Georgia answered the call, Auburn was sloppy, Arkansas and to a lesser extent Vandy were just embarrassing. But there’s plenty more. At our weekly SEC Report Cards, it’s grade time. Here, we grade each team in the SEC, then single out the league’s best and worst units in offense, defense, and special teams. Here go the report cards.

West

Mississippi State: A

Yes, it was Arkansas, but the Bulldogs completely dominated this game. Anytime a team rushed for 460 yards, it had a good week. As a 38-10 halftime advantage would suggest, the Bulldogs were very, very good.

Texas A&M: A-

It would be a true A had the Aggies not played such weak competition, but to their credit, they owned this game. When your team is so balanced that you both run and pass for more yardage than you allow altogether, you took care of business.

Auburn: B

Yes, the Tigers won. But this game went down to the final play before the Tigers held on for a victory that shouldn’t have been that close. Auburn outgained Ole Miss 507-266, but the game remained competitive on the scoreboard.

Mississippi: C

The Rebels defense did a phenomenal job of bending but not breaking, but the offense just didn’t get it done. A meager 99 passing yards and a solid, but not overpowering 4.0 yards per carry on the ground led to a 3-for-15 day on 3rd down and just 14 points. Another touchdown would’ve been enough, as it turned out.

Arkansas: F

The Razorbacks played horrific defense and had a mediocre offense than rendered Chad Morris’s more-or-less victory guarantee as comedy. This was bad.

Alabama, LSU: Incomplete

Just sitting and waiting. And we can’t wait.

East

Georgia: A

The Bulldogs were 6.5-point favorites and won by 7, but they absolutely took care of business in this game. The offense controlled the pace of the game, averaging 9.3 yards per pass attempt and outrushing UF by nearly 100 yards. The defense gave up some clock-killing late drives that made it close, but Georgia did what it needed to do in its biggest game of the year to date.

South Carolina: A

Not unlike Mississippi State, it’s hard to know how highly to regard this work because it came at the expense of a fairly putrid team. But South Carolina pulled off the trick of gaining more yards rushing or passing than Vanderbilt gained in total. This was despite committing 11 penalties (to Vandy’s two).

Tennessee: B+

The defense was outstanding, but the offense was just so-so. The first half of this game included scoring drives of 1 and minus-5 yards — basically, the defense set the offense up and then watched UT kick field goals. UT had just two scoring drives that didn’t begin on the UAB side of the field. Either the defense has to continue being this good or the offense will need to play better for the rest of the season.

Florida: C-

The problems that threatened to unravel Florida came to fruition against Georgia. The Gators had 19 carries for 21 yards? Ugh. And the defense gave up 12 for 18 on third down conversions while UF’s offense went 2 for 9. This game wasn’t really as close as the final score.

Vanderbilt: F

The Commodores trailed just 14-7 at halftime and a chance to build off a win over Missouri and how did they react in the second half? The Vandy drives went punt, punt, interception, punt, interception, end of game. Hard to see it getting much better.

Kentucky, Missouri: Incomplete

Off weeks for these two teams.

Honor Roll

Offense

Mississippi State

The Bulldogs had 460 rushing yards. There were other good things as well (9.5 yards per pass attempt), but that ground game just blew our mind. Rushing 57 times for 8.1 yards per carry is the stuff of honor roll appearances.

Georgia

The Dawgs were 12 for 18 on third downs, controlled the ball for almost 36 minutes and quietly had a very productive game. Yes, Georgia only scored 24 points, but they were pivotal to winning the biggest game of the East schedule.

Texas A&M

A dominant game from Isaiah Spiller (217 yards rushing) set the tone for this one. A&M had over 500 yards and basically did what it wanted.

Defense

South Carolina

The Gamecocks held Vandy to 7 points and less than 200 yards. The Commodores had only 2 plays longer than 12 yards. Meanwhile, add in two interceptions for that ball-hawking Gamecocks defense.

Tennessee

Speaking of ball-hawking — the Vol defense forced four first-half turnovers, giving the ball to the UT offense at the UAB 19, the UAB 31, the UAB 30, and the UAB 43. The Vols turned those 4 drives into 20 points. Ballgame was over right there.

Auburn

Despite some spotty work by the offense (and kicking game) the Tigers stifled the Rebels offense. Auburn allowed only two scores, one of which began near the Auburn red zone after a big punt return. This was quality work.

Special Teams

Tennessee

Brent Cimaglia continues to be one of the most underrated players in the SEC. He made all of his kicks in this one, including a 53-yard field goal. Solid punting night for the Vols as well.

Mississippi

How did the Rebels stay in the game against Auburn despite nearly being doubled in total yardage? Well, they had a nice night in the return game (123 return yards to 47 for Auburn), made their kicks and punted well.

Georgia

Rodrigo Blankenship is back to doing what he normally does as he made all 3 of his field goal tries.. The Dawgs also had a cool 70 return yards and only allowed 18 to Florida. Solid work.

Detention

Offense

Florida

The biggest game of the season and the Gators rushed for 21 yards on 19 carries. They had no run longer than 9 yards. Which is how they ended up with just 17 points, despite a couple of long drives led by quarterback Kyle Trask.

Vanderbilt

The brutal numbers: 76 yards passing. 113 yards rushing with no run longer than 12 yards. Basically, Vanderbilt went 77 yards for a touchdown on its first possession of the game and took the rest of the day off.

Mississippi

The offensive spark from much of the season deserted the Rebels on Saturday. They passed for just 99 yards and rushed for 167, but it took 42 carries to reach that total with no big chunk plays.

Defense

Arkansas

Mississippi State absolutely took the Razorbacks’ lunch money. Allowing multiple 100-yard rushers in one game isn’t generally a good sign.

Mississippi

The Rebels didn’t have a bad game overall. But Auburn’s Bo Nix went from looking incapable of completing a pass to throwing for 340 yards on the Rebels secondary, including a couple of 50-plus-yard passes.

Florida

Holding Georgia to 24 points was good. But getting demolished on 3rd down wasn’t good. For a group that has been among the best in the SEC, the Gators just didn’t meet the challenge on Saturday against a talented Georgia squad.

Special Teams

Auburn

Lowlights included three missed field goals and a long punt return allowed which set up one of two Ole Miss touchdowns. Terrible week for the special teams.

(Nobody else missed a field goal, had a bad day punting, or otherwise jumped out for awful special teams play.)