SEC power rankings: Auburn, Kentucky get statement wins; Arkansas, Ole Miss humbled by Georgia and Alabama

Arkansas and Ole Miss were humbled while Auburn and Kentucky snapped long losing streaks vs. opponents as they make a big move in the new SEC power rankings.

There’s a ton of parity in the SEC this season. Sure, Alabama and Georgia are clearly the best teams in the conference and there appears to be a huge gap between those two teams and everyone else, but from there on down, there is a sizable group of closely contested teams.

Ole Miss, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas A&M were all supposed to be teams that challenged the upper echelon of the SEC this season and all four teams lost this weekend. While there’s still a slight chance that Ole Miss and Arkansas make things interesting in the SEC, the Gators and Aggies each now have two losses in conference play.

After this past weekend, given which teams won and lost, it seems likely that team like Auburn, Mississippi State, and Kentucky all have a chance at giving some folks some headaches this season.

During week 5, we saw plenty of chaos, some unexpected wins, and some horrifyingly large margins of victory. Here’s what all of that did to the SEC power rankings for this week:

SEC power rankings entering Week 6: Kentucky makes statement

Vanderbilt got a win! Over a non-conference opponent! Sure, it was UConn, but Vandy still won! Wins are wins and the Vanderbilt football program doesn’t get many of them. Enjoy it, Commodores!

Missouri fans must be miserable. Mizzou entered the year with some potential to do fun things and the Tigers just suffered a 38-point loss at home against the Tennessee Vols. Year two of the Eliah Drinkwitz era hasn’t been much fun so far and the Tigers are bafflingly bad on defense right now.

Very little is going right for Texas A&M right now. The Aggies had a stout pass defense prior to facing the Mississippi State Bulldogs and that defense gave up over 400 pass yards as A&M lost 26-22. Jimbo Fisher is being paid an absurd amount of money to coach a talented team, but things aren’t going well for A&M. On top of the fact that the Aggies’ defense was picked apart, A&M’s offense couldn’t even gain 300 yards against the Bulldogs. This team certainly misses having Haynes King at quarterback.

South Carolina beat Troy, which is good for the Gamecocks, but the Gamecocks sure didn’t look all that good as they managed to get that win. Still, a win is a win and Shane Beamer needs wins as he works to build this program. Baby steps are important. Wins are important. South Carolina got both of those in a 23-14 win against the Trojans.

The LSU Tigers have so much talent and potential and they fell short yet again. Ed Orgeron’s hot seat has to be scalding at this point because LSU blew a nine-point lead against the Auburn Tigers to lose 24-19.

The worst part about that loss for LSU may have been how Auburn quarterback Bo Nix routinely scrambled out of pressure and made plays that would’ve made Johnny Manziel and Cam Newton proud. LSU allowed Nix to gain 329 total yards and score two touchdowns. Meanwhile, LSU quarterback Max Johnson threw for 325 yards and a touchdown, but the Bayou Bengals received little offensive help outside of Johnson.

Tennessee may be working on rebuilding with a new coaching staff, but everything went right for the Vols on Saturday as they scorched the Missouri Tigers on the road. It’s generally a fun thing for fans to watch their team win by 38 points and that certainly has to be true as Tennessee won 62-24. This game was out of hand early on and Josh Heupel has to be proud of his offense gaining 683 yards in Columbia.

Will Rogers looked exceptional at quarterback as he completed 46-of-59 passes for 408 yards and three touchdowns as the Bulldogs beat Texas A&M 26-22 in front of a huge crowd in College Station. MSU may not be where Mike Leach wants it, but things are steadily improving for a young and odd team. Five weeks into the season and Mississippi State is now sitting at 3-2.

Two of those wins came by a combined five points while those two losses are by a combined five points. If a few plays bounce the other way, MSU is anything from 1-4 to 5-0, depending on which team was the beneficiary.

Well, Arkansas didn’t seem to have a fun trip to Athens. The Razorbacks were No. 8 headed into that game and came out of that contest with a 37-0 loss. Georgia is clearly an elite team and the Bulldogs could compete for a national title this season, but Arkansas couldn’t get out of its own way and routinely made mistakes it couldn’t afford to make. The Razorbacks committed 13 penalties for 101 yards. Nobody can really do that against a team as talented as UGA and expect to come out with a win.

Dan Mullen will be catching plenty of flak after the Florida Gators fell 20-13 to the Kentucky Wildcats. From 2009 through 2017 while at Mississippi State, Mullen only lost to the Wildcats once but he’s now lost to Kentucky twice in Gainesville and this is a game that Florida should have been able to win. The Gators outgained the Wildcats 382 to 224 total yards. That yardage differential definitely wasn’t enough and to add on to that, Florida had penalty problems, committing 15 for 115 yards.

If there hadn’t been so much turmoil this week in the SEC, the Ole Miss Rebels likely would’ve dropped a bit after getting blown out by Alabama. Lane Kiffin’s trip to Tuscaloosa turned into a nightmare very quickly. While Matt Corral actually had a solid game, it was far from being magnificent, which is what Ole Miss would’ve needed to actually win against Alabama. The Rebels ended up losing 42-21, but this game probably could’ve been much more lopsided.

I’m still not all that sure of what to make of the Auburn Tigers. This team sure is an odd one and may not stay ranked this high for very long. But, after some turmoil and teams ranked above them losing and with the Tigers going out and getting a road SEC win to advance on to 4-1 on the season, they got to move up to No. 4 in the SEC power rankings.

At one point on the road at LSU, Auburn trailed the Bayou Bengals 13-0. But Bryan Harsin’s Tigers were able to quickly get right back into the game as Bo Nix looked stellar. It’s possible that Nix put the calls for a quarterback competition to rest as he engineered a comeback for the Auburn Tigers as they went on to win 24-19 over LSU in Death Valley, their first win there since 1999.

Kentucky is unbeaten! Sound the alarms! We’re five weeks into the 2021 college football season and Mark Stoops has guided his team to an unblemished 5-0 record. The Wildcats’ were somehow able to win 20-13 despite the fact that they only gained 224 total yards of offense against Florida. This is their first home win vs. the Gators since 1985. Kentucky’s offense will need to get in gear for this team to be a true SEC contender, but right now it’s fun to watch the chaos the Wildcats cause, regardless of how sloppy their offense is.

Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs managed to run right over the Arkansas Razorbacks. With JT Daniels out against the No. 8 team in the country, UGA really didn’t do much other than run the ball and let Arkansas make costly mistakes. Georgia ended up gaining just 345 total yards of offense, but they gained 273 rushing yards off of 56 carries. Of course, the real impressive aspect of this 37-0 win was how dominant UGA’s defense looked. The Bulldogs held Arkansas to 162 total yards in an impressive effort.

Despite the fact that Ole Miss entered into the game fresh off of a bye week, Alabama didn’t seem phased by the Rebels at all. The Crimson Tide claimed a 42-21 win over Ole Miss as Alabama found a way to slow the Rebels’ typically prolific offense. While many expected the Rebels to have their offense going and causing issues for Nick Saban, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth for most of this game. Ole Miss only managed to gain 291 total yards while the Crimson Tide gained 451 and scored seemingly at ease.

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