SEC power rankings, Week 4: It’s all about the Bulldogs, Tigers not so much
By John Buhler
We had some thrilling games in SEC play last week. Let’s turn the page and look ahead to Week 4. Here are the SEC power rankings heading into this week.
The SEC is in a bit of a weird spot. We know that the Alabama Crimson Tide are far and away the best team in this Power 5 conference. However, we have no idea if there is even a second best team in the conference. It might be the Bulldogs, but it’s probably not going to be the Tigers.
Overall, the SEC went 8-5 in Week 3 with the Arkansas Razorbacks idle. We did have some thrilling conference games on the slate including the No. 24 Florida Gators topping the No. 23 Tennessee Volunteers in The Swamp on a Feleipe Franks Hail Mary. It might have been a hold, but how does Volunteers coach Butch Jones consider playing man coverage on a Hail Mary?
The Mississippi State Bulldogs rang them cowbells so magnificently that Bruce Dickinson had to love the sweet music coming from Starkville. Dan Mullen’s boys throttled Ed Orgeron’s No. 12 LSU Tigers at Davis Wade to improve to 3-0. Mississippi State has a huge road game against Kirby Smart’s No. 11 Georgia Bulldogs in Athens this Saturday.
With the conference starting to separate a bit, let’s take a look at the weekly power rankings in the SEC. Hopefully Week 4 gives us a large enough sample size to really size up these 14 member institutions.
Missouri Tigers (1-2)
Last week: Loss vs. Purdue, 35-3
Last rank: 14th
It’s not even remotely close. The Missouri Tigers are a terrible football team. Not only are they the worst team in the SEC, this might be the worst team in the Power 5. They are right in that vein with Baylor, Kansas and Rutgers for that horrendous distinction.
When you get boat raced at home by SEC East rival South Carolina and Purdue in consecutive weeks, there’s no reason to hope that things are going to get better for Mizzou. This team is not going bowling and they need to move on from the current coaching staff in place. It is a total disaster in Columbia. No wonder the fans aren’t showing up at Faurot Field.
Ole Miss Rebels (2-1)
Last week: Loss at Cal, 27-16
Last rank: 11th
After putting up points against South Alabama and Tennessee-Martin, the Ole Miss Rebels couldn’t hang in a tough road game against the California Golden Bears in Berkeley. To be fair, Cal is a sneaky good Pac-12 team. There wasn’t much of a chance that Ole Miss or any mid-level SEC team would win on the West Coast with a 10:30 p.m. ET start.
Again, Ole Miss is one of the toughest teams to figure out where they’ll finish in the SEC hierarchy. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt, as the Hugh Freeze administration capsized that notion. With SEC West rivals Alabama and Auburn coming up in the next three weeks, those just feel like l’s. Ole Miss will win a conference. We just don’t know which one yet.