposite a couple of the Terriers’ defensive ends. Between Sellers and 230-pound RB Rocket Sanders, the Gamecocks should have very little reason to put the ball in the air even in the competitive portion of the proceedings.
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• South Carolina 48 | Wofford 3

SCOREBOARD

Week 12 Record: 7–1 straight-up | 4–4 vs. spread
Season Record: 80–20 straight-up | 60–37 vs. spread

Matt Hinton

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