Week 11 SEC Primer: Another year, another golden opportunity for Ole Miss to break through against Georgia

Everything you need to know about the Week 11 SEC slate, all in one place.

(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Georgia (-2.5) at Ole Miss

The stakes

It’s November. Ole Miss (7-2) is on the Playoff bubble. The season is riding on a must-win game against one of the conference’s year-in, year-out blue-chip overlords. You know what that means: It’s time for another hair-raising edition of Can the Rebels Get Over the Hump?

So far, the answer has been an emphatic no. Lane Kiffin‘s boys have been on the cusp at this point on the calendar each of the past 2 years, and both times they were met with fresh reminders of their place in the food chain. On the 2nd Saturday of November 2022, they welcomed Alabama to Oxford with an 8-1 record and their CFP path still intact; instead, a 30-24 loss to the Bryce Young-led Tide dashed those hopes and sent the Rebels spiraling into a 4-game losing streak to close the season. On the 2nd Saturday of November 2023, they took an 8-1 record into Georgia in what was billed at the time as arguably the biggest Ole Miss game in a half-century; they limped out on the wrong end of a 52-17 beatdown that confirmed their irrelevance nationally while extending the Bulldogs’ streak atop the AP poll to 22 consecutive weeks.

Now they’re back, ready for Round 3. Obviously, the Rebels are desperate to win a game that matters — desperate enough to pay for it, in fact, which they did in the course of assembling the most decorated transfer class in the country last winter. Of Ole Miss’ 3 wins to date vs. top-10 opponents under Kiffin, 2 came in bowl games (vs. No. 7 Indiana in 2020 and No. 10 Penn State last year), and the 3rd was a September 2022 win over a plainly overrated Kentucky outfit that went on to finish 7-6. Meanwhile, Kiffin’s teams are 0-5 vs. Bama and Georgia and lost their only game against a ranked opponent this year, an overtime heartbreaker at then-No. 13 LSU in Week 7.

Even if it wasn’t a make-or-break game for a team with 2 losses already on the books, Saturday’s return date against the Bulldogs has been circled from the moment it appeared on the schedule as the biggest test of Ole Miss’ progress. Did the offseason spending spree raise the ceiling enough? Does Jaxson Dart have a Heisman mode? Is the defensive turnaround under 2nd-year DC Pete Golding real? Vibes-wise, the Rebels are riding high coming off their best outing of the year, a 63-point bonanza at Arkansas in which they put up nearly 700 yards of total offense. Georgia, for its part, has not been its usual domineering self even en route to a 7-1 record, having yet to put together a complete game on both sides of the ball since its season-opening romp over Clemson. The point spread projects a toss-up, on Ole Miss’ home turf. As much as the Rebels have invested (literally) in this team and this season, there’s no time like the present.

The stat: 16.1%

That’s the havoc rate generated by Ole Miss’ defense this season, best in the nation according to GameOnPaper.com. “Havoc Rate” is what it sounds like — a category that combines the sum of forced fumbles, interceptions, passes broken up and tackles for loss (including sacks) as a percentage of total defensive snaps. The Rebels have excelled in virtually all of the above, leading the country in TFLs (94), sacks (41) and PBUs (48) while also recording multiple takeaways in 7 of 8 games vs. FBS opponents.

Ole Miss has poured its resources into bringing the D-line up to snuff, and it has paid off. The Rebels have improved in Havoc Rate in every season of Kiffin’s tenure, and they have made a huge leap this year behind a front-line rotation consisting largely of big-ticket transfers from other SEC and SEC-adjacent programs: Walter Nolen (Texas A&M), Princely Umanmielen (Florida), JJ Pegues (Auburn), Chris Paul Jr. (Arkansas) and Jared Ivey (Georgia Tech) are all in their 1st or 2nd year in Oxford, and for most of them (with the possible exception of Paul, a redshirt junior) it will be their last. Along with 5-star sophomore Suntarine Perkins — the only starter up front who actually signed with Ole Miss out of high school — the Rebels boast 6 of the SEC’s top 20 defenders in tackles for loss, including 4 of the top 8. No other team currently has more than 2.

Tellingly, the Rebels have failed to record a sack in only 1 game to date: their overtime loss at LSU in Week 7. In every other SEC game, the pass rush has been relentless, recording 5 sacks against Kentucky, 6 against South Carolina, 9 against Oklahoma and 8 in last week’s win over Arkansas. Getting to Georgia’s Carson Beck, who has faced pressure on an SEC-low 21% of his total drop-backs this season, is a different challenge, especially with All-American guard Tate Ratledge projected to be back in the starting lineup for the 1st time in 2 months. Ole Miss barely laid a hand on Beck in last year’s meeting, generating just 3 pressures and 0 sacks on 28 drop-backs, per Pro Football Focus. If you’re just checking in on the game occasionally in the middle of a wedding or a 6-year-old’s birthday party, the quickest way to tell how it’s going will be how clean his jersey is as the afternoon wears on.

The big question: Can Carson Beck stop throwing the ball to the wrong team?

The spike in Beck’s interception rate that I discussed last week has officially graduated from a curiosity to a problem. His 3-INT outing against Florida was only the most conspicuous entry in an ongoing trend: Beginning with Georgia’s Week 5 loss at Alabama, Beck has thrown nearly twice as many picks in the past 5 games (11) as he threw all of last season (6).

It would be a lot easier to diagnose the problem if it could be reduced to a single factor like “pressure.” As with all quarterbacks, Beck’s production does suffer under duress — for the season, he has posted a dismal 35.7 PFF grade on pressured drop-backs vs. a 90.3 grade when kept clean — but that doesn’t really explain the picks. Per PFF, 7 of his 11 interceptions have come from clean pockets. (That was true last year, too, when all 6 INTs were chalked up to clean pockets.) There probably is something to the fact that he’s putting the ball in the air significantly more often: Beck has attempted at least 40 passes in all 5 of his multiple-INT games this year, a mark he didn’t hit a single time in 2023. That’s a reflection of the fact that Georgia is leaning more heavily on his arm to cover for a defense and ground game that (so far) aren’t quite up to its usual standards.

Regardless of the circumstances, though, Beck is just making some straight-up bad decisions. It’s one thing to serve up 3 picks in comeback mode after your team has fallen behind by 4 touchdowns on the road at Alabama. But he wasn’t playing from behind at any point in his 3-INT performance at Texas in Week 8, and despite a 1st-half deficit against Florida, the Bulldogs were never in any serious danger of being out of the game in an eventual 34-20 win. Still, some of Beck’s picks have been brutal. His 2nd interception against the Gators came on a routine 1st-down throw over the middle in the 2nd quarter that could have been picked off by 2 different UF defenders — safety Aaron Gates, who actually came down with, and linebacker Grayson Howard, whom Gates robbed of a pick that was aimed directly between the 1 and the 0 on Howard’s jersey. What was Beck seeing here?

The reason the INT trend is merely a “problem” and not an all-caps CRISIS, of course, is that Beck is still generating a lot of positives and Georgia is still winning. In the 4 games in which he has thrown multiple picks, the Bulldogs have won 3 by double digits and very nearly pulled off a historic comeback against Alabama in the 4th; they’ve scored 30+ points in all 4. For the season, Beck is accounting for just shy of 70% of the team’s total offense vs. Power 4 opponents. He remains a winning quarterback who gives the Dogs a chance even on the rare occasions when the defense wobbles. But even an outfit as talented and as capable of winning in as many different ways as Georgia can’t go on dodging bullets at this rate for much longer.

The verdict

Florida at Texas (-21.5)

Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin took the heat off his head coach this week, confirming in a statement that Billy Napier will be back in 2025. It’s a punt, but I respect it: Regardless of how anyone feels about the state of the program right now, nothing that happens over the next few weeks has any business influencing that decision. Even if QB DJ Lagway manages to return from the hamstring injury that sidelined him in last week’s loss to Georgia — a big if, although Lagway has not been ruled out going forward — a true freshman being thrown into the deep end is hardly the basis for making an up-or-down call about the long-term direction of the program. And that’s the best-case scenario; more likely, the Gators are resigned to muddling through with the offense in the hands of a 3rd-string walk-on, Aidan Warner, who moves the needle even less. Meanwhile, Napier is attempting to salvage a disappointing recruiting class that has been plagued by uncertainty over his future. One way or the other, Stricklin needed to settle the question to remove the cloud of speculation hanging over the team. Rest assured, the “hot seat” narrative will resume in earnest next year.

As for Texas, the Longhorns are looking to reestablish a little momentum after playing just 3 games in the past 5 weeks. The past 2, a 30-15 loss to Georgia in Week 8 and a 27-24 win at Vanderbilt in Week 9, were underwhelming — especially for QB Quinn Ewers, who hasn’t quite looked himself since returning from the oblique injury that sidelined him in September. Publicly, at least, Steve Sarkisian refuses to indulge the notion of a controversy between Ewers and Arch Manning, whose brief appearance against Georgia didn’t go so hot, either. But a reassuring outing from his designated QB1 would certainly help in convincing the rest of the world. The larger the postseason looms, the more urgent the question is going to get.
– –  –
Texas 31 | • Florida 13

Mississippi State at Tennessee (-24.5)

Tennessee’s biggest concern from 1 week to the next, obviously, is Nico Iamaleava‘s consistency: When he’s on, the Vols are arguably the SEC’s most complete team; when he’s not, they’re liable to lose to Arkansas. Beyond the quarterback, though, there’s growing concern around the kicking game, where redshirt freshman Max Gilbert is going through it. With 3 misses in last week’s 28-18 win over Kentucky, Gilbert is an alarming 1-for-6 on field-goal attempts over the past 2 games. His 2 misses against Alabama in Week 8 were easier to shrug off, both of them coming from 50+ yards out; his misses against the Wildcats, on the other hand, were much more makeable attempts from 43, 40 and 34 yards, respectively. It hasn’t mattered yet — and shouldn’t on Saturday against a thoroughly overmatched version of Mississippi State — but the thing with kickers is that you never know when it will.
– –  –
Tennessee 36 | • Mississippi State 17

Oklahoma (-2.5) at Missouri

How much is Brady Cook worth to Missouri? According to the betting markets, approximately 1 touchdown: That’s how much the point spread has moved in Oklahoma’s favor this week with Cook’s status in doubt, from an opening line of Mizzou –4 to Oklahoma –2.5 as of Thursday afternoon. Frankly, that has a lot less to do with any overriding faith in Cook, who has exited Missouri’s past 2 games against Auburn and Alabama with ankle and hand injuries, respectively, than it does with the lack of trust in his understudy, former Notre Dame/Arizona State starter Drew Pyne, who has looked out of his depth in Cook’s absence. In 14 possessions with Pyne in the lineup, the Tigers have more turnovers (4) than points (3).

With or without Cook (who at last glance was listed as “questionable” on Missouri’s public injury report), the Tigers have to figure out a way to manufacture more meaningful touches for Luther Burden III in what is almost certainly his final month on campus. Burden hasn’t caught a touchdown pass since Week 4, in an overtime win over Vanderbilt in the SEC opener; in the meantime, he has averaged a meager 5.3 yards per catch over Mizzou’s past 4 games. Last time out, his 3 receptions against Alabama yielded a grand total of 3 yards. The Tigers have not forgotten about him — Burden was on the receiving end of 5 targets of 20+ air yards against Bama and Auburn, none of which connected — but each week that passes without a new entry on his highlight reel is a wasted opportunity.
– –  –
• Missouri 20 | Oklahoma 16

South Carolina (-4.5) at Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt is on a 15-game losing streak against the Gamecocks, its longest active skid against an SEC opponent now that the Bama dragon has been slayed. I don’t know who’s going to win this game, but either way, you can bet it’s gonna be close. That’s just how Vandy rolls: All 8 of the Commodores’ games vs. FBS opponents have been decided by 10 points or fewer, by an average margin of 5.1 points in regulation. (Not for nothing, the ‘Dores have also covered the spread in every game vs. a Power 4 opponent while playing down to the likes of Georgia State and Ball State.) South Carolina has had its share of nail-biters, too, most notably in down-to-the-wire losses to LSU and Alabama, both of which Carolina led in the 4th quarter. Push comes to shove, my chips are on Vandy because Diego Pavia is a closer.
– –  –
• Vanderbilt 24 | South Carolina 22

Alabama (-2.5) at LSU

Last year’s win over LSU in Tuscaloosa marked the beginning of Jalen Milroe’s  emergence  from wild card to rising star: He accounted for a then-career-high 365 total yards and 4 touchdowns (all rushing) in that game, our first glimpse of him in command on a big stage. That set off a November surge that culminated in a conference championship, a ticket to the Playoff and a 6th-place finish in the Heisman vote. This time around, the jury is still out following a glitchy, turnover-prone October that often felt like a flashback to the early days of Milroe’s tenure as QB1.

Part of that stems from just how much his team puts on his shoulders. Like Beck at Georgia, Milroe doesn’t have the benefit of a vintage Bama defense or ground game, leaving it up to the quarterback to pick up the slack. Unlike Beck, Milroe is capable of generating his own ground game; excluding sacks, he leads the Crimson Tide in carries (91), rushing yards (483) and touchdowns (12), a significantly higher share of the rushing production than he accounted for in 2023. In that context, Bama’s 34-0 win over Missouri in Week 9 was probably the most encouraging of the season, even more so than the epic triumph over Georgia: As a team, the Tide ran for a season-high 271 yards and 4 touchdowns on 7.3 yards per carry, most of it courtesy of the actual running backs — Justice Haynes, Jam Miller and Richard Young combined for 190 of those 271 yards and 3 of the 4 TDs. (Milroe contributed 50 yards and 1 TD.) Alabama does not want to find itself in another situation like the one it faced in its Week 8 loss at Tennessee: no running game to speak of and Milroe desperately targeting freshman WR Ryan Williams 19 times. Williams needs his touches, but they’re a lot more effective when everyone else is getting his fair share.
– – –
• Alabama 33 | LSU 27

Off This Week: Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Texas A&M

Scoreboard

Week 10 record: 5-2 straight-up | 2-5 vs. spread
Season record: 76-18 straight-up | 57-34 vs. spread