Looking ahead to Cocktail Parties: Post-Week 8 SEC rankings
Alabama’s fun to make fun of for one major reason: The fanbase. If you are nasty about the Crimson, Alabama fans take it so damned personally. I mean, this blog on Twitter just mentioned the fact that Alabama had played only one team of any note this season (Texas A&M), and comparing it to the amount of ranked teams LSU teams played, and Bama fans hit Crazytown. Of course, when the two teams clash in Week 10 it’s going to be something special. But if we’re talking about this year’s schedule for Alabama so far, it sucks.
So why do we think they are the best team in the SEC? Because if I’m honest, I don’t see anyone beating them. LSU will be missing the best defensive player it has for half of the game because of a B.S. targeting call (while Alabama will keep one its own defensive keys due to a B.S. targeting call), and Alabama’s got a better offensive. It’ll be closer than 40-odd points, but we can’t see LSU winning.
Mind you, we couldn’t see Ohio State losing at Purdue…
Anyway, here goes….
- Alabama (8-0): The schedule may suck so far, helping the Tide to Top 2 rankings in offense and defense, but this side is absolutely wasting every team its playing against. No-one can seem to touch them, let alone bring them down. Tua’s hitting a breadth of receivers, the running game is a machine, and the defense is stopping everybody except, er, Arkansas. They walk into Baton Rouge in two weeks’ time, and they should be two-score favourites. If not more.
- LSU (7-1): Despite never making it easy for themselves (apart from the Georgia game) LSU’s results have been sensational this season. The defense completely stopped Nick Fitzgerald and Mississippi State. The offense is OK with being…OK (85th in the nation) – especially when you bear in mind that they’ve played FIVE ranked teams – if you count where they were at the time – already this season. The loss of defensive leader Devin White for the first half of the Bama game due to a B.S. targeting call may loom large.
- Georgia (6-1): Week off preparing for a Cocktail Party by burning jorts.4
- Florida (6-1): Week off preparing for a Cocktail Party by burning bulldogs.
- Texas A&M (5-2): Week off preparing for Mississippi State by burning cowbells.
- Kentucky (6-1): Never a good look beating Vanderbilt 14- 7…at home. Is Kentucky trending down? Perhaps. But Benny Snell is still awesome, though.
- Mississippi State (4-3): The defense is very good. But the offense is absolutely terrible. How could the offense regress so badly despite bringing back all the weapons that it had last year? The answer is that Dan Mullen is a better offensive head coach than Joe Moorhead. Give Moorhead a bit of time (it’s his first time as a HC at a major program), though. Still, this is a disappointment.
- Auburn (5-3): Gus Malzahn took a little bit of the monkey off his back with a convincing performance on both sides of the ball against Ole Miss.
- South Carolina (3-3): Whoever the QB is, the team is 72nd nationally in offense- and Deebo Samuel isn’t in the Top 100 in receiving yards or yards per catch. Missouri must be scratching their heads as to how they lost to this team….and Texas A&M must be wondering why they didn’t beat them by more.
- Missouri (4-3): Missouri’s convincing win over Memphis proved two things: 1) The Tigers can play offense 2) The Memphis Tigers cannot play defense. The Tigers will be praying Emanuel Hall returns soon….they really need their star receiver. They also need their receivers to catch balls in SEC games, too. They are still winless in that category.
- Arkansas (2-6): The Razorbacks have been playing a lot better lately, and they deserved their 23-0 win over Tulsa to give Chad Morris his second win as a head coach. How in the hell Vegas decided this might be a close game we’ll never know. But it was free money for those who bet Arkansas to win more convincingly than 9.
- Tennessee (3-4): The crushing at home by Alabama wasn’t fun. Alabama could have made it a lot worse in the 4th quarter had Nick Saban and Mike Locksley decided not to totally crush the Volunteers. The biggest pain for the Vols was seeing Butch Jones get the Gatorade shower for seeing his former team win at Neyland Stadium. Butch Jones isn’t even a coordinator for Alabama, btw. He’s a freaking analyst.
- Ole Miss (5-3): When you get shut out by a team that’s playing terribly, you’re not a good team. Ole Miss might still win a couple more games in the SEC to lift themselves off the bottom, but the team’s defense is a joke. We don’t understand why Matt Luke hasn’t fired DC Wesley McGriff yet.
- Vanderbilt (3-4): Vanderbilt’s defense played well at Kentucky (2 turnovers created), but the offense didn’t (2 turnovers lost). The Commodores must be sick and tired of losing games that they have played well in. That’s the mark of a bad team, folks.