Alabama keeps rolling, while Missouri surges: Week 10 SEC Rankings

Week 10 wasn’t set up to be too much of a weird weekend. Of course there was Bedlam out in Oklahoma, a perhaps-tricky trip for Ohio State to Iowa and a perhaps-tricky trip for Penn State at Michigan State, and then…and then….real bedlam happened. Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State 65-55 (yes, we’re serious), Iowa beat the living crap out of Ohio State, and Penn State lost after a three-hour lightning delay to Michigan State.

In the SEC, though, nothing really happened. Alabama and Georgia both rolled (although not a hugely as we would have anticipated), Auburn went to Texas A&M and kicked the crap out of them, while Arkansas and Mississippi State rolled out painful victories. Ole Miss beat Kentucky in a thriller, and Butch Jones got the haters off his back (a little) with a win over Southern Miss. Oh, and Vanderbilt beat Western Kentucky in a snoozer (ALTHOUGH WE WERE BANG-ON THE SCORELINE FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR).

And then there was Missouri. Missouri for the first half of the season had been – to use our favourite podcast at the moment (‘The Mizzodcast’) a ‘steaming pile of dogs**t’. And then they threw all over Georgia in the first half of their 53-28 loss. And they got more confident from that, and have won three in a row, including blowing out coach-less Florida.

So here’s our ranking of SEC teams 1-14.

  1. Alabama: If Alabama had struggled with LSU and Georgia had torched South Carolina, then we might have swapped these, but Alabama’s defense looked excellent against LSU, helped by the Tigers’ poor quarterbacking. Is there anything that can stop this team?
  2. Georgia: The Dawgs, who had the No.1 College Play-Off spot going into this game, must have played with a ton of rat poison in them, because they beat South Carolina 24-10 and didn’t play particularly well. They’d better not do the same at Auburn on Saturday, although they’ll be releived that College Gameday won’t be there, because Lee Corso’s pro-Dawgs picks always seem to go awry. Oh, and now they are SEC East winners after Kentucky’s loss to Ole Miss. Which is unbelievable considering how great the East has been this season #sarcasm.
  3. Auburn: The fact that Auburn beat the living crap out of Texas A&M in a game that was expected to be pretty close (at least from my point of view) shows that the second half at LSU was merely a blip in the progress that this team’s showing under Gus Malzahn. Georgia had better watch out, because Jordan-Hare’s going to be a war on Saturday.
  4. LSU: Battled more than I thought they would at Alabama, but the problem stems from what we’ve been saying for years….They don’t have a quarterback. Danny Etling wasn’t even serviceable, going 12-26 for 153 yards and an interception. His replacement, Myles Brennan, wasn’t much better. LSU may have outgained Alabama on the ground, but when you don’t have a QB, who cares?
  5. Mississippi State: With all the rumors about Dan Mullen leaving Starkville for Florida, it’s easy to see why Mississippi State looked so poor against UMass. Also, the UMass game was a classic look-ahead spot to the visit of Alabama. The Cowbells will be loud and the crowd will be excited. Never has a Cowbeller needed Nick Fitzgerald more….
  6. South Carolina: The Gamecocks looked competent today, holding Georgia to a 14-7 lead at half-time. The second half was 10-0 in favor of the Bulldogs, but still, Will Muschamp’s got some good things going. The sad news? Deebo Samuel’s done for the year.
  7. Missouri: This team hasn’t made a bowl game, but they have all the momentum. Sure, momentum’s helped when you play back-to-back terrible teams, and then have a home game against a truly awful team in Florida. But dropped nearly 50 on the Gators? And the defense looking not-awful, and Drew Lock looking like a Heisman contender (which he isn’t, but you get what we’re saying). The Tigers must be salivating over a trip to Tennessee, where things are a little bit of a mess. Right now, the Tigers are a team no team with a head coaching issue wants to play.
  8. Texas A&M: We didn’t expect the Aggies to be destroyed by either Mississippi State or Auburn. They were destroyed by both. Kevin Sumlin’s apparently out at Texas A&M at the end of the season – which we are beginning to understand – but we don’t understand WHY they’ve played so damned badly in the last couple of games after finding some momentum. The Aggies shouldn’t be as bad as they are. But….they are.
  9. Ole Miss: Great comeback against Kentucky shows that the Rebels have some life in them. Let’s hope they have a good coach for the 2018 season that can give them the same ‘fun and gun’ that that Matt Luke seems to work with. With a little more defense, please.
  10. Kentucky: Congrats to Kentucky on getting bowl eligible ‘n’ all, but we can’t think of a Kentucky game where the Wildcats have actually consistently well for 4 quarters this year. This loss to Ole Miss was WILD. Listen, the Wildcats are fun (every game seems to go down to some wire or another (if you’re a Kentucky fan we hope you haven’t had a heart attack yet)) to watch, but they….aren’t very good.
  11. Tennessee: Can’t believe we’ve put Tennessee up this high after beating Southern Miss, but the Volunteers did at least put forward an OK performance. The fans seem to still believe too, with 95,000 showing up to Neyland, despite the #EmptyNeyland campaign against Butch Jones. The Volunteers are still a mess though.
  12. Arkansas: Arkansas nearly lost to Coastal Carolina. This team’s awful.
  13. Vanderbilt: Yes, we get that Vanderbilt lost to Florida, but Florida had a coach and Jake Del Rio at the time. Now they have neither. We doubt Vanderbilt lose as badly as Florida did to Missouri, either.
  14. Florida: Head coach? No. Offensive ideas? No. Beaten heavily at Missouri? Yes.