SEC Power Rankings after Week 14
The SEC regular season is over, but there’s no reason to end the party. It’s time to share our final power ranking of the SEC regular season. Here we go.
14. Arkansas (2-10, lost to Missouri 24-14)
This was a better than expected final effort for the Razorbacks against Barry Odom and a lame-duck Mizzou squad that had its bowl dreams taken away. Still, 2-10 is 2-10, and ending the season with a nine-game losing streak keeps Arkansas in the cellar.
13. Vanderbilt (3-9, lost to Tennessee 28-10)
On a night when Tennessee went 6-for-17 passing, Vanderbilt still basically never had a shot, giving up almost 300 rushing yards to the Vols. We should probably just all be grateful that there was no Vandy/Arkansas game this season.
12. Mississippi (4-8, lost to Mississippi State 21-20)
We all saw the game. Most of us even heard the hilarious Russian broadcasters. The Rebels actually played well, had a competitive game in the Egg Bowl, then lost in perhaps the most humiliating way possible. They were a better team than this, but last impressions matter.
11. South Carolina (4-8, lost to Clemson 38-3)
What a brutal end to the Gamecocks’ season. Will Muschamp will (apparently) keep his job, but nobody can be feeling great about his ability to dig South Carolina out of the lower half of the SEC East.
10. Missouri (6-6, beat Arkansas 24-14)
Only playing the worst team in the SEC (and perhaps in P5 football) allowed the Tigers to avoid a five-game losing streak and a losing season. Yes, the NCAA situation overshadowed the season, but Barry Odom had to do better than he did. He didn’t, so he’s gone.
9. Mississippi State (6-6, beat Mississippi 21-20)
The Bulldogs snuck their way into a bowl berth and Joe Morehead might have earned a little more patience. That said, if Rutgers decides it has to get him, more than a few people in Starkville won’t be shedding any tears.
8. Kentucky (7-5, beat Louisville 45-13)
Had Kentucky simply played Lynn Bowden at QB and run the ball 90% of the time from the first snap, UK might have gone 9-3 or 10-2 and Bowden might be a Heisman finalist. Still, Kentucky rallied from a difficult situation to a positive season.
7. Tennessee (7-5, beat Vanderbilt 28-10)
It’s rarely been easy or aesthetically pleasing for the Vols, but they pulled this season out of the fire and finished with five consecutive wins to get into a bowl game that would’ve been unimaginable after a 2-5 start.
6. Texas A&M (7-5, lost to LSU 50-7)
Yes, we considered dropping the Aggies, but this was the only particularly bad loss of their season. Considering the brutal schedule they played and the relatively mediocre teams ranked behind them, they can stay here.
5. Florida (10-2, beat Florida State 40-17)
Nothing Florida did wrong, but with Auburn’s big upset, the Tigers jump over the Gators in the pecking order of the SEC’s big dogs. Florida’s biggest win was over Auburn, but Auburn’s was against Alabama. Advantage, Tigers.
4. Auburn (9-3, beat Alabama 48-45)
And just like that, all the maddening, frustrating things about Auburn this year are forgotten. The Tigers were two plays from being 7-5, but none of that will matter. We could’ve ranked them higher, but let’s not get carried away.
3. Alabama (10-2, lost to Auburn 48-45)
Should we have jumped Auburn over Bama? Well, Bama lost two games by a total of 8 points. That’s all that separated the Crimson Tide from being a lead-pipe lock for the CFP. So we’ll reluctantly stick them at third, knowing they’d be likely to take down Georgia if they were playing them next week.
2. Georgia (11-1, beat Georgia Tech 52-7)
UGA completely overpowered Tech, which feels like the story of the Bulldogs’ season. Had they not run into a perfect storm against (gulp, 4-8) South Carolina, they’d still have a perfect record. If they beat LSU they’re in the CFP.
1. LSU (12-0, beat Texas A&M 50-7)
The Tigers were in fine form against an A&M team that played close to Clemson and Georgia. Joe Burrow might yet get his chance to show Ohio State that it ended up with the wrong QB.
Hmm Auburn ahead of Florida when they lost to the same two teams and UF won head to head. Not only that, Alabama ahead of Auburn??
I’m similarly incredulous. Guess it doesn’t matter since it won’t affect any of the official rankings, but it’s hard to argue Auburn is a better team with three losses, including one to Florida.
Florida and Auburn played a game. Florida won by multiple scores.
The only teams ranked ahead of Florida on this list should be the two teams that actually beat Florida: LSU and Georgia.
That’s it.It’s not complicated.
But Auburn has a significantly better win than Florida.
@boxster35 Define “significantly better”. Gators beat #7 Auburn heads up. Auburn beat #5 Bama (without Tua). You think that two spot differential offsets a heads up win? GTFO. Bama is not the same without Tua and everyone knows it.
I mean no offense, but Gators did not beat Auburn “heads up” and were lucky to walk away with a win. Bama had key errors but was still a very lethal foe and what Auburn did to Bama was still impressive. Florida also played a different version of Nix at the beginning of the season. Perhaps the win isn’t “significantly” better, but it’s still better. So no, I don’t think the difference in ranking has anything to do with it being a better win.
Why is Florida lucky to walk away with a win? UF has beaten AU by the widest margin this year. Nix had more starts at that point than our QB. Dunno why everyone thinks only one team would improve as the year went on. A win over Auburn is slightly more impressive than a win over Bama this year. Or at least you must believe, about equal?
“Florida’s biggest win was over Auburn, but Auburn’s was against Alabama. Advantage, Tigers.”
Quite possibly the single dumbest statement ever written on SDS.
It’s the only way for these Homer’s to put Bama in the top 3.
Florida is definitely ahead of Auburn. If Florida played Auburn today who do you think would win?
Thought this was about the games you played and the results. Auburn is playing well but lost H2H versus Florida who has only lost to LSU and UGA. Bama should be behind both Auburn and Florida. Let’s see, they played two teams in the Top 25 this year and lost both. Tua is out. Writer needs his head checked.
Florida is lucky to have gotten Auburn early in the season. Florida wouldn’t win if they played tomorrow.
Trust me boy you don’t want that scenario played out. Trask was lucky to make it out of that game. Despite winning, Auburn made Trask and the Florida offense look weak and LSU proved that the Florida defense was WAYYY overrated and barely a defense.
Nix is a completely different QB now compared to that game, his first start in a truly intimidating road environment that happened to be the Florida homecoming game. Take that home-field advantage away and Florida would have lost to begin with.
Again, you Gator fanboys just need to be greatful we didn’t cost you another QB early in the season and accept the fact that you aren’t as good as you think you are.
All that being said, I’d love to see a rematch of the UF vs AU game right now, even in the swamp, because you wouldn’t match up now. That’s why Florida is playing second fiddle to Auburn right now, Auburn is the better team NOW by comparison. The sooner you Gators learn that the better. Learn your place.
Man, talk about vivid imagination. You really carved out a convenient alternate reality when only AU can improve over time.
But, in the real world, UF already beat AU on the field where it matters.
So, congrats on beating Bama, make up whatever argument you want.
At the end of the day, you can’t argue with actual results.
Mr. Cox should rethink his rankings and try again. UF and AU should be ahead of Bama.
At this moment in time I don’t disagree with these. All 3 of the top west teams would possibly beat UF and UGA if they played today regardless of previous outcomes.
Georgia should be first. Lol. Happy with my tigers performance. I think bama should go behind auburn and Florida.
So let’s reset this and focus on SEC games and records, shall we?
#1. LSU
#2. UGA
#3. UF
#4. Auburn
#5. Alabama
#6. UT
#7. Texas A&M
#8. Miss St.
#9. UK, Mizzou, SC tie.
#12. Ole Miss
#13. Vandy
#14. Arkansas
And wouldn’t it be nice if we did this like soccer in Europe? Arkansas would be relegated to the Sunbelt and App St. would join the SEC next year? Heavenly. ;)
Same rankings, it’s really not that complicated
Agreed. Alabama had a relatively soft schedule, didn’t have to play Florida or Georgia, both of which could have been losses for Alabama. If they had Tua against Auburn, I think it would be different now. But they didn’t, and they are not as good without him.
To be fair, take the 2 INTs out and Mac put up the same numbers Tua might have. Can’t dismiss the loss to being Tua-less when they put almost twice the points LSU did and more yards of offense with Jones. Auburn just has a dominant defense that played hard and smart football.
Ints are kind of a big deal. And Tua isn’t known for throwing them lol
I don’t understand how you could be see bad at this.
So
Alabama should be behind Auburn and Florida. Based on games played I think you can assume no ranked opponent is going to be scared of that weak defense and they would struggle. Before you could argue “But LSU might be the best team in the country”. Fine. But Auburn was a 3 loss team going in that the top teams had beaten.
Yeah I can’t see how they are ahead of Florida. I hope the actual rankings reflect this, but they won’t. Thank God Oklahoma and Baylor won or we’d have Paul Fienbaum mapping out 2 loss Alabama’s road back to the playoffs.
Joe, you need to lay off that bourbon, or crack, or whatever it is. These rankings are ridiculous, and the “Bowden would be a Heisman finalist” line just shows how much of a Kentucky homer you are. Laughably bad opinion…
i dont think at all that he would have been a heisman finalist. I do agree we would have won at LEAST 1-2 more games had we been running this offense all season, or at least after Terrry Wilson went down. Most likely would have pulled out the Miss State and Carolina games would be my guess. I think its a no brainer he would be the leading rusher in the conference though, considering he has ran for over 1,100 in 6 games. I think he is averaging close to 10.0 ypc, which is nuts. That said, Florida should be in front of Auburn and Bama on this list.
1)LSU
2)UGA
3)UF
4)AUB
5)Bama
6)TN
This website is such a bama homer. Bama lost and they are still ranked above the team that beat them. Get off Saban’s jock and take a serious look at the teams. Bama hadn’t beat anyone of note this season but you people kept wanting them in the playoffs. They are now 0-3 in their last 3 games of consequence. The talent is still there but the coaching carousel of the last 4 seasons has taken its toll.
Bama “likely to take down Georgia if they were playing next week”? Come on, man. Before I get started, I am a Dawg fan all day, every day. But I have tons of respect for that Alabama program and what Saban has done there. With that being said, Bama wouldn’t beat Georgia right now. Their defense just isn’t there. They allowed Auburn to score 48 points. True it was at Jordan-Hare, but Georgia only allowed Auburn to score 14…at Jordan-Hare. Mac Jones is clearly coming into his own. He absolutely showed out yesterday. But their defense couldn’t keep Auburn from scoring more points than them. I know, I know…Georgia’s offense is atrocious right now. But they can still score points. The defense is, however, likely the best ever at UGA. I mean, #2 in the country in total defense, only allowing 10.4 points per game.
I was wondering when someone was going to comment on that. Absolute and uncalled for disrespect for Georgia.
This list makes no sense. Florida is the only team to have soundly beaten Auburn (by double digits). Auburn should not be ranked ahead of Florida. The two plays away from 7-5 comment is nonsense. You could just as easily argue that Auburn is one play away from being 10-2 (if that long run had reached the end zone in the LSU game). But that’s not how things work. As for Bama, yes, they’re loaded, but they got outplayed and outcoached yesterday and lost by a more significant margin to LSU in their own stadium (AND have no quality wins to speak of), so no, it makes no sense to rank them above Auburn. Auburn’s ranking at number four seems right, but it should be UF ahead of them and not Bama.
I guess Cox has “playoff committee syndrome “. Results don’t matter as much as the eye test or perception. The regular season is over and games have been played. Results matter, at least to most of us.
Hindsight being 20/20, yeah, UK could have been 10-2, maybe even 11-1 if things really went our way with Lynn behind center. But you gotta take the bad with the good, and the growing pains as well.
This team surely had a very successful season when you consider losing the whole secondary, the best edge rusher in school history (Hell, even one of the best in SEC history), the best RB in school history, two QB’s transfer, 2 goes down due to injury. Other injuries around the field, and still manage to get to 7 wins is an impressive feat for a program who would be devastated and struggle to win 4 games in the past if this happened.
Stoops built a program to last and next season should be a magical one with the experience we have coming back, the talented red shirt freshmen we will have available for next season, and a monster recruiting class thats coming in (Seriously, a lot of the 3 stars that UK has coming in are right there at the mark to become 4 stars, on top of a few 4 stars that we already have, plus the 5 star and we may add one more.)
And here comes the Gator whining!
Of course they’re going to whine, they think their team is so Elite even though it’s probably the weakest of the top 15. The only reason they’re even a topic right now is because of beating Auburn which if that game was replayed now or they faced Auburn later after Nix had experienced a hostile environment already they would be at the lower end of the top 25. I predict regardless of who they’re put against they’re going to lose their bowl game because they are not as good of a team as they think they are
Hahahaha Nix was still under 50% hes been that way all year! Dont let that soft bama defense fool you.
The only team that is full of themselves this year is Florida. Offensively, Florida was garbage against Auburn. Fortunately for y’all we were worse at that point. Florida got beat like a redheaded stepchild against LSU and UGA. Auburn gave both teams a better game. Florida has done nothing but scrape by all season but suddenly you all think you’re Elite.
You got your a$$ beat by 11 and dominated in every category…. Noone in their right mind thinks Auburn is better than Florida. Noone loser
Florida didn’t dominate s*** in the Auburn game. The only aspect of that game that was dominant was Auburn’s defense. Our offense just wasn’t prepared with a true freshman quarterback.
There was never a point in the game where it felt UF was not in control. Your boy Nix started more games at that point than Trask. Plus, we can easily say Trask is better now than he was at that point in the season. So it’s a really lame excuse.
Your true freshman qb had played in more games up to that point including a big nonconference game and a trip to Kyle field. Gtfoh, at what point in that game did Auburn lead? That’s right they didnt and they scored 13 measily points with that hs offense… you got your a$$ beat bruh.
All you Florida fans are fking cute. All this hype with your ONLY quality win being against Auburn.
Let’s break it down since you all have suddenly come down with amnesia over what’s happened this season.
UF Season Pros:
1.)UF Beat Auburn
UF Season Cons:
1.)UF barely beat Miami
2.)UF got Lucky when Franks went down against Kentucky or that’s a loss
3.)UF should have lost to SC (don’t even try to dispute this, the SEC had to make a public statement following the crtisim over officiating in that game)
4.)UF got absolutely destroyed more than any other ranked team against LSU with that so-called Elite defense
5.)UF lost to UGA by a TD same as Auburn (but we held them to less)
You boys are lucky you aren’t sitting at 7-5 this season.
Additionally, the point deficit total in losses for both teams are identical at 21.
AU vs UF – 11
AU vs LSU – 3
AU vs UGA – 7
UF vs LSU -14
UF vs UGA -7
The difference is it took three games for AU. Figured I’d point out the obvious since you Florida boys aren’t that intelligent.
You realize you left out the UF AU game on UFs point differential right? Then the point differential is much more telling. It’s +11 for UF
Actually I didn’t leave it out since it’s a loss calculated on Auburn side unless you’re trying to say that Florida loss to Auburn
It should be -11 for AU and +11 for UF. You should include all three games for both teams
Boy you are piling on the evidence of that lack of intelligence comment I made, especially if you’re a UF grad.
The point deficit is of losses and the ‘-‘ isn’t indicating the spread in the manner you’re trying to read. Its just formatting to try and make it simple for simpletons, like UF fans, to understand. Clearly I didnt make it simple enough if you’re any indication.
So your argument is that Auburn is better because you lost by less points to three teams than UF lost to two teams but one of the teams you lost to IS UF lol. Your data set makes little sense.
No, my point is Florida isn’t nearly as good as you fans try to take credit for. When it comes down to it, even with the loss to Florida, Auburn has a stronger resume than Florida by comparison when cross-referencing seasons. That’s Why Auburn is listed before Florida in this article that you are all in an uproar about.
Most people disagree with you as seen above. Fans of different teams as well. This is the only ranking I’ve seen where UF is not higher than AU. AU has a really strong team this year but most agree that UF is better. We can agree to disagree
Who won the head-to-head? Who has the better overall record?
I refuse to look it up because, well, I can’t be bothered.
SECCG and whatnot…
Dang Liam coming in with the dagger for both of us
What’s cute …is you trying to channel your inner Corch. We’re all impressed. Nice argument dummy.
What’s also cute is I don’t see you trying to refute any points I just made
Not getting sucked into your nonsense. Have a wonderful week.
Let’s go even deeper.
UF has faced 3 ranked matchups this season and went 1-2.
-Beat Auburn by largest margin as an underdog
-Lost to LSU by largest margin of any T-10 matchup
-Lost to UGA by 7 same as AU
AU has faced 6 ranked matchups this season and went 3-3.
-Beat Oregon with truefreshman QB as underdog.
-Beat TA&M as underdog
-Lost to UF as favorite
-Lost to LSU while holding them to season low
-Lost to UGA by same margin as UF while holding them to less
-Beat Bama as underdog in the second highest scoring IB in history with the most put up against Saban since 1999 and Most since Saban has been at UA.
-Just to save argument:
I know it’s probably petty to include the TA&M game in that list but I only include it because they were ranked at the time and they were favored to win.
Ranked at the time means very little. Teams are ranked much more accurately at the end of the year. You’ll notice UF is above AU in all relevant polls
I guess you missed the point to all that but whatever. You might also notice that even being ranked above Auburn, Florida seems to be a lost topic noone is covering because you’ve proven irrelevant over the season.
Well said Altrue. They are soft and know it.
Thank you. Pretty obvious they know it when noone is refuting anything I listed except the guy that can’t read or comprehend claiming I left out the AU vs UF game even though its the first one listed. Tools will be tools.
Whatever. UF has a better overall record, beat Auburn, and is ranked four and five spots ahead of Auburn in the two major polls out so far. I have no idea what point you think you are making. Auburn has a good season. UF had a better one.
In an effort to balance the trolls and the flamers here is something positive for each of you:
LSU: Congratulations on finally finding a quarterback worthy of your program, and then some.
Georgia: Good luck next weekend. It is sure to be a real test, especially short-handed. Ask me how I know.
Bama: You know it had to end. But maybe you aren’t saying goodbye to another championship. Just “see you later.”
Auburn: Tough season at times, but its great to beat your in-state rival. Ask me how I know.
Florida: Your program is definitely still headed in the right direction. So don’t give Megan Mullen a hard time if you run into her down at Publix. She shouldn’t have to go to Orlando to shop for groceries just because y’all lost to Georgia.
A&M: 7-5 is pretty respectable with that schedule. But it is tough to get run over by LSU like that. Ask me how I know.
Tennessee: At the end of the season I feel a lot less bad about you guys beating us at your place than I did when it happened. I think you finally found your head coach.
Kentucky: Lots to be proud of. This is not your grandfather’s Wildcats.
Missouri: I just watched your former QB beat the Chargers. Good luck in your coaching search.
South Carolina: Here’s to a much easier schedule in 2020, one would hope.
Ole Miss: Yeah, I’ll even say something positive about your program. Lot of talented freshmen and sophomores. Could be some good times ahead.
Vanderbilt: It’s a cliche because it’s true. Whenever a Vanderbilt student transfers to another SEC school, the average I.Q. of both schools goes up.
Arkansas: No where to go but up. It’s both depressing and inspiring. Ask me how I know.
Nice work.
Joe Cox…this list blows out loud. You must have cried when Bama lost.