SEC power rankings, Week 8: Alabama has no peers, Arkansas demands respect
Alabama confirmed they’re the best SEC football team with a big win over Georgia while the Arkansas Razorbacks are steadily proving themselves.
The Week 7 college football slate gave us an early-season glimpse at who reigned supreme in the SEC football hierarchy as the Georgia Bulldogs went on the road to face the Alabama Crimson Tide. And after a 17-point win for the home team, it’s obvious that Nick Saban’s club is clearly atop the conference — and comfortably so.
While that top-five national matchup was the marquee game in SEC football in Week 7, there were other noteworthy outcomes throughout the conference. Whether that was LSU vs. Florida and Missouri vs. Vanderbilt getting postponed or Auburn falling to South Carolina or Arkansas looking miles better than expected, we’re continuing to learn more about these teams.
So after the action in Week 7, let’s check in on the SEC football power rankings to see how the 14 teams stack up against one another and what we could see from them moving forward.
Here are the weekly SEC football power rankings after Week 7
A COVID-19 outbreak among the Vanderbilt Commodores led to their Week 7 tilt against Missouri getting postponed and it’s hard to imagine any Vandy fans being upset about that. Since playing Texas A&M close in the season-opener, the Commodores have lived up to the billing as the worst team in the conference.
My, how the narrative has changed around Mike Leach’s Mississippi State Bulldogs. As it turns out, anyone can put up a ton of points on LSU — aside from Vandy — while K.J. Costello and the young men from Starkville are struggling to score against anyone else, proven in a 28-14 loss to Texas A&M on Saturday. The defense is respectable but that’s about the kindest thing you can say about this team right now.
Lane Kiffin has clearly invigorated the Ole Miss offense but it’s also clear that there is work left to do in Oxford. Matt Corral and the Rebels offense played their worst game of the 2020 campaign in Week 7, falling to Arkansas. With how bad this team’s defense is, they can’t afford to have off days in terms of their scoring.
It’s a shame for the LSU Tigers that they didn’t get to play Florida this past week as that game has the potential to somewhat change the narrative around this team. After all, it should be a shootout in which their porous defense doesn’t matter. But as of now, this team leaves too many question marks on that side of the ball while the offense is several tiers below where they were a year ago.
In their first two games, Eli Drinkwitz’s Tigers had glimmers of hope but left a lot to be desired. Then came a signature win for the first-year head coach against LSU. It’s a shame that Missouri didn’t get a chance to compound that with an almost assured win against Vanderbilt in Week 7 as that game was postponed but expect the needle to keep pointing up for the Tigers throughout the rest of the season.
You could honestly make the case for Bo Nix and the Auburn Tigers to be lower than No. 9 in the SEC football power rankings coming off of their Week 7 loss to South Carolina. This team is terrible in the trenches and was legitimately beaten by a Gamecocks team that is merely average. Given that the Tigers have yet to truly deliver an impressive performance to this point, Gus Malzahn’s seat is likely starting to heat up, as per usual.
The Jarrett Guarantano effect — a phenomenon in which the current Tennessee quarterback can’t move the ball — was in full focus on Saturday as Kentucky blasted the Vols. Outside of the experienced but problematic signal-caller, Jeremy Pruitt’s team is an impressive group that can win games in the trenches and in a grind-it-out fashion. But as long as Guarantano’s mistakes continue to set them back, they have a defined ceiling.
Even after four games and an upset win over Auburn, it’s tough to know what to make of South Carolina. Collin Hill is clearly talented and there are pro-caliber players on all levels of the defense as well. But it does remain to be seen if the Gamecocks have enough juice to knock off a truly elite team in the conference this season — or if they can take advantage of a team like LSU, their Week 8 opponent.
Projected to compete with Vanderbilt as the worst team in the SEC this season, the Sam Pittman rebuild is well ahead of schedule with the Arkansas Razorbacks. A 33-21 victory over Ole Miss on Saturday moved the team to 2-2 on the year and, if not for getting hosed by the refs against Auburn, they could be 3-1. Feleipe Franks looks to have new life and the defense is playing motivated football for a Hogs team that can’t be slept on.
There’s a good chance that the Kentucky Wildcats can’t climb higher than No. 5 but it’s also impossible to think that they’d ever realistically drop below the mid-tier as well. This is a team that has a defined ceiling with Terry Wilson Jr. at quarterback but knows who they are and is incredibly well-coached. Their emphatic Week 7 win over Tennessee put that all on display as they made life nightmarish for the Vols.
Even more so than knocking off Florida, the Week 7 win over Mississippi State showed a lot about the Texas A&M Aggies. That’s a position where Kellen Mond and Co. would often have a letdown game and, while they weren’t wholly dominant, the outcome of their win was never in question. That’s the sign of a team that’s coming together and should be a lock for the second-place spot in the SEC West.
Even with Georgia’s loss to Alabama, it doesn’t feel right slotting the Florida Gators up ahead of them considering that the last time we saw Dan Mullen’s team, they were getting beat by A&M. Kyle Trask and the offense are clearly elite but the defense is an outright liability right now and, until we have evidence that things are improving on that side of the ball, it would be hard to say they’re the second-best team in the conference.
Georgia’s place in the SEC was predicated on a reliable offense and an elite defense. But the latter unit was torched by Alabama in Week 7 — so what now? Well, that may say more about the Crimson Tide and how good that team is than the Bulldogs. Moreover, you have to wonder if the second-half dud laid by Stetson Bennett IV was a wake-up call that will spurn change to the UGA offense moving forward, perhaps including a move to JT Daniels.
There isn’t a question about who’s going to win the SEC this season — it’s quite clearly the Alabama Crimson Tide and then everyone else competing for a distant second. The defense is better than a year ago while the offense is every bit as potent with Mac Jones at the helm surrounded by NFL-caliber weapons at every turn. It legitimately might be true that the only team with a chance of competing with Bama this season is Clemson, not anyone in the conference.
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