SEC Penalty Report: Week 14

This year’s Rivalry Week was one for the ages, loaded with back-and-forth thrillers and nail-biting finishes throughout the SEC. It also produced some strange penalty numbers to close the regular season, as five losing teams committed four or fewer penalties in their losses while three victorious teams committed six or more penalties over the weekend.

Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Texas A&M finished 0-5 in Week 14, yet those teams combined to commit just 15 penalties for 121 yards between them. To contrast, Arkansas committed 12 penalties for 105 yards by itself, marking the worst penalty numbers in the conference in Week 14.

LSU was victorious on Thursday night despite committing nine penalties for 85 yards, Mizzou won on Friday while committing seven penalties for 75 yards and even Tennessee, the SEC’s most disciplined team when it comes to penalties, won on Saturday despite committing six penalties for 55 yards.

Now that the regular season has officially come to a close, we can also evaluate al 14 teams’ penalty numbers for the entire season. As previously stated, Tennessee closed the year with the fewest penalties (50) of any team in the conference. Every other team in the SEC was flagged for at least 60 penalties this regular season.

The Vols also cost themselves the fewest penalty yards of any team in the SEC this season, 74 fewer than any other team.

On the other end of the spectrum, Missouri committed the most penalties in the SEC this season with 85 in 14 games, but the Tigers were only charged with 681 penalty yards on those 85 flagged plays. To contrast, Auburn committed 82 penalties this season, tied with Vanderbilt for the second most in the SEC, but it was charged with a whopping 816 penalty yards for the year.

For those keeping score at home, Auburn lost 135 more penalty yards than Missouri despite committing three fewer penalties. Vanderbilt only lost 689 penalty yards on its 82 penalties this season, marking the second-most penalty yards suffered by any team in the SEC.

Four of the six teams ranked in the top 25 entering Week 14 finished the season ranked in the top half of the SEC in fewest penalties. Likewise, the only two teams in the conference to fall short of bowl eligibility this season (Kentucky and Vanderbilt) both finished in the bottom half of the conference in penalties.

Here’s a full breakdown of every SEC team’s penalty numbers through the end of the regular season: