SEC power rankings: Dan Mullen humiliated by South Carolina, Alabama gets scare from LSU

Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen had a rough time as his team was humbled by the South Carolina Gamecocks. Here’s how that impacts the SEC power rankings.

Is there any coach underachieving more than Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen? The man who became known for doing more with less and developing talent while with the Mississippi State Bulldogs has become a guy who is losing in ways that he simply should not lose.

In Mullen’s fourth year, the Gators were supposed to be at a place where they would be able to consistently compete against Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs, but that clearly isn’t the case as Florida continues to provide new levels of disappointment to a fanbase that craves a championship.

With Florida’s 40-17 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks, here’s what the SEC power ranking look like after Week 10.

Florida takes a big fall in this week’s SEC power rankings after a blowout loss vs. South Carolina

The Vanderbilt Commodores didn’t do anything this past week, which means they got the perfect opportunity to sit back and watch everything unravel for a particular team in the SEC East. All things considered, there are worse weeks a team could have.

Hey Florida, how much longer do you really intend to keep Mullen? While he proved to be a valuable coach for Mississippi State, he is underachieving with the Gators in ways that many couldn’t have ever imagined. The narrative surrounding his decision to leave Mississippi State was that there was a ceiling on the program that Mullen had reached and that he wanted to win national championships.

The Gators were supposed to be the program where he could do that. No team can do that if they’re sitting at 4-5 with the season’s end just a few weeks away. Mullen has incredible resources available to him and his team just got blown out by South Carolina. Florida has now lost its last three games and four of its last five with that one win coming against Vanderbilt. Things aren’t good in Gainesville right now.

The Missouri Tigers are in the second year of the Eliah Drinkwitz era and they really don’t seem any better than they were a season ago. Mizzou looked like a mess against the Georgia Bulldogs, which is fair because it’s Georgia, but it’s yet another disappointing loss in a disappointing season for the Tigers.

Look at you, South Carolina! You barely escaped Vanderbilt a little while ago and now you’re doing everything possible to end Mullen’s tenure at Florida! That’s impressive! The Gamecocks walloped the Gators, beating Florida 40-17. This game could have been considerably more lopsided than it actually ended up being. That doesn’t bode well for Mullen.

The Kentucky Wildcats have now lost three games in a row and they’ve accomplished that by losing in three radically different ways. Kentucky looked solid at times against Georgia, but the Bulldogs overwhelmed the Wildcats and won by 17 points.

When presented with Mississippi State and its Air Raid, Kentucky couldn’t keep up because the Wildcats’ offense was nowhere to be found. Now the offense is clicking, but the Wildcats couldn’t stop the Tennessee Volunteers even if a life depended on it. Losing 45-42 at home probably won’t make Mark Stoops all that happy as Kentucky’s special season is officially spoiled.

Ed Orgeron almost had one last moment in the sun when the LSU Tigers went toe-to-toe with Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide. So, so close. LSU actually looked really good, even though the Tigers are pretty far from that this year. Challenging Alabama and only losing 20-14 in a down year? That’s not bad, LSU.

The Tennessee Volunteers aren’t particularly impressive on defense as they allowed Kentucky to rack up yards and points, but the Vols have a thrilling offense that really can’t be stopped by anyone right now. Josh Heupel’s team only had the ball for just shy of 14 minutes on Saturday but that was apparently more than enough time to get over 600 yards of offense and outlast Kentucky in a 45-42 shootout. Will Tennessee be good enough to truly introduce some chaos and possibly spoil Georgia’s perfect season when the two teams face this week?

Well, a rough trip to Fayettville proved to be a stumbling block for Mike Leach and Mississippi State. This team is an odd one and it apparently really needs some help in the field goal kicking department. We’ll see if that comes back to bite them again. This team has found its groove on offense and, for the most part, the defense looks really good, but it can’t miss three field goals in a road game and expect to win.

The Auburn Tigers looked abysmal against the Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday. Bryan Harsin’s first season hasn’t been without some ups and downs, but none of those speedbumps were expected to completely stop the car. Auburn only scored three points in College Station. That’s not good.

Is Arkansas good? Well, maybe. Are the Razorbacks inconsistent? Yeah, very much so. Sam Pittman and company should be thrilled that they were able to escape Saturday with a win and are now set to go to a bowl game for the first time since 2016. Pittman continues to impress with the way he’s rebuilt this program.

The Ole Miss Rebels got the perfect opportunity to welcome an old friend back to Oxford when they faced off against former Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze as he guided the Liberty Flames to town. Ole Miss was able to win by double digits and took the chance to take some shots at Freeze after the win. 

Jimbo Fisher has done an incredible job of improving Texas A&M as the season has gone on. This is far from being the most talented team the Aggies have ever had and the offense is incredibly bland, but A&M is winning and that’s all that matters. Shoutout to A&M’s defense for completely stymieing everything Auburn wanted to do Saturday.

Nick Saban probably isn’t thrilled with the way his Alabama Crimson Tide team looks right now and he’s running out of time to really get his team some style points. Alabama looked incredibly average against the LSU Tigers, who are in fact a very mediocre team this season. This group doesn’t appear to be capable of competing for a national championship at the moment. Will that change in the coming weeks?

While the Georgia Bulldogs don’t exactly have the best, most exciting offense possible, it’s still a tough thing to stop consistently. When you combine that with a remarkably dominant defense like what Kirby Smart has built for the Bulldogs, you get a nearly unstoppable team. That’s what we got to see in Athens on Saturday.

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