SEC Power Rankings, Week 12: Florida clinches SEC East

Week 12 of the 2016 college football season gave us the Florida Gators as the SEC East Champions. Here are the weekly SEC power rankings based on Saturday.

While much of the rest of the Power 5 has some things that need to be sorted out in Week 13, we now know which two teams will be playing in the 2016 SEC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta: the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Florida Gators.

Both teams won on Saturday to improve to 11-0 and 8-2, respectively. Here are the weekly SEC power rankings based on how good all 14 teams looked in Week 12.

Losses

After beating the Vanderbilt Commodores in a tight one in Week 11, the Missouri Tigers were dismantled by another SEC East team in the form of the No. 19 Tennessee Volunteers. Missouri dropped its eighth game of the season in Knoxville, 63-37.

Missouri is clearly the worst team in the SEC. The Tigers have not been competitive in most of the games they have played in this season. Yes, it was going to be a rebuilding year in Columbia for the Tigers, but things are not getting better under head coach Barry Odom.

With the way the Missouri has played this season, how are the Tigers going to land a necessary top-40 recruiting class? Missouri should be able to lock down metro Kansas City and St. Louis. Certainly a lot of elite football talent wants to play Power 5 football. The Tigers aren’t doing their part in representing the SEC well in 2016.

The Ole Miss Rebels looked bad for extended stretches in their cross-divisional rivalry game with the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville on Saturday night. This was a game that Ole Miss didn’t need to lose, but did so any way, 38-17.

For a team that hasn’t been terribly buttoned-up this season, was it really any surprise that the Rebels were going to fall in Nashville to a desperate Vanderbilt team? The Rebels battled back in the second half, but were largely uncompetitive in run defense in the first half to get an SEC road victory.

This loss to Vanderbilt puts immense pressure on the Rebels in the Egg Bowl. To reach bowl eligibility, Ole Miss has to beat the arch nemesis Mississippi State Bulldogs. While Mississippi State won’t be bowling this season, the Bulldogs would love to ruin the Rebels’ holiday season. They very well could.

The Bulldogs will miss only their second bowl game in the Dan Mullen era in Starkville. Mississippi State lost to the Arkansas Razorbacks, 58-42 on Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium.

Yes, this was going to be a bit of a rebuilding season in Starkville, but it wasn’t all bad. Well, it wasn’t all good either. Mississippi State seems to have found its next starting quarterback in the nimble, dual-threat passer Nick Fitzgerald. They also lost to South Alabama on a missed field goal.

The Bulldogs will only have one more game this season, but for them it is the most important one. Mississippi State will play arch rival Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. Ole Miss is 5-6 and has to win to get to a bowl. The Bulldogs are playing better ball in the second half than Ole Miss. They could play spoiler.

The LSU Tigers lost on the final play from scrimmage against the Florida Gators on Saturday afternoon in Baton Rouge. Running back Derrius Guice was stopped inches short of tying the game on a one-yard touchdown try. As a result, LSU falls to 6-4.

Maybe LSU wasn’t as good as we though for the last few weeks? They did have to fire long-time head coach Les Miles. Yes, all four of LSU’s losses have come to top-15 teams in the Power 5, but what was their signature win: the Magnolia Bowl against an Ole Miss team that needs to win the Egg Bowl to get to 6-6?

The defense of Ed Orgeron is dominant, but the LSU offense is beyond archaic. LSU had its opportunity to play in the Sugar Bowl, but missed out on Saturday because of poor goal line execution on multiple occasions.