SEC Power Rankings, Week 11: Alabama clinches SEC West
By John Buhler
Week 11 of the 2016 college football season was an exciting one full of upsets. How does this impact the weekly SEC power rankings?
In a week of college football that saw five of the Top 10 teams in the College Football Playoffs lose, the SEC will experience some shakeup in the weekly power rankings. Both the No. 8 Texas A&M Aggies and the No. 9 Auburn Tigers fell on Saturday.
These losses weren’t as devastating as the three in the top four that fell. Clemson losing to Pittsburgh at home on a last-second field goal makes us wonder how good the top of the ACC really is. Michigan struggled in a trap game against Iowa.
The top of the Big Ten is great, but which team is the best in that Power 5 conference? Washington falling at home to USC hurts the Pac-12’s Playoff chances considerably.
Here are the weekly SEC power rankings from Week 11 based on dominance in this past weekend’s games.
Bad Losses
The Mississippi State Bulldogs’ shocking Week 10 upset of the No. 4 Texas A&M Aggies is firmly in the rearview mirror, as the Bulldogs got dismantled by the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday afternoon, 51-3.
New starting quarterback Nick Fitzgerald couldn’t do much of anything against the elite Alabama pass rush. Only a late field goal prevented this from being an embarrassing shut out in the SEC for Mississippi State.
Now with six losses on the season, Mississippi State has to win out to go bowling this holiday season. With their two remaining games against the Arkansas Razorbacks and the arch rival Ole Miss Rebels, six wins for Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs seems highly unlikely in 2016.
This was a must-win game for the Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday and they blew it. If Vanderbilt seriously wanted to go bowling, they had to beat the awful Missouri Tigers in Columbia on Saturday.
Vanderbilt couldn’t generate enough offense to top the Tigers at Faurot Field, falling 26-17 to their SEC East foe. The Commodores only have one SEC win on the season, at the Georgia Bulldogs during Homecoming of all places.
The ‘Dores have to beat cross-divisional rival Ole Miss and in-state rival Tennessee to get to .500 at 6-6. That does not seem likely for the Vanderbilt football program. The amount of times that starting quarterback Kyle Shurmur has cost this team wins is staggering.
Are we sure the Arkansas Razorbacks are good? One thing we know is that Bret Bielema’s team has absolutely no place in the College Football Playoff rankings after their blowout loss at home to rival LSU, 38-10.
Realistically, Arkansas is probably the fifth best team in the SEC West ahead of only the Mississippi schools. What makes this loss to LSU all the more troubling is that isn’t Arkansas supposed to be an offense-first football team?
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Yes, Arkansas has clinched a bowl bid, but to see them lose at home to a major rival that fired its head coach midseason because they couldn’t score enough points has to have Bielema feeling some heat. Does this mean the Hogs’ head coach is on the hot seat? This team has been uncompetitive too many times under Bielema for it not too fall on him.