The SEC shakeup was imminent.

LSU’s dominant win over Georgia on Saturday was going to shake up the top of the Associated Press Top 25. Sure enough, there was a significant shakeup. The Tigers rose 8 spots all the way up to No. 5 while Georgia dropped 6 spots back to No. 8.

Add in Florida, Kentucky and Texas A&M and the SEC still had 8 of the top 17 teams (Mississippi State moved up to No. 22).

Even with Auburn’s collapse, it’s still an SEC-dominated poll with 7 ranked teams.

So here are some SEC-focused takeaways from the Week 8 Top 25:

1. Why LSU deserves to be ranked several spots ahead of Florida

So here’s the thing. You look at it on the surface and you might wonder why the Tigers, who have the same record and lost to Florida a week ago, are ranked 6 spots higher than the Gators. It’s a fair question. After all, what’s the point of rankings if we don’t take the head-to-head element into account?

But it’s pretty simple why LSU is ranked No. 5 as the top 1-loss team and Florida is at No. 11. It comes down to quality wins, and obviously no team in America has more of those than the Tigers.

LSU has 3 wins against teams that were ranked in the top 10 at the time of their matchup. Beating the No. 2 team by 20 points is also pretty convincing. Florida did get a nice win at Mississippi State and the LSU win was key, but voters are comparing 3 wins vs. top 10 teams compared to 1.

That’s really what this comes down to. The Tigers deserve to be getting that kind of respect as long as they remain unbeaten heading into the Alabama game. That’s not a given, but given how battle-tested LSU is, that wouldn’t be surprising.

2. Kentucky’s jump reflects the week that was

What if I told you that Kentucky could not play a game and move up 4 spots to No. 14? You’d probably say that was pretty wild. Really, it wasn’t that crazy considering the week that was.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Seven top 25 teams lost, including 4 in the top 8. That meant the Cats were in for a nice bump ahead of 1-loss teams like Penn State and Washington, who really didn’t deserve to be ranked ahead of the Cats in the first place. Perhaps voters have finally realized that Kentucky’s résumé actually stacks up really well with the current rankings:

  • Double-digit win at No. 11 Florida
  • Double-digit win vs. No. 22 Mississippi State
  • Only loss in overtime at No. 17 Texas A&M

At 5-1, the Cats are definitely deserving of a top-15 spot. It’s incredible that just 6 spots separate Kentucky from Georgia, which could still be the case when the teams meet in Lexington in a few weeks.

File that in the “didn’t see that one coming” department.

3. How about Texas A&M?

I’ll be honest. I didn’t see Texas A&M rising all the way to No. 17 in Jimbo Fisher’s first season. I just didn’t. I didn’t think the pieces were there defensively, and I was uncertain about the quarterback situation and how long it would take Fisher to develop either Kellen Mond of Nick Starkel.

But here we are in mid-October talking about an Aggies team that’s tied for second in the SEC West at 3-1 riding a 3-game winning streak. I’m not big on quality losses because I think it’s more about teams that you beat, but it certainly doesn’t hurt morale that A&M’s lone losses were to the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 3 in the country.

The Aggies are in such a key position to knock it out of the park with how well of a start Fisher is off to in recruiting. He has a deadly combination in Kellen Mond and Jace Sternberger, who still have two years of eligibility after this year. And defensively, the Aggies aren’t perfect, but you could do a whole lot worse than having a defensive mind like Mike Elko running the show.

Keep in mind that we were talking about a 7-win team entering its first year with a new coaching staff. Look at all of these teams who had preseason hype that are behind the Aggies in the polls:

  • No. 18 Penn State
  • No. 23 Wisconsin
  • Unranked Auburn
  • Unranked Miami (FL)
  • Unranked Florida State

That’s pretty amazing. What would be even more amazing is if the Aggies pulled off a 9-win regular season and a top-15 finish, which certainly looks possible.