Alabama and LSU are locked into the top two spots in the SEC power rankings in advance of their Nov. 2 game while Georgia and Florida will meet in a pivotal SEC East showdown.
There’s still plenty of drama left in the SEC season, but the question of who are the top two teams in the league is over. Alabama and LSU will battle in Baton Rouge on November 3rd in a battle to determine who the top team in the league truly is. Everyone else is just playing for third place.
To that end, Kentucky took a nice step forward with a narrow home win against Vanderbilt. That sort of win isn’t the stuff dreams are made of in Lexington, but a loss would have torpedoed their season. Sometimes avoiding the upset is as good as pulling one off.
Auburn also got an important win to stabilize their season. Again, no one on the Plains is going to throw a party for winning at Ole Miss, but it stopped the bleeding for the Tigers. Gus Malzahn can at least turn on talk radio this week.
Without delay, let’s jump right into this week’s power rankings. The last placed team took a big step forward this week, but it wasn’t enough to get them out of the basement.
The middle of October isn’t the ideal time to get your first win over an FBS team, but Arkansas fans will take it. Blanking Tulsa isn’t enough to move the Razorbacks out of our No. 14 slot, but it is a nice morale boost for Chad Morris’ program. It still has to be a little concerning that the offense can’t seem to get going. Morris came to town with the reputation of being an offensive genius, but throwing for 131 yards against the Golden Hurricane isn’t going to put Arkansas into the record books. Still, it was important for this team to get a win and they deserve credit for earning it without any drama.
The era of good feeling in Knoxville only lasted one week. Predictably, Alabama came to town and blew out the Volunteers. This is a rivalry that has been awfully one-sided as of late. The only real positive coming out of the game for Tennessee is that Jarrett Guarantano’s injury doesn’t seem to be serious. Keller Chryst came in and played really well in relief, but Jeremy Pruitt wants to stick with his sophomore signal caller. Reports emanating from Knoxville claim that Guarantano should be good for next week’s tilt at South Carolina.