SEC Week 9 featured a fair amount of predictable and unpredictable moments. Auburn and Mississippi State shone, Georgia did what Georgia does, and Missouri and Vanderbilt confused us all. A day later, we break it all down and bring you the winners and losers of SEC Week 9.

Winners

Georgia’s defense

When the offense struggles, when a powerful team of 4-star and 5-star recruits hold you to a 3-0 edge near the end of the first half, what do you do? If you’re Georgia, you just turn up the heat and score twice in the final 2 1/2 minutes of the first half — ON DEFENSE. Do the Bulldogs have an offense? They won’t need one before the SEC title game.

Tyler Badie

Yes, it came against Vanderbilt, but the talented Missouri running back managed 31 carries for 254 yards on the ground. He overtook Kentucky’s Chris Rodriguez for the SEC’s rushing lead and is 4th in the country at 123.6 rushing yards per game. How good would Badie be if he played for a team that actually had a defense? Or is the better hypothetical how many yards could Badie himself rush for if he played against Mizzou’s defense? In any case, treasure the guy for now. He’ll be playing on Sunday soon enough.

Will Rogers

Yes, he led State’s victory over Kentucky. Yes, he did plenty of his damage with safe, easy passes. But going 36 for 39 is certainly something. For one thing, it’s the best single-game completion percentage (92%) in SEC history. And the rap against the Air Raid offense is that Mississippi State completes a bunch of passes for almost no yardage. Rogers got 8.8 yards per attempt on Saturday. He also completed passes to 12 different receivers. By comparison, Kentucky has had 14 players catch passes all season.

Derrick Mason

Facing Mississippi’s offense is a defensive coordinator’s nightmare. But for Mason, it was a proving ground. Holding the Rebels to 20 points was outstanding. Keeping them to 6 for 15 on 3rd down and 1 for 4 on 4th down was astonishing. Matt Corral is still Matt Corral, but holding him to the fewest points this season and the fewest yards since the Rebels played Alabama … well, job well done, Derrick Mason, and his Auburn defense.

Losers

Vandy’s prevent defense

I considered listing the horrific fake field goal from Vandy that set this play up, but any time you have more than half of your defense standing flat footed and watching the receiver grab the Hail Mary, that’s good enough for us.

Dan Mullen’s QB handling

Sure, there’s a little hypocrisy in criticizing Mullen for doing what many of us wanted to see a month or two ago: Finally starting Anthony Richardson. But starting him against this Georgia team felt more than a little like when soon-to-be-exiled UK coach Bill Curry started Tim Couch in the Swamp against a No. 1 Florida team that beat Kentucky 65-0. It was like, “Was that strategy or a big fat rude gesture to all the fans who wanted to see him start?” Mullen’s mishandling of the quarterbacks is almost a metaphor for this entire messed-up season for UF.

Kentucky’s offense (and its turnover problems)

Kentucky fell to minus-12 on the season in turnover margin (worst in FBS) in the loss to Mississippi State. Part of the problem was that Wildcats QB Will Levis made some simply awful throws, perhaps the most damaging on a 1st and 10 from the MSU 15 in the final seconds of the first half. If nothing else, Kentucky could have kicked a field goal and trimmed its deficit 14-13 going into halftime. Instead, Levis forced a throw into double coverage for his 2nd interception of the game. The other, weirder part of the problem is that UK has only forced 4 turnovers on defense all year, tied with Florida International for the fewest in FBS. So what does that mean? UK can’t keep giving the ball away.