(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Tennessee at Georgia (–9.5)

The stakes

As advertised, Vols-Dogs is a pivotal swing game in both College Football Playoff and SEC standings, promising reverberations in both. With 3 Saturdays left in the regular season, 8 SEC teams are still plausibly in the Playoff hunt. Only 2 head-to-head meetings remain between those teams — Tennessee-Georgia and Texas-Texas A&M on Nov. 30 — making Saturday’s collision one of the few remaining dates with clear and present Playoff implications for both teams. It’s nut-cuttin’ time, and there’s a lot left to be decided.

If you like easy decisions with a minimum of drama, Tennessee is your team. A UT win would clarify a lot: Besides making the Vols a near lock for the CFP, it would also make them a near lock for the SEC Championship Game, with only Vanderbilt standing between them and a 7-1 finish in conference play. Barring a major upset involving Texas or A&M, the stage would then be set for a collision in Atlanta between Tennessee and the winner of Longhorns-Aggies, the league’s only remaining 1-loss teams. No tiebreakers, no adding up the combined records of common opponents, no mess. Simple, straightforward, easy.

Just as plainly, a Vols win would also eliminate Georgia, which comes in with 2 strikes in the loss column and slumping stock in the wake of a 28-10 beatdown at the hands of Ole Miss. The Bulldogs haven’t lost back-to-back regular-season games since 2016, Kirby Smart‘s 1st year as head coach, or a home game since 2019, which probably goes a long way toward explaining the surprisingly lopsided point spread in this one — after all, who had Georgia bowing out of the national race in mid-November? The Bulldogs also haven’t played a complete game on both sides of the ball in more than 2 months, and they just suffered their worst loss since the pandemic. Whatever the spread says, Saturday is a crossroads game for UGA’s rep as a year-in, year-out contender.

But if your taste tends toward chaos, for the 1st time in a long time you’re rooting for the Dogs. As it stands, Georgia is 1 of 5 teams with 2 losses in SEC play, and a win on Saturday would guarantee at least 1 2-loss outfit a ticket to Atlanta. Which 2-loss outfit(s) is impossible to project: As many as 8 teams could realistically finish 6-2, triggering a convoluted tiebreaker scenario that offers no clarity without knowing exactly which combination of teams are involved in the pileup. Georgia’s mission at this point is simply to ensure that it’s one of them.

The stat: 2.48

That’s Georgia’s average points per drive this season, according to efficiency guru Brian Fremeau, 48th nationally and on pace for UGA’s worst average PPD since Smart’s 1st season as head coach.

Much has been made of Carson Beck‘s soaring interception rate in SEC play, in this space and every other space. Beck’s efficiency has regressed dramatically compared to his hyper-efficient campaign in 2023. But he has also been asked to do a lot more, under much less favorable conditions, with a surrounding cast that hasn’t exactly distinguished itself. The ground game has been the least productive of Smart’s tenure by far, averaging a mediocre 111.7 yards per game on 3.6 per carry vs. conference opponents. The wideouts, while potentially explosive, have been inconsistent and occasionally maddening; Pro Football Focus has Beck down for more dropped passes on the year (20) than any other SEC quarterback. (Leading receiver Arian Smith has been the main culprit in that column, with 7 drops on 49 targets.) And the usually reliable offensive line was just exposed in ghastly fashion in the loss at Ole Miss, whose front-line rotation generated 14 pressures, 5 sacks and 2 fumbles without resorting to sending extra rushers.

A furious 4th-quarter comeback against Alabama skews the stats, but other than that rally the Bulldogs have been notably out of sync against the 3 best defenses they’ve faced: Bama, Texas and Ole Miss — a grim omen against a Tennessee defense that ranks in the top 5 nationally in total defense, scoring defense, SP+ defense, yards per play allowed, 3rd-down defense and, yes, points per drive. It doesn’t help that the Dogs’ best skill player, RB Trevor Etienne, has been ruled out with a rib injury, putting more pressure on Beck, his mercurial receivers and his suddenly shaky O-line to protect him. This group is gifted enough to pull a U-turn, but if it’s gonna happen, Saturday is their last chance to swing it.

The big question: Is Nico Iamaleava ready to roll?

Iamaleava’s health has been the biggest storyline leading up to the game, and it remains the biggest variable. The quarterback left last week’s 33-14 win over Mississippi State at halftime with what was initially reported to be an upper body injury; Josh Heupel told reporters immediately after the game that his absence was merely a “precautionary measure,” and Iamaleava would be “ready to roll” against Georgia. What a relief. By midweek, the outlook was more muddled. Iamaleava was in concussion protocol but still participating in practice (?); he was unofficially on track to play but officially “questionable” per the latest injury report. Vibes out of Knoxville are optimistic, but we won’t really know for sure until Iamaleava or 5th-year walk-on Gaston Moore comes out to take the 1st snap on Saturday night.

If Iamaleava does play, is he up to the challenge on the road? The Vols haven’t played away from Neyland Stadium in more than a month — their last road trip was their only loss, a 19-14 stunner at Arkansas on Oct. 5. In the meantime, Iamaleava has apparently pulled out of his midseason slump, leading a Week 8 win over Alabama, turning in arguably his best performance of the year against Kentucky in Week 10 and getting off to a great start against Mississippi State last week before exiting the game. He has the size, the arm and the mobility to be an asset as a runner, an important distinction against a Georgia defense that has had its issues against athletic QBs like Jalen Milroe and Jaxson Dart. (That is, of course, if Iamaleava has the green light to run.) And he has bankable run support in Dylan Sampson, who averages a grueling 26 carries per game in SEC play and has hit the 100-yard mark in 8 of 9 games overall.

The upshot: When Iamaleava looks good, he looks very good. But he has yet to put it all together against a real opponent, even in the defensively-driven win over Bama, offering glimpses of his elite potential while the breakthrough continues to loom in the distance. Tennessee will take whatever version doctors are willing to clear on Saturday, and again, it doesn’t necessarily need a needle-moving performance from the quarterback if Sampson and the defense continue to hold up their end of the bargain. But boy, would the Vols love to see it on this stage. If Iamaleava manages to take the next step before the postseason, the Vols could be serious contenders to go all the way.

The key matchup: Georgia OT Earnest Greene III vs. Tennessee edge James Pearce Jr.

It has been a rough year for Greene, who began the season as an aspiring 1st-rounder but has not looked the part. He has given up a team-high 16 QB pressures, per PFF, including multiple pressures allowed against Kentucky, Alabama and Texas, and he was repeatedly abused in the loss to Ole Miss; PFF singled him out for 2 sacks allowed against the Rebels as well as a pair of hits. That won’t cut it against Pearce, a Day 1 prospect who has actually lived up to the preseason hype: His 42 QB pressures leads the conference and is tied for 2nd nationally among Power 4 defenders. Pearce’s overall PRP — a catchall PFF stat combining sacks, hits and hurries relative to how often a player rushes the passer — is also the best in the power conferences. Georgia cannot afford for its left tackle to get posterized 2 weeks in a row.

The verdict

It’s easy to be down on Georgia right now, the curve in Athens being set as high as it is. But it’s also worth remembering that the Kirby-era Bulldogs have thoroughly dominated this series, boasting a 7-game winning streak over Tennessee by an average margin of 26.4 points per game; the closest margin in that span was a 27-13 decision in 2022 that, as anyone who watched that game will tell you, was not nearly that close. Altogether, Georgia has won 28 straight at home dating back to an October 2019 loss to South Carolina.

Then again, streaks tend to fall in bunches. Last week’s loss to Ole Miss snapped an incredible 52-game winning streak against opponents other than Alabama, and in decisive fashion. If I were certain about Iamaleava’s status, I’d be very tempted to take the Vols, who have had their glitches offensively (and, not for nothing, in the kicking game) but have been very consistent in terms of defense and running the dang ball. They know who they are; I’m not sure Georgia does at the moment. But there is no more margin for error: One way or the other, we’re all about to find out.
–     –     –
Georgia 24  | • Tennessee 20

Texas (–12.5) at Arkansas

Texas has no reason to be concerned about its defense, statistically the SEC’s best. But it is worth noting that the list of opposing quarterbacks to date features a suspicious number of wet-behind-the-ears freshmen (Mississippi State’s Michael Van Buren Jr., Oklahoma’s Michael Hawkins Jr.) and overmatched walk-ons (Michigan’s Davis Warren, Florida’s Aidan Warner). Yes, it also features a couple of established vets in Beck and Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia, who threw a combined 5 interceptions against the ‘Horns in Weeks 8 and 9. But they haven’t seen anyone like Arkansas’ Taylen Green, a chaos agent par excellence whose inconsistency is offset — when he’s healthy — by a rare combination of mobility and downfield juice. If Green’s sore knee holds up, he poses the kind of challenge that Texas would love to strike from the “unknowns” column before the postseason.
–     –     –
• Texas 33  |  Arkansas 17

Missouri at South Carolina (–13.5)

If that line seems inflated, it’s due mainly to the uncertainty surrounding Missouri QB Brady Cook, who as of Thursday evening was listed as “doubtful” on the Tigers’ weekly injury report due the ankle/hand injuries that sidelined him in last week’s wild 30-23 win over Oklahoma. Backup Drew Pyne has not inspired much confidence in Cook’s absence, although he was notably better as a starter against the Sooners than he was coming off the bench against Auburn and (especially) Alabama in Weeks 8 and 9. Barring a late-breaking twist, Mizzou’s dwindling CFP hopes are on Pyne’s shoulders.

Regardless of Missouri’s QB situation, though, the 2-touchdown spread is also a nod to red-hot South Carolina, which has taken 3 straight games over Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt by 20-plus points apiece. Although the Gamecocks are an afterthought in the conference race at 4-3, all told they’ve outscored their 7 SEC opponents by a combined 67 points — the 3rd-best differential in conference play behind only Ole Miss (80 points) and Texas (73). If they keep it up, last-second losses to LSU and Alabama by a combined 5 points are going to stick in their craw for a while, those 5 points being all that’s standing between the Gamecocks and a darkhorse Playoff run of their own.
–     –     –
South Carolina 27  |  • Missouri 16

LSU (–4.5) at Florida

The mass exodus from Tiger Stadium during last week’s 42-13 flop against Alabama summed up the state of LSU’s season: Nothing left to see here. At 6-3, the Tigers’ Playoff hopes are toast, and while coach Brian Kelly is safe for now, a coordinator purge is on the horizon ahead of what already figures to be a very long offseason. If Kelly allows the gem of the 2025 recruiting class, verbally-committed QB Bryce Underwood, to slip through his fingers amid a late push from Michigan, it’s going to get even longer.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gainesville is even bleaker. At 4-5, Florida has no momentum, nothing in particular to play for — Billy Napier‘s job is officially safe, after all — and very little to look forward to in the incoming recruiting class, which ranks near the bottom of the conference. They are looking forward to the potential return of freshman QB DJ Lagway, who has practiced this week after sitting out last week’s wipeout loss at Texas with a strained hamstring. But the defense was awful against the Longhorns, suffering from blown coverages and missed tackles, and the injury-plagued back 7 remains shorthanded at every position. Bama debacle notwithstanding, the one aspect of LSU’s team that still looks vaguely like a strength is the passing game, which the Gators are ill-equipped to contain unless they’re able to generate significantly more pressure on Garrett Nussmeier than they’ve managed the past 2 weeks against Beck and Quinn Ewers. If the Tigers can’t light up this secondary, they might as well go ahead and sim to December.
–     –     –
• LSU 34  |  Florida 22

New Mexico State at Texas A&M (–38.5)

New Mexico State had a moment in 2023, winning 10 games and stunning Auburn in one of the biggest upsets in school history last November. It didn’t last. The head coach, offensive coordinator and starting quarterback from that team are all doing their thing at Vanderbilt now, and the Aggies are back to being just plain old New Mexico State, as ever. The Aggies are 2-7, in last place in the Conference USA standings, and they rank dead last nationally in pass efficiency. The other Aggies are just trying to get to their season-defining reunion with Texas in the finale as healthy as possible.
–     –     –
• Texas A&M 52  |  New Mexico State 10

UL-Monroe at Auburn (–24.5)

The standing beef with Auburn’s offense is that it doesn’t lean heavily enough on its bell cow, senior RB Jarquez Hunter. In a game like this, though, I’d actually like to see the Tigers air it out a little bit, if only to give a couple of hyped freshman wideouts, Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson, a chance to remind the locals why they were so touted in the first place. After a promising start, they’ve been afterthoughts in conference play. Coleman, one of the most hyped Auburn signees of the online recruiting era, has 1 touchdown on 11 catches vs. SEC opponents, while Thompson has struggled just to stay on the field; both have taken a back seat to their less-touted classmate, Malcolm Simmons, who has just 1 TD in conference play himself. There is still hope that their potential can be unlocked with an improved QB situation in the future — all eyes on that front are on 5-star 2025 commit Deuce Knight, who is still being wooed by Ole Miss, among others — but for now, just showing up against the UL-Monroes of the world would be a welcome glimpse of what’s in store.
–     –     –
• Auburn 41  |  UL-Monroe 13

Mercer at Alabama (–41.5)

Alabama’s Playoff outlook remains TBD, but Mercer’s is set: At 9-1, the Bears are the 1st (and so far only) team to clinch an automatic bid to the FCS bracket as regular-season champs of the Southern Conference. A trip to Tuscaloosa? Gravy. Just get where you’re going in one piece, guys.
–     –     –
• Alabama 51  |  Mercer 6

Murray State at Kentucky (–37.5)

Kentucky’s offense has been a wreck, ranking at or near the bottom of the SEC across the board. After 2 months of frustration, the Wildcats couldn’t ask for a slower, fatter target for taking out their angst than Murray State’s defense, which has allowed an FCS-worst 45.0 points per game en route to a 1-9 record and last-place status in the Missouri Valley Conference. On the same note, with starting QB Brock Vandagriff‘s status in doubt, they couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to give the heir apparent, true freshman Cutter Boley, a test drive as QB1 with an eye toward staging a legitimate competition next spring. Imagine the luxury of a homegrown quarterback who sticks rather than rolling the dice in the portal every year.
–     –     –
• Kentucky 45  |  Murray State 3

Off This Week: Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt

Scoreboard

Week 11 Record: 4–2 straight-up | 3–3 vs. spread
Season Record: 80–20 straight-up | 60–37 vs. spread

The post SEC Week 12 Primer: Down to its last strike, Georgia’s survival means dragging Tennessee back to the pack appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Dart’s part in the Rebels’ landmark, 28-10 win over Georgia is going to be remembered more for the image of him hobbling around on a visibly gimpy ankle than for his good-not-great stat line, but you know what they say: An image is worth a thousand yards. As Dart’s Heisman campaign ramps up over the next few weeks, the ankle is going to get a little gimpier and the tape a little thicker with every retelling. By the time the Rebels are recruiting little Jaxson Dart Jr., they’ll be telling him about the time his dad out-scrapped the mighty Dawgs with his foot on the verge of amputation.

Anyway, Dart got the W, but with a big assist from his understudy, redshirt freshman Austin Simmons, who played a brief but crucial role off the bench after Dart initially suffered the injury on the game’s opening series. At that point, the early momentum was decidedly with Georgia: The Bulldogs had just turned a quick turnover into a short-field touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Enter Simmons, who promptly led a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that evened the score and swung the pendulum to Ole Miss’ side for good. Simmons was 5-for-6 for 64 yards on the drive — the first meaningful action of his career — including a 12-yard completion on 4th-and-1 and a 20-yard completion on 3rd-and-7 to set up the touchdown. He immediately yielded to Dart after that and spent the rest of the afternoon as a spectator. But his cameo instilled confidence that the Rebels can survive at least temporarily without Dart during what they hope is a sustained Playoff run, and when the time comes to settle on his successor in 2025, it will be remembered.
–     –     –
Last week: 1⬌

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

When Milroe is at his best, he looks like God’s gift to the sport, and he’s rarely been better than when he’s facing LSU. In 2 starts against the Tigers, he’s accounted for 668 total yards, 8 touchdowns (all rushing) and 40 first downs, emphatically ending LSU’s Playoff hopes in both seasons. His 99.3 Total QBR rating in Bama’s 42-13 romp in Baton Rouge set a career high and, along with his stellar September outings against Western Kentucky and Georgia, gives him the top 3 single-game ratings of the season among SEC quarterbacks.

That’s a Heisman-caliber list, and Milroe may indeed have reestablished himself on Saturday as the league’s best shot at earning an invite to NYC next month. (He and Dart are running even as bubble candidates on the Heisman betting market.) At this stage of his career, though, do the peaks still inspire confidence that the maxed-out, dual-threat version on display against Georgia and LSU is sustainable? Or are they just that? Peaks on an uneven arc that will never level off.

There’s always been a boom-or-bust element to Milroe’s game, which is more obvious in his volatility as a passer but applies to his rushing production, too. Alabama’s 2 losses this season were also his least productive outings as a runner; excluding sacks, he ran for just 20 yards against Vanderbilt and 34 yards against Tennessee, the only game this season in which he didn’t record a rushing touchdown.

The surrounding cast isn’t good enough to pick up that slack: Milroe has been more productive on the ground vs. Power 4 opponents than the top 2 running backs, Jamarion Miller and Justice Haynes, combined. (Without even looking at the numbers, it’s enough for me that 9 games into the season, I still have a hard time telling Miller and Haynes apart.) Derrick Henry and Najee Harris are not walking through that door. If the Tide have a championship run in them — a big if, but not an impossible one — it’s only with Milroe hitting the high notes week-in, week-out.
–     –     –
Last week: 2⬌

3. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Ewers was overdue for a big game coming off a meh October, and came through right on schedule against Florida, bombing the Gators for 333 yards and 5 touchdowns in a 49-17 blowout. Sure, take that line with a grain of salt: It came against an injury-plagued, checked-out Florida secondary that repeatedly left receivers running wide open and had little interest in open-field tackling; 4 of Ewers’ 5 TD passes were the result of glaring coverage busts and basic screen passes that broke contain. He faced essentially zero pressure after taking a sack on the game’s opening series. Still, when you’re trying to convince the rest of the world on a weekly basis that Arch Manning belongs on clipboard duty, every little bit helps.
–     –     –
Last week: 4

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

In certain respects, Georgia’s 28-10 loss at Ole Miss was a culmination of red flags that had been piling up for weeks. Still, watching the Dawgs’ once-vaunted offensive line get thoroughly abused by a former underling in the conference food chain was a shock. The Rebels barely laid a hand on Beck last year in a 52-17 beatdown in Athens, arguably his best game as a starter. This time around, they made him look like a sitting duck.

On paper, Beck’s 39 drop-backs in Oxford resulted in 14 pressures (per Pro Football Focus), 5 sacks and 2 fumbles. In real time, it seemed like the pass rush was in his earhole on nearly every snap that wasn’t an immediate release. Worse, they didn’t have to sacrifice extra defenders to make it happen: 12 of those 14 pressures and all 5 sacks came on standard 3- or 4-man rushes, leaving Beck with few options against full-strength coverages.

He got off just 1 attempt of 20+ air yards, a 29-yard completion in the second half that took advantage of Ole Miss edge rusher Princely Umanmielen trying and failing to run with RB Cash Jones in coverage. (That play set up a field goal, Georgia’s only points after scoring on its first possession.) Otherwise, the Dawgs’ array of would-be playmakers was nonexistent in one of the worst offensive outings of Kirby Smart’s tenure.

The absence of an established go-to guy among the skill players was a predictable issue before the season, and still is. None of the wideouts has distinguished himself from the pack, and PFF has Beck down for more dropped passes (19) than any other SEC quarterback. But the o-line was supposed to be as solid as they come — Beck went into the Ole Miss game boasting the lowest pressure rate in the conference for the second year in a row, and with All-American guard Tate Ratledge back in the starting lineup for the first time since Week 3. Instead, Ratledge lasted just 17 snaps against the Rebels (giving up a sack in the process) and the line spent the rest of the afternoon in flux. Three of the 5 OL stations were manned by multiple players over the course of the game as the pressure kept coming.

Beck has had his own issues, of course, most notably a ghastly interception rate in conference play. He was only picked once in Oxford, on a 4th-and-10 attempt with Georgia in comeback mode in the 4th quarter — 1 of 4 straight second-half drives for UGA that ended with a turnover or turnover on downs to close the game. There is still time to salvage both the Dawgs’ fading CFP outlook and Beck’s tanking draft stock, beginning this weekend against Tennessee. But the margin for error has run out.
–     –     –
Last week: 3

5. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

All signs out of Knoxville point toward Iamaleava starting this weekend’s season-defining trip to Georgia, but there is enough uncertainty to fuel a couple of news cycles between now and kickoff. On Saturday, Iamaleava left the Vols’ 33-14 win over Mississippi State at halftime with what was initially described as an “upper body injury”; after the game, Josh Heupel said that holding him out in the second half was merely a “precautionary measure” in a game Tennessee had well in hand. On Monday, Heupel remained optimistic despite news that Iamaleava is in concussion protocol, telling reporters that he was participating in practice and was in “great shape” to play on Saturday. We’ll see. For now, I’ll just say that FanDuel Sportsbook‘s 10.5-point spread in Georgia’s favor makes a lot more sense if the oddsmakers know more than Heupel is willing to let on in the vicinity of a microphone.
–     –     –
Last week: 7⬌

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier is a cromulent starter, but whatever hope there was for him to make the leap into the kind of difference-maker who could lead the Tigers to a Playoff berth opposite a sketchy defense went down the drain Saturday night against Alabama. With the season on the line, Nussmeier averaged a meager 5.7 yards per attempt, threw 2 picks and posted season-lows for efficiency (110.4) and QBR (56.5); LSU didn’t crack the end zone until the closing seconds in a nearly empty Tiger Stadium.

With that, the central drama over the coming month is the fate of massively hyped 2025 QB commit Bryce Underwood, a longstanding LSU commit who has been on the receiving end of a full-court press from his home-state school, Michigan, as the recruiting cycle hits the closing stretch. Underwood was on hand Saturday night for a grim scene, taking in a miserable offensive performance, a mass exodus of LSU fans in the second half, and generally the worst vibes of Brian Kelly’s tenure to date. Then again, if there was any question about how quickly he would be able to get on the field next year, Nussmeier’s performance left him looking less entrenched than he’s been all season. As it stands, it would be a wide-open competition in the spring.

But that’s only if Underwood is still in the fold in the spring, which frankly Kelly is counting on to keep selling the dream of bigger and better things to come. Losing big to A&M and Bama in consecutive games is bad enough, but hey, at least there’s something to look forward to. If the No. 1 recruit in the country slips through his fingers, that might be the one thing that could actually get Kelly sent to the gallows sooner rather than later.
–     –     –
Last week: 6⬌

7. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

The same week Pavia sued the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility, he endured his worst game in a Vandy uniform, a 28-7 loss to South Carolina. Although he was only sacked twice, Pavia was pummeled by the Gamecocks’ pass rush, facing pressure on 20 of his 37 drop-backs with 7 hits, per PFF. Is he really sure he wants another year of this?
–     –     –
Last week: 5

8. Marcel Reed or Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

It’s still Reed or Weigman here, in keeping with Mike Elko’s promise earlier in the season that the call was going to be “a game-time decision the rest of the season.” The ball still seems to be in Reed’s court after he came off the bench to lead a come-from-behind win over LSU in Week 9 and went the distance in the Aggies’ Week 10 loss at South Carolina. On the other hand, the official depth chart for this weekend’s game against New Mexico State still lists Weigman on the top line with no “or” in sight, for what it’s worth. (Probably not much.) Against New Mexico State, whatever. For the closing stretch against Auburn and Texas, with a trip to the SEC Championship Game and the Playoff on the line, settling on the right guy could be the difference between a title shot and the Liberty Bowl.
–     –     –
Last week: 8⬌

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Green remains the league’s biggest wild card, a title that lately includes his health: He has left multiple games with knee injuries, including Arkansas’ Week 10 loss to Ole Miss, where he was sacked 5 times in the first half. He practiced every day during the Razorbacks’ bye week and appears to be on track to play this weekend against Texas, a game that has “chaos” written all over it. The Hogs have yet to win or lose 2 consecutive games against Power 4 opponents, which if the pattern holds puts the Longhorns directly in the path of an upset.
–     –     –
Last week: 9⬌

10. Brady Cook | Missouri

Eli Drinkwitz had a good time after Mizzou’s wild, come-from-behind win over Oklahoma reminding the SEC Network audience that the win “keeps us in the Playoff hunt.” That’s right, he said it. And technically, OK, fine: The Tigers have an 8% chance of making the CFP cut according to ESPN’s Playoff Predictor, a 7% chance according to the Football Power Index, and a less than 1% chance according to The Athletic. I’m not even going to try to untangle a path to to the SEC Championship Game if they’re among a pack of teams caught up in tiebreaker scenarios with 2 conference losses. Before they start doing the math, though, priority one is getting Cook back in the lineup for this weekend’s must-win trip to South Carolina after sitting out against the Sooners with ankle and hand injuries. His status is still up in the air, and despite the result against OU backup Drew Pyne has hardly inspired sustained “keeping our Playoff hopes alive” confidence in relief.
–     –     –
Last week: 10⬌

11. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

The Gamecocks are surging, boasting 3 consecutive wins by 20+ points apiece, and Sellers’ stock is rising along with his team’s. The past 2 games against Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are his best to date, due in part to a couple of conspicuous zeroes: Zero interceptions, zero sacks. Over his first 6 starts, he threw as many picks (4) as touchdowns and was sacked 25 times.
–     –     –
Last week: 11⬌

12. DJ Lagway | Florida

Lagway was “not quite ready” to return to the lineup last week despite going through warmups on his injured hamstring ahead of a blowout loss at Texas; in his absence, backup Aidan Warner looked like you’d expect a 3rd-string walk-on making his first career start on the road against the nation’s best defense to look. Early reports this week are optimistic that Lagway is on track to start against LSU after he returned to practice on Monday. But when “fingers crossed for the true freshman to start against LSU” is the optimistic scenario, yeah, it’s that kinda year.
–     –     –
Last week: 12⬌

13. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Even on their Saturday off, the Tigers had to deal with QB drama: The 5-star gem of their 2025 recruiting class, Deuce Knight, was spotted on the sideline at Ole Miss and took part in storming the field after the Rebels’ win over Georgia. Knight, a Mississippi native, has already flipped his commitment once since the start of the season, from Notre Dame to Auburn. If he makes it to campus, he immediately becomes the Tigers’ presumptive starter next year as a true freshman. (Thorne is out of eligibility, for the record.) But the day when they can change that if to when can’t arrive soon enough.
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Last week: 14

14. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren had a long night at Tennessee, setting season-lows for completion percentage (38.5), yards per attempt (3.1), passer rating (60.5), QBR (27.6) and overall PFF grade (41.3) — the first really bad game of his young career. Still, his presence along with a pair of young wideouts, Kevin Coleman Jr. and Mario Craver, remains the best thing the Bulldogs have going for them as they begin looking ahead to 2025 … assuming they can keep them all in the fold.
–     –     –
Last week: 13

15. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

Arnold went the distance in Oklahoma’s loss at Missouri, but the Sooners’ 2 longest completions of the night were both by non-quarterbacks on trick plays. The first came courtesy of punter Luke Elzinga, who converted a fake punt by completing a short jump pass that went for a 43-yard gain in the first half; the second came via freshman RB Taylor Tatum, who took a handoff, pulled up, and threw back to Arnold for an 18-yard touchdown in the 4th quarter. For his part, Arnold averaged just 3.1 yards per attempt with a long gain of 14, and ended the night by coughing up the ball on a decisive scoop-and-score in the final minute.
–     –     –
Last week: 15⬌

16. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff’s status is uncertain as he recovers from a concussion, and there’s no urgency to rush him back for this weekend’s game against Murray State. The question if Vandagriff remains on the shelf is who’s next in line: Gavin Wimsatt, who has struggled off the bench (to put it mildly) in the Wildcats’ past 2 games, or true freshman Cutter Boley, who is no longer in danger of burning his redshirt? Boley looked overmatched in his only appearance to date, going 0-for-6 with an interception in garbage time of a blowout loss at Florida; he’s also considered the heir apparent after Vandagriff (a redshirt junior with 1 more year of eligibility) moves on. If it were up for a vote, Kentucky fans would send in the freshman — if only to begin to gauge whether he looks the part of a future starter, or they’re going to be on the hook for pursuing yet another transfer.
–     –     –
Last week: 16⬌

•     •     •

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 12: When Jalen Milroe is on, Bama is a contender. Can they count on it this time? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Remember when the go-to complaint about the free-transfer era in college football was “the rich will get richer?” Anybody still getting any mileage out of that one? What if all the best players wind up on the small handful of teams with the most resources? As opposed to … uh, the status quo across every other era in the history of the sport? That line never quite passed muster, even before the evidence was in. The fact is, 4 years after the old restrictions were scuttled in response to the pandemic, the reality is closer to the opposite: The portal is turning out to be a great leveler.

Just take a glance at the top of the polls. You still have your blue bloods, your Ohio States, Texases, Notre Dames. Sure. What you don’t have, and have not had at any point this season, is a single team stacked enough to lord its air of inevitability over the rest of the sport.

The top spot in the AP poll changed hands 4 times in the season’s first 9 weeks. Instead, there’s a small insurgency of transfer-heavy outfits who owe their presence to the portal.

The consensus No. 1, Oregon, has aggressively upgraded the talent base under coach Dan Lanning, whose traditional recruiting classes and transfer portal hauls have both ranked in the top 10 nationally in each of the past 2 cycles, per 247Sports’ composite rating. No. 5 Indiana, a team in the midst of one of the most stunning overnight turnarounds on record, has pulled it off largely on the strength of a 31-man transfer class, nearly half of whom followed coach Curt Cignetti from his previous stop at James Madison. The top 2 teams in the ACC, Miami and SMU, both embraced a high-volume portal strategy to accelerate rebuilding projects under Mario Cristobal and Rhett Lashlee, respectively, which has paid off in Year 3. Colorado, which controls its own fate in the Big 12 at 7-2, is so famously committed to the portal under Deion Sanders that it has virtually abandoned traditional recruiting as a concept.

Lane Kiffin has not quite gone that far, yet. Ole Miss is still recruiting high school prospects, for now. Outside of Deion, though, no coach in America has embraced the portal as consistently, or realized its potential as fully, as Kiffin, who set out to assemble a roster that could compete with the championship tier of the SEC and, as of Saturday, has finally succeeded. The Rebels’ landmark, 28-10 beatdown of Georgia in Oxford was proof of concept for a vision 3 years in the making.

The team that took the field against the Bulldogs was a mercenary outfit through and through. Eighteen of Ole Miss’ 22 starters began their careers elsewhere, including the starting QB Jaxson Dart (USC); 3/5ths of the starting offensive line; and 9 of the 9 skill players who touched the ball on offense. (That’s not counting the Rebels’ leading rusher, Miami transfer Henry Parrish Jr., or leading receiver, Louisiana Tech transfer Tre Harris, neither of whom played Saturday due to injuries.) The effect was even more dramatic on defense, where 10 of 11 starters were transfers. (The lone exception, sophomore edge Suntarine Perkins, being the only 5-star prospect on the roster who signed with Ole Miss out of high school.) It also includes the kicker, Texas A&M transfer Caden Davis, was 5-for-5 on field-goal attempts on Saturday with a long of 53 yards.

The defensive line, in particular, historically a weak link in Ole Miss’ upset bids against the upper crust, was a testament to just how far the Rebels have come. A year ago, Georgia’s offensive line shoved Ole Miss’ front seven around at will, piling up 300 rushing yards and keeping Carson Beck spotless in a 52-17 blowout in Athens. At the time, that game was billed as arguably the biggest Ole Miss had played in a half-century, with conference championship and Playoff implications at stake. Instead, it was a wake-up call. The margin was the most lopsided of Kiffin’s tenure, and made it abundantly clear not only how large the gap remained between the Rebels and the league’s real contenders, but exactly where it existed: In the trenches.

“This game started a year ago when these guys beat us like that,” Kiffin said after the win. “We made a decision to go to the portal and we got some guys to come back and not go to the draft and they did a lot for this game. The guys said that this week, they came here for this game.”

Ah, what a difference a year makes. No, scratch that: What a difference a targeted multimillion-dollar investment makes. (Presumably some of the guys came for Ole Miss’ surprisingly formidable NIL bag, as well.) It’s not quite right to call the performance against Georgia a revelation: Ole Miss’ spare-no-expense d-line rotation was a known quantity before Saturday, boasting the national lead in sacks and tackles for loss coming into the game. In that sense, their sweltering performance against a short-handed, overmatched UGA front only confirmed what the locals already knew for a national audience. Collectively, Perkins, Walter Nolen (Texas A&M), Princely Umanmielen (Florida), JJ Pegues (Auburn), Chris Paul Jr. (Arkansas) and Jared Ivey (Georgia Tech) stuffed the Dawgs’ middling ground game and hounded Beck from start to finish, making Beck and his flailing o-line look uncharacteristically out of their depth. Beck was sacked 5 times, stripped twice and picked once, yielding a career-worst 55.9 QBR rating — almost exactly one year to the day that he posted a career-best QBR rating in the 2023 blowout.

If you’d asked an Ole Miss fan prior to this season to imagine what a hypothetical win over the likes of Georgia would look like on Kiffin’s watch, they’d have probably envisioned a shootout in the vein of the Rebels’ 66-48 loss to Alabama in 2020 (the most competitive game the Tide played that season en route to a national title, despite the final margin) or last year’s 55-49 win over LSU, two of the highest-scoring affairs in SEC history.

A defensively-driven, line-of-scrimmage win with Tre Harris still on the mend and Jaxson Dart visibly hobbled throughout the game by an ankle injury would not have been in the forecast. But this team, for once, is built different than the ones that have disappointed them so many times in the past. These Rebels have staying power, as well as a clear path to finishing the regular season 10-2 — almost certainly good enough to punch their ticket to the Playoff with a win over Georgia on their résumé to offset an inexplicable Week 5 loss to Kentucky.

Consistency remains a concern. The ceiling, finally, does not.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Alabama QB Jalen Milroe. When Milroe is at his best, he looks like God’s gift to the sport, and he’s rarely been better than when he’s facing LSU. In 2 starts against the Tigers he’s accounted for 668 total yards, 8 touchdowns (all rushing) and 40 first downs, emphatically ending LSU’s Playoff hopes in both seasons. His 99.3 Total QBR rating on Saturday set a career high and, along with his stellar September outings against Western Kentucky and Georgia, gives him the top 3 single-game ratings of the season among SEC quarterbacks.

Of course, not every opposing defense has LSU’s well-documented issues containing mobile quarterbacks. But every glimpse of Milroe’s enormous upside is a reminder that, when the light is on, the Tide still have the juice to beat anybody in any setting.

2. Alabama LB/Edge Jihaad Campbell. On the other side of the ball, Campbell was the best player on the field in Bama’s best defensive effort of the year, by far. Splitting his time between off-ball linebacker and pass-rushing reps off the edge, he finished with a team-high 12 tackles, 2 sacks, a forced fumble, and a pass broken up, for good measure. In addition to the conventional stats, PFF marked Campbell down for a career-high 8 “stops,” defined as a tackle that represents a “failure” for the offense based on down and distance, as well as a single completion allowed (for -1 yard) on 28 coverage snaps.

3. Ole Miss Edges Jared Ivey, Princely Umanmielen and Suntarine Perkins. If you’d asked me Saturday afternoon to guess this group’s combined production against Georgia in real time, without the benefit of the box score or PFF grades, I would have come up with numbers a lot higher than 14 QB pressures, 5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles. By the time night fell, it seemed like they were in Carson Beck’s earhole on every snap.

4. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson. The conversation re: elite running backs nationally tends to begin and end with Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, for obvious reasons. But it’s about time for the rest of the country to get hip to Sampson, the week-in, week-out MVP of an offense that is not nearly as high-flying as its reputation. In 7 games vs. Power 4 opponents, Sampson has averaged 25.1 carries for a workmanlike 129.1 yards per game, and those numbers only keep inching up as the year wears on. On Saturday, he set career-highs for carries (30) and yards (149) against Mississippi State, churning out the majority of that total after QB Nico Iamaleava was sidelined at halftime of a 33-14 win. Iamaleava is going to be fine for this weekend’s season-defining trip to Georgia — Josh Heupel told reporters that his absence in the second half against MSU was a “precautionary measure” in a game Tennessee had well in hand — but at this point, if Sampson’s not on track for 100 on the ground, it’s hard to say who the Vols even are.

5. Missouri LB Triston Newson. Mizzou won the weekend’s strangest game, a 30-23 thriller over Oklahoma that featured a combined 25 points over the first 3 1/2 quarters and a combined 28 points over the last 3 1/2 minutes. The frenzy culminated with Newson, capping one of the most active nights of his career, forcing a fumble by Oklahoma QB Jackson Arnold, which Missouri’s Zion Young proceeded to return 17 yards for the winning touchdown. Altogether, Newson finish with 10 total tackles, 2.5 TFLs, and a team-high 5 stops, earning easily his best overall PFF grade of the season (78.8).

Honorable Mention: Texas QB Quinn Ewers, who between wide-open receivers downfield and screen passes that broke for big gains turned in one of the easiest 333-yard, 5-touchdown outings you’ll ever see in a 49-17 win over Florida. … South Carolina edge rushers Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart, who continued their season-long reign of terror with 11 combined QB pressures and a strip sack (by Kennard) in a decisive, 28-7 win at Vanderbilt. … South Carolina RB Rocket Sanders, who continued his late-season surge by accounting for 178 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Commodores. … Tennessee edge James Pearce Jr., who had recorded 6 QB pressures and a sack in the Vols’ win over Mississippi State. … Mississippi State RB Davon Booth, who ran for 120 yards on 6.3 per carry in Knoxville in a losing effort. … Ole Miss DB John Saunders Jr., who picked off a pass, broke up 2 others, and recorded a TFL in the Rebels’ win over Georgia. … Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart, who accounted for 249 yards, a touchdown and an 89.7 QBR against the Bulldogs on a visibly gimpy ankle. … And backup Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons, who went 5-for-6 for 64 yards on his sole possession in relief of Dart — a crucial early TD drive that answered Georgia’s initial salvo and swung the pendulum back in the Rebels’ favor for the rest of the afternoon.

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The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Obscure Stat of the Week

Neither of Oklahoma’s 2 longest completions at Missouri came from the arm of a quarterback: Instead, they came courtesy of punter Luke Elzinga, who connected on a short jump pass on a fake punt that gained 43 yards in the first half; and freshman RB Taylor Tatum, who found QB Jackson Arnold on a trick play that went for an 18-yard touchdown in the 4th quarter. For his part, Arnold averaged just 3.1 yards per attempt with a long gain of 14 in a losing effort.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (8-1). For a clear frontrunner, the Longhorns still have a lot to prove against elite competition. It’s not their fault that most of the would-be heavy hitters on the schedule — Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida — have turned out to be mediocre or worse, and the ‘Horns have done their part in those games by putting all 3 out of reach by halftime. But no matter how impressive they’ve looked elsewhere, their wipeout loss against Georgia, by far the best team they’ve faced, looks even sketchier as the Dawgs fall back to the pack. | Last Week: 2

2. Tennessee (8-1). It’s not surprising that Tennessee opened an underdog at Georgia, especially in a series that hasn’t been close at any point since Kirby Smart got it going in Athens. (Georgia has won 7 straight by an average of 26.4 points per game.) But I was surprised that the point spread was approaching double digits, with FanDuel Sportsbook listing the Dawgs as 9.5-point favorites as of Sunday night. Have the oddsmakers been watching the same Georgia team the rest of us have? Did they miss Josh Heupel’s assurance that QB Nico Iamaleava will be “ready to roll” after leaving Saturday’s win over Mississippi State with a minor injury? Keep an eye on that line, which I suspect could get a little wobbly. | Last Week: 3

3. Alabama (6-2). The polls were reluctant to overreact to the Tide’s beatdown of LSU, bumping them up just a couple of spots to No. 9 in both the AP and Coaches’ polls. Advanced metrics like Bama a lot more: They’re in the top 5 nationally this week according to Bill Connelly (5th), Kenneth Massey (4th), and Jeff Sagarin (3rd), and No. 1 in a couple of longstanding metrics, ESPN’s Football Power Index and Sport Reference’s Simple Rating System. | Last Week: 4

4. Ole Miss (8-2). Just a reminder that if Elijah Moore doesn’t lift his leg in the end zone in the 2019 Egg Bowl, the current timeline never happens. | Last Week: 5

5. Georgia (7-2). On some level, watching Georgia get physically whipped in the trenches by a former underling in the food chain was shocking. But the flop at Ole Miss was just as remarkable for how not shocking it was, too. The Dawgs had been racking up one sloppy, underwhelming win after another since their opening-day rout of Clemson; it was only a matter of time before the offense failed to bail out the defense against a real opponent, or vice versa. Other than its reputation, what does this team have to hang its hat on right now? Carson Beck has struggled with interceptions (12, most in the SEC), his receivers have struggled with drops, the ground game has been an accessory at best, the offensive line just got exposed in ghastly fashion, and the defense — while potentially dominant; see the win at Texas — has been inconsistent. The Playoff is still a very real possibility, but with Tennessee on deck the Dawgs have one week to figure out who they are for the rest of the year. | Last Week: 1

6. Texas A&M (7-2). The Aggies control their fate in the conference standings with Auburn and Texas on deck. Who will their starting quarterback be in those games? The future is a mystery to us all. | Last Week: 6 ⬌

7. LSU (6-3). I don’t feel any need to indulge the What Is Brian Kelly’s Buyout? discourse, but the Tigers’ big offseason fear certainly has come true: The offense has regressed compared to 2023 far more than the defense has improved. At least when the defense got lit up in big games last year, Jayden Daniels was around to keep it interesting. Now, with back-to-back blowouts against Texas A&M and Alabama on the books and the Playoff officially a pipe dream, the most interesting storyline over the coming month is whether LSU can keep massively hyped 2025 QB commit Bryce Underwood in the fold amid a strong closing push from his home state school, Michigan.

Underwood was in Tiger Stadium on Saturday night as it emptied out in the second half, soaking up easily the worst vibes of Kelly’s tenure to date. Losing big to A&M and Bama is bad enough, but hey, at least there’s something to look forward to. If the No. 1 recruit in the country slips through his fingers, that might be the one thing that could actually get Kelly sent to the gallows sooner rather than later. |  Last Week: 7 ⬌

8. South Carolina (6-3). Although the Gamecocks are an afterthought in the conference race at 4-3, they’ve outscored their 7 SEC opponents by a combined 67 points — the 3rd-best differential in conference play behind only Ole Miss (80 points) and Texas (73). Down-to-the-wire losses to LSU and Alabama by a combined 5 points are going to stick in their craw for a while, those 5 points being all that’s standing between the ‘Cocks and a dark-horse Playoff run. | Last Week: 10

9. Missouri (7-2). Eli Drinkwitz had a good time after Mizzou’s wild, come-from-behind win over Oklahoma reminding the SEC Network audience that the win “keeps us in the Playoff hunt.” That’s right, he said it. Technically, he’s right: FPI gives the Tigers an 8.1% chance of making the cut, based on whatever that’s based on, while The Athletic‘s Playoff projections model gives them a 0.3% chance. I’m not even going to try to discern a path to to the SEC Championship Game if they’re among a pack of teams vying for a slot with 2 conference losses. But before they start doing the math, priority one is getting the quarterback situation ironed out ahead of a must-win trip to South Carolina. | Last Week: 8

10. Vanderbilt (6-4). Although he was only sacked twice, Diego Pavia was thoroughly pummeled in the Dores’ loss to South Carolina, facing pressure on 20 of his 37 drop-backs with 7 hits, per PFF. Is he really sure he wants that extra year of eligibility that badly? |  Last Week: 9

11. Arkansas (5-4). The Razorbacks have already pulled off one major upset in Fayetteville this season, ambushing then-No. 4 Tennessee in Week 6 for what remains the Vols’ only loss. They’re going for 2 this week against Texas, the first meeting between the Hogs and Horns as conference rivals since Arkansas hastened the demise of the old Southwest Conference by defecting to the SEC in 1991. | Last Week: 11 ⬌

12. Oklahoma (5-5). Oklahoma was in perfect position to steal a road win at Missouri, leading 23-16 late in the 4th quarter following a scoop-and-score by DB Billy Bowman Jr. Instead, they allowed a quick-strike touchdown drive by the Tigers to tie, followed immediately by QB Jackson Arnold gakking up a fumble that Mizzou took the other way for the game-winner with less than 30 seconds to play. Finally, an open date awaits coming off 4 straight losses vs. Power 4 opponents since the last one. | Last Week: 13

13. Florida (4-5). I’m not sure I can even imagine a best-case scenario for a mediocre, injury-ravaged team stuck with a 3rd-string walk-on QB against the best defense in the country, but the Gators’ actual performance at Texas felt like the worst. This is why it was so important for Billy Napier’s reprieve to come down when it did — before the results made it impossible to justify. | Last Week: 12

14. Auburn (3-6). Have Auburn fans mentally simmed to the end of the season yet, or is that just me? All I can think of when I look at the Tigers right now is which quarterback they’re going to pursue in the portal. | Last Week: 14 ⬌

15. Kentucky (3-6). Vanderbilt over Alabama is the season’s most historic upset, of course, but when it’s all said and done, Kentucky over Ole Miss is the one that’s going to make the least sense. | Last Week: 15 ⬌

16. Mississippi State (2-8). The Bulldogs are not winning (or coming particularly close), but they are still playing hard for first-year coach Jeff Lebby — hard enough to cover the point spread, anyway, consistently proving that they’re not quite as bad as gamblers think they are. State has covered in 5 of its past 6 games, most of them with plenty of room to spare. | Last Week: 16 ⬌

The post Monday Down South: Ole Miss’ big portal bet is paying off – and changing the blueprint for a contender is built appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(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.
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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

The post Week 11 SEC Primer: Another year, another golden opportunity for Ole Miss to break through against Georgia appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Last week, I started the rankings with a look at the league-wide decline in offensive production, especially at the top. Right on cue, Dart said “hold my water bottle.” In a must-win trip to Arkansas, he set school records for passing yards (515) and total yards (562), as well as personal bests for touchdowns (6), pass efficiency (284.1) and Total QBR in a 63-21 blowout — all of it coming with his top target, All-American wideout Tre Harris, sidelined for the second consecutive game. In Harris’ absence, Dart and WR Jordan Watkins connected on 3 touchdowns that covered 60+ yards, running up the score so effortlessly that Sam Pittman openly wondered aloud after the game if the Razorbacks were somehow tipping off their coverages.

In the process, Dart also hit a couple of career milestones, moving to No. 1 all-time at Ole Miss for total offense (10,805 yards) and wins as the starting quarterback (25). His place in school history is officially secure. As for his place in the Heisman race, or in a relatively underwhelming class of draft-eligible quarterbacks in 2025, not so much. At least, not yet. He still has a chance to make a big move on both of those fronts in the home stretch, but only if he opens a lot of eyes this weekend in a season-defining date against Georgia.
–     –     –
Last week: 1⬌

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

Last year’s win over LSU in Tuscaloosa marked the beginning of Milroe’s emergence from wildcard 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, 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. Coming off an open date, Bama’s borderline Playoff case hinges on him rekindling that spark Saturday night in Baton Rouge.
–     –     –
Last week: 2⬌

3. Carson Beck | Georgia

The spike in Beck’s interception rate 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 five 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.” Like all quarterbacks, Beck’s production does suffer under duress — for the season, he’s 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 the 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 first-half deficit against Florida, the Dawgs 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, first-down throw over the middle in the second 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 could Beck have possibly been 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’s thrown multiple picks, the Dawgs 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 Dawgs a chance even on the rare occasions (not as rare as they used to be) when the defense wobbles. But even an outfit as talented and as capable of winning in as many different ways as this is, Georgia can’t go on dodging bullets at this rate forever.
–     –     –
Last week: 3⬌

4. Quinn Ewers | Texas

The Longhorns are in fine shape health-wise, schedule-wise and stats-wise, especially on defense; they still represent the SEC’s best chance to win it all according to ESPN’s Football Power Index. But as badly as Steve Sarkisian wants to snuff out any hint of a controversy between Ewers and Arch Manning, Ewers’ mediocre performance since returning from injury has left the door open for nagging doubts to creep in. You know, he’s “entrenched,” right up until he’s not. Coming out of an open date, the next 3 games against Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are an opportunity to either put the doubts to bed or reevaluate the situation before the stakes get too high.
–     –     –
Last week: 4⬌

5. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Beating Alabama is a legacy-making proposition for an LSU quarterback. Only 4 Tigers QBs logged wins over Bama in the Nick Saban era — Matt Flynn in 2007; Jordan Jefferson in 2010 and ’11; Joe Burrow in 2019; and Jayden Daniels in 2022 — and all 4 went on to play for a national title or win a Heisman. (Or, in Burrow’s case, both.) Nussmeier isn’t on a Heisman track, and nobody is mistaking the current version of LSU for a national contender coming off a wipeout loss at Texas A&M in Week 9. But if there’s still time for either trajectory to change, this weekend is the last chance to achieve liftoff.
–     –     –
Last week: 6

6. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

The Commodores owe their turnaround largely to Pavia’s efficiency, so on some level the most satisfying part of Saturday’s 17-7 win at Auburn was the fact that, for once, they didn’t need him to be anywhere near his best to pull it off. In fact, in most respects it was his worst statistical outing of the season: 9-for-22 passing, minimal impact as a runner, negative EPA, 44.2 QBR. As a team, Vandy averaged a pedestrian 3.7 yards per play with more incomplete passes (14) than first downs (12) and a long gain on the ground of just 7 yards … and won, to secure bowl eligibility. For possibly the first time ever, it’s just been that kind of year for the ‘Dores.
–     –     –
Last week: 5

7. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

Vols fans are still waiting on Iamaleava to put together a complete game against real competition, but the midseason slump we covered a few weeks back appears to have been just that. This week, his stock is back on the rise. Saturday’s 28-18 win over Kentucky yielded season-highs for attempts (38), yards (292) and completion percentage (73.7%) vs. an FBS opponent, as well as one of Iamaleava’s better outings to date in terms of both efficiency (146.9) and QBR (78.0). It was also his first game without an interception or fumble since a Week 3 blowout over Kent State.

Up next: A major stat-padding opportunity against a Mississippi State defense that ranks 129th in total defense, 122nd in scoring D and 126th in pass efficiency, among other deficiencies. With a season-defining trip to Georgia on deck, he should be long-striding into Athens playing his best ball of his young career.
–     –     –
Last week: 10

8. Marcel Reed or Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

Reed returned to the starting lineup at South Carolina and went the distance, his first complete game since Week 5. Still, a week after he supplied the spark in A&M’s come-from-behind rally to beat LSU, a 44-20 blowout against the Gamecocks arguably reset the competition with Weigman back at square one. Reed was under duress early and often, serving up his first interception of the season under pressure and later as well as a fumble on a strip sack; altogether, he finished with a negative EPA as both a passer and a rusher and a middling 59.2 QBR.

Where do the Aggies go from here? They’re off this week, leaving the pecking order unsettled ahead of their next game against New Mexico State in Week 12. Despite the loss, they remain very much alive in the conference and Playoff races — in fact, they’re the only team in the league at the moment that still controls its fate to make the SEC Championship Game in every possible scenario.

Mike Elko said earlier in the year that the process of settling on a starter from one week to the next is “probably going to be a game-time decision for the rest of the season,” and, well, here we are. The stakes of that decision in the home stretch are about to get very high.
–     –     –
Last week: 7

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

An open date is a godsend for Green, who suffered a knee injury in the first half of Arkansas’ loss to Ole Miss and didn’t play in the second after briefly trying to gut it out. It was his second knee injury in less than a month, coming just as he was getting back to full speed from the injury that sidelined him during the Razorbacks’ Week 6 upset over Tennessee — which was also immediately followed by an open date. Green was back in time to start against LSU in Week 8, albeit at visibly less than 100% in the Hogs’ lowest-scoring outing of the season.

For a dual-threat whose game begins and ends with his mobility, there’s not much upside to attempting to rush him back for the sake of clinching a spot in the Music City Bowl. Reserve Malachi Singleton has been cromulent in relief against the Rebels and Vols. Fortunately, they’ve got a week to rest up before they have to begin thinking in earnest about how well Green is likely to hold up against Texas.
–     –     –
Last week: 8

10. Brady Cook | Missouri

No quarterback in the country needed a week off more than Cook, who’s dealing with ankle and hand injuries that forced him to miss the majority of the Tigers’ past 2 games against Auburn and Alabama. Eli Drinkwitz said last week that he expects Cook to return this season, but didn’t elaborate on a timetable; with his status still in doubt for this weekend’s date against Oklahoma, bettors have already moved the line by a full touchdown in the direction of the Sooners, from Mizzou –4 to open to Mizzou +3 as of Tuesday evening. That’s how little faith they have in backup Drew Pyne, and given Pyne’s dismal performance in Cook’s absence, they’re probably on to something.
–     –     –
Last week: 9

11. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

If South Carolina fans were on the fence about Sellers’ long-term potential, his breakout performance against Texas A&M went a long way toward winning them over. Despite completing just 13-of-27 passes, he delivered his most complete game yet in , setting career highs for passing yards (244), rushing yards (106), total touchdowns (3) and Total QBR (86.5); he also finished without a sack or a turnover for the first time as a starter. All but 1 of his completions went for a first down or touchdown.

Most impressively, Sellers looked every bit of 6-3, 242 pounds with the ball in his hands. Per PFF, he forced 12 missed tackles on 15 carries, not including the play where he trucked an A&M defender at the end of a 3rd-down scramble to pick up the first down. That number more than doubling his total MTFs on the year, and also matched the most missed tackles forced by any FBS player against a Power 4 defense this season. Combined with his legitimate breakaway potential in the open field, he has the makings of a full-service workhorse even as his development as a passer remains a work in progress.
–     –     –
Last week: 14

12. DJ Lagway | Florida

Are we going to see Lagway again this season? It didn’t look good on Saturday, when he was carted off the field in the first half of Florida’s loss to Georgia and spent the second half on crutches. But Billy Napier told reporters on Monday that the injury was “less significant than we anticipated,” and wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Lagway could be back as soon as this weekend at Texas. I wouldn’t bet on it, but as long as there’s a chance, I will continue to rank him here as the Gators’ starter.

More likely, the nod against the Longhorns will fall to redshirt freshman walk-on Aidan Warner, a transfer from Yale who was thrown into the fire against UGA in the first significant action of his career. Warner was predictably out of his depth, averaging 3.0 yards on 7-of-22 passing, and doesn’t bring much to the table in an upset bid against another top-5 opponent. Someday, the SEC should introduce an option for teams down to their third-string quarterback in November to sim to the end of the season. Until then, the best the Gators can hope for is just getting through it with as few turnovers and as little speculation over Napier’s job security as possible.
–     –     –
Last week: 11

13. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren earned his first win as a starter Saturday in a 45-20 romp over UMass, accounting for 3 touchdowns in the process. Barring a stunner over the coming weeks against Tennessee, Missouri and Ole Miss, it’s likely to be his last for a while, but State fans should still be passing the collection plate to ensure he’s back in the fold in 2025.
–     –     –
Last week: 12

14. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Thorne has largely curbed his early interception issues, throwing just 1 INT in 4 games since the pick-6 that doomed the Tigers in their Week 5 loss to Oklahoma. But that hasn’t translated on the scoreboard, in large part due to their struggle to finish drives. In the same span, Auburn has scored just 3 touchdowns on 13 trips in the red zone and missed 7 field goals.
–     –     –
Last week: 14⬌

15. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

The Sooners scored 8 offensive touchdowns Saturday in a 59-14 blowout over Maine, with Arnold personally accounting for 3. Which, sure, it’s just Maine. Considering Oklahoma’s offense had managed a grand total of 7 touchdowns over its previous 5 games, at this point they’ll take it anywhere they can get it.
–     –     –
Last week: 15⬌

16. Brock Vandagriff or Gavin Wimsatt | Kentucky

Vandagriff was knocked out of the Wildcats’ loss at Tennessee on one of the most violent hits you’re going to see in the modern “protect the QB at all costs” era.

"That is a big miss by this officiating crew."

Tom Hart and Jordan Rodgers have the Kentucky-Tennessee call for SEC Network. pic.twitter.com/ZFxGS03JHj

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 3, 2024

No, no. The other one.

James Pearce almost killed a guy pic.twitter.com/DbV9y7H8xP

— V͎O͎L͎d͎e͎m͎o͎r͎t͎ (@vo_ldemort) November 3, 2024

Yeah, that’ll do it. Vandagriff limped off and didn’t return, yielding to Wimsatt for the rest of the night. No update as of this writing of his status, but with the season dwindling fast it’s about time for the Wildcats to start looking ahead to what the position is going to look like in 2025 — that is, once they settle whether Marks Stoops is still going to be the head coach.
–     –     –
Last week: 16⬌

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 11: Can Georgia survive Carson Beck’s interception onslaught? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Playoff Realpolitik

It’s the first week of November — the clocks are falling back, the days are getting shorter, and Americans of all walks of life are only thinking about one thing: The College Football Playoff committee’s first weekly Top 25 of the season, set to debut Tuesday night, when there will be (to my knowledge) nothing else going on to distract the nation from this longstanding and beloved tradition. This year, of course, marks the first season under the expanded 12-team CFP format, adding a new layer of intrigue to the proceedings.

Unlike some years, there’s very little intrigue about who will be atop the initial rankings: Oregon, which earned nearly every first-place vote in both major polls for the third consecutive week following its dramatic Week 8 upset over Ohio State. The Ducks, for now, are the one team everyone can agree on, in the traditional sense: They’re 1 of only 5 remaining unbeaten teams in the entire FBS, and the only 1 of the 5 that began the season with anything remotely resembling championship aspirations. The others — Miami, BYU (?), Army (??), Indiana (???) — have all come from far afield, seemingly at random, serving mainly as a reminder of just how off-kilter the first two-thirds of the regular season has been across the Top 25. The defending national champion, Michigan, is a nonentity. The team the Wolverines beat in the title game, Washington, is even more obscure. Florida State, coming off an undefeated regular season in 2023, has collapsed in a heap. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt. But the Ducks? They’ve won all the ones they were supposed to, plus the one they had to to be taken seriously as national contenders. So here they are, everybody’s No. 1 heading into the home stretch.

But it’s hardly a coincidence that the question of “who’s No. 1?” on any given weekend has rarely felt further removed from the question of who’s going to win it all. Where November has typically marked the point in the season where the real contenders begin separating themselves from the pack, the national championship race right now still seems to only just be getting started, with no particular focus or obvious frontrunner to measure the rest of the field against. According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, 23 teams still have at least a 10% chance of making the Playoff, including the likes of SMU, Army, Washington State, Colorado and Tulane. The teams with the best chance of making the bracket in FPI’s estimation, Oregon (95.8%), Georgia (92.8%) and Miami (92.5%), are not the teams with the best chance to go all the way once they’re in — that would be Ohio State (17.5% to win it all) and Texas (15.4%). The fact that no team has even a 20% chance of being on the field in Atlanta when the confetti falls sums it up: The national championship race is as wide-open at this point on the calendar as it has ever been.

To set the table for the coming month, let’s take a conference-by-conference look at how the Playoff race stands to unfold, taking into account all the variables and vagaries that are baked into it. No conference race is settled, and not a single 1 of the 12 slots has been secured. It’s all up for grabs. Each team is noted with its chances of making the CFP field according to FPI:

SEC

• Projected Teams in the Field:  4
• Best Bets:  Georgia (92.3%)  |  Texas (77.9%)  |  Tennessee (73.9%)
• Controls Its Own Fate:  Texas A&M (19.1%)
• On the Bubble:  Alabama (55.5%)  |  Ole Miss (29.2%)  |  LSU (21.9%)
• Hanging by a Thread:  Missouri (6.5%)
• Biggest Remaining Games:  Alabama @ LSU  |  Georgia @ Ole Miss  |  Tennessee @ Georgia  |  Texas @ Texas A&M

Texas A&M’s loss at South Carolina created a logjam at the top of the standings, and if you want to wade into the vagaries of the league’s official tiebreaker procedures to untangle each team’s potential path to the SEC Championship Game, be my guest. Personally, I’m not expending any bandwidth beyond the first criteria, head-to-head results, for at least another week. (I am on a deadline here.) For now, there’s only one thing we can say for certain: The only team that still clearly controls its fate in the conference race is … Texas A&M.

Shocking but true. Consider that, as it stands, no more than 3 teams can potentially finish 7-1 in SEC play: 1) The winner of Georgia/Tennessee on Nov. 16; 2) the winner of Texas/Texas A&M on Nov. 30; and 3) LSU. Now, the chalkiest, most straightforward scenario is simple: LSU eats it against Alabama this weekend — or in any of its subsequent 3 games against Florida, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma — thereby eliminating the Tigers and clearing the path for the winner of Dawgs/Vols to square off in the championship game against the winner of Horns/Aggies. No sweat.

But there are plenty of ways for that scenario to get borked.

Let’s say LSU knocks off the Tide, runs the table and forces a 3-way tie in the final ledger; if that tie involves Texas A&M, the Aggies would still punch their ticket to Atlanta by virtue of their head-to-head win over LSU in Week 9. The other spot would come down to tiebreaker math between LSU and the winner of Georgia/Tennessee, which would be contingent on a bunch of variables we’re not going to get into until we’re left with absolutely no choice. Just know that if the Aggies win out, as unlikely as that might seem at the moment, they will play for their first SEC title since joining the league.

Let me emphasize the word unlikely in the preceding graf, because there is no single scenario right now that qualifies as likely, even the one I described above as chalk. Nine teams remain technically, mathematically alive to win the conference, including Missouri and Vanderbilt; per FPI, none of the 5 teams currently tied for first place boast overwhelming odds of winning out.

In fact, between LSU/Alabama, Georgia/Ole Miss and Georgia/Tennessee over the next 2 weeks, there’s a better-than-decent chance that (barring a significant upset in the meantime) A&M and Texas will be the last two 1-loss teams left standing in conference play heading into their much-anticipated reunion on Thanksgiving weekend. That would guarantee at least 1 2-loss team in the SEC Championship Game, which has happened just 3 times since the league expanded to 14 teams in 2012. (LSU in 2022, Florida in 2020 and Florida in 2016.) We have not had a matchup of two 2-loss teams in the conference standings since 2007, the most chaotic season in the modern history of the sport. We’re not there yet, but it’s not out of the question, either.

Big Ten

• Projected Teams in the Field: 4
• Best Bets: Oregon (95.6%) | Ohio State (91.3%) | Indiana (86.6%)
• Controls Their Own Fate: Oregon | Ohio State | Indiana (68.6%)
• On the Bubble: Penn State (73.7%)
• Biggest Remaining Game: Indiana @ Ohio State

If the overstuffed, 18-team version of the Big Ten was supposed to introduce more parity, well, maybe next year. In 2024, the B1G is a top-heavy league with a clear gap between the top 4, all of whom are likely to finish with at least 11 wins, and everyone else, all of whom are unranked and have already been mathematically eliminated from winning the conference.

Ohio State’s come-from-behind, 20-13 win at Penn State clarified the picture at the top somewhat by relegating the Nittany Lions to the at-large track. That leaves just 1 remaining game among the 4 CFP contenders, when undefeated Indiana visits Ohio State on Nov. 19; all signs point to the winner of that game advancing to face Oregon in the Big Ten Championship Game.

OK, let’s circle back for a second: Undefeated Indiana. Are the Hoosiers really doing this? Perennial doormats, they’re 9-0 for the first time in school history, fulfilling a meme — #9WINDIANA — that initially began as a kind of joke but has gradually turned into a bona fide bandwagon. They’re blowing the doors off the competition, outscoring opponents by an FBS-best 32.9 points per game, and by 26.7 ppg in Big Ten play; their closest game, a 31-17 win over Washington with GameDay on campus on Oct. 26, came with starting QB Kurtis Rourke sidelined by an injury. The previous week, they barbecued the best team they’ve played to date, Nebraska, by a score of 56-7.

But then, yeah, the best team they’ve played to date is unranked, rapidly unraveling Nebraska.

If there’s a sticking point to Indiana’s case for an at-large bid, it’s clearly the schedule, which outside of the upcoming trip to Ohio State is about as nondescript as they come. (A remarkable sentence to write about a schedule that includes both of the participants in last year’s CFP Championship Game, but hey, welcome to college football in 2024. Indiana opened as a 14.5-point favorite for this weekend’s date against Michigan, a line that would have been unfathomable just a couple months ago.) Short of an upset against the Buckeyes, a credible loss on the road would probably do at least as much to validate IU as any of its lopsided wins over the bottom half of the conference. A convincing loss, on the other had, would set off the fraud alarm with only remaining game, against last-place Purdue, to recover some credibility.

Advanced metrics like the Hoosiers, who come in 10th in the latest FPI ratings and 11th according to SP+; the traditional polls do, too, elevating them into the top 10 on the heels of a blowout win over Michigan State. (An early 10-0 deficit against the Spartans represented the first deficit Indiana has faced all season; it responded by scoring 47 unanswered over the final 3 quarters.) But a lot is riding on the trip to Columbus, where perceptions can change quickly — in either direction.

ACC

• Projected Teams in the Field: 1 or 2
• Best Bet: Miami (92.8%)
• Controls Its Own Fate: Miami | SMU (47.2%)
• On the Bubble: n/a
• Hanging by a Thread: Pitt (11.4%) | Clemson (7.0%)
• Biggest Remaining Game: Clemson @ Pitt

A convoluted race at the top of the ACC got a lot simpler Saturday with lopsided losses by Clemson and Pitt, presumably eliminating both until further notice. That left Miami and SMU as the only remaining unbeatens in conference play, and as frontrunners for the ACC Championship Game. The Hurricanes and Mustangs will both be clear favorites in every remaining game on their respective schedules, neither of which features an opponent that received a vote in this week’s polls. They’re on a collision course.

Assuming the chalk holds, the big question is how the committee will handle the loser of the title game — especially if it’s SMU. Miami probably has some margin for error; the Canes’ schedule is nothing to write home about, but if they make it to Charlotte with a 12-0 record they will probably be a top-4 or -5 team (they’re currently No. 4 in both traditional polls) and in position to weather a competitive loss without sliding all the way out of an at-large slot.

Can SMU say the same? The Mustangs’ only defeat to date, a Week 2 loss to BYU, won’t be held too harshly against them. But Saturday’s blowout win over Pitt is their only win over a currently ranked team, and that distinction depends on Pitt upholding its end to stay there.

There’s a loose consensus that the losers of championship games shouldn’t be punished in the final accounting for playing an extra game they earned the right to play. If the committee abides by that, an 11-2 SMU might have a shot at clinging to one of the last couple at-large tickets. If the committee is more concerned with quality wins than losses, that figures to be a tougher sell.

Big 12

• Projected Teams in the Field: 1
• Best Bet: BYU (57.9%)
• Controls Its Own Fate: BYU | Iowa State (24.3%) | Colorado (13.8%)
• On the Bubble: n/a
• Hanging by a Thread: Kansas State (14.4%) | Arizona State (2.3%) | Texas Tech (1.7%)
• Biggest Remaining Games: Colorado @ Texas Tech | Arizona State @ Kansas State | BYU @ Arizona State | Kansas State @ Iowa State

BYU can make things very easy on the committee by running the table, finishing 13-0, and clearing the field of would-be at-large contenders in the process. If the Cougars get dragged into the scrum, variables and contingencies begin to proliferate. The much-hyped parity in the Big 12 is borne out by the fact that no team has even a 20% chance of winning out against its remaining schedule, per FPI, and the 2 teams it gives the best chance, TCU and Baylor, are effectively out of the conference race with 3 losses apiece. The potential is very high that it’s gonna get weird.

As you can tell from the percentages, trying to untangle any specific threads in this race beyond “BYU wins out” is a fool’s errand. The upshot is that the Big 12 is what they call in basketball a “1-bid league” — the automatic spot reserved for the conference champ is almost certainly the only 1 it’s going to fill. The only conceivable path to at-large consideration is a scenario in which BYU finishes 12-0, loses the conference title game, and enters into the at-large pool at 12-1. The Cougars have a couple of ranked wins under their belt over SMU and Kansas State; they are plausible candidates, although just how plausible would ultimately depend on who they’re up against. But with a clear path to a first-round bye in front of them right now, they’d rather not leave it up to the committee.

Group of 5/Independents

• Projected Teams in the Field: 1 or 2
• Best Bet: Boise State (70.5%)
• Controls Its Own Fate: Notre Dame (57.8%) | Army (20.5%)
• On the Bubble: Tulane (11.7%)
• Hanging by a Thread: Washington State (17.1%) | UNLV (8.9%) | Louisiana (7.9%)
• Biggest Remaining Games: Notre Dame vs. Army | Army vs. Navy

The second team in this set is Notre Dame. The Irish’s November slate is uninspiring, despite their best efforts — when you put Florida State and USC on the schedule, you don’t count on them both staggering through various stages of collapse at the same time. But their opening-day win at Texas A&M still counts for something, and if they win out to finish 11-1 they will be near the front of the line for an at-large spot. If they stumble down the stretch, they can probably forget it. When your first loss came at the hands of Northern Illinois, you can’t afford a second.

The runaway favorite for the automatic Group of 5 bid is Boise State, which boasts a Heisman-caliber star in RB Ashton Jeanty; will be heavily favored in all of its remaining games, including the Mountain West Championship Game; and has arguably the highest-quality of all the “quality losses” this season, a 37-34 nail-biter at Oregon decided on a field on the last play of the game in Week 2. The Broncos only need 1 more domino to fall to clear their path: A loss by Army, the last remaining unbeaten in the Group of 5 ranks.

It’s a fairly safe bet that that loss will come on Nov. 23, when the Black Knights will be big underdogs against Notre Dame in Yankee Stadium. If by some minor miracle they get out of the Bronx with their perfect record intact, the Knights still have to preserve it against Navy a few weeks later (always a toss-up), followed by the American Athletic Championship Game the week after that, most likely against Tulane. Never say never, so let’s just say the 2% chance FPI gives Army of running the table through the AAC title game might be generous.

Projection …

What does all that amount to when it’s all said and done? Who knows! But it is probably going to look quite a bit different than it does today, still a month out. Here’s my best guess at how the bracket will shake out based on how the rest of the season sets up between now and then — although it is just that, a guess. Remember, the top 4 seeds marked for first-round byes are reserved for conference champs. Buyer beware.

Florida: Fadin’ with Aidan

DJ Lagway’s hamstring injury against Georgia was a devastating development in a game Florida was winning before he was carted off in the second quarter, and could have very plausibly won had he played the entire game. His replacement, third-string stopgap Aidan Warner, didn’t stand a chance. Warner averaged 3.0 yards per attempt with 1 interception on 7-of-22 passing over the final 2+ quarters, and it was a testament to just how dire the circumstances were that it felt like a fairly respectable effort. Florida even managed to even the score midway through the 4th quarter (with a boost from good field position and a 15-yard penalty against Georgia’s defense) before fading late. Whatever the scoreboard said at any given moment, though, at no point after Lagway’s exit were the Gators a serious threat to spring the upset; they were ultimately outscored 31-10 in his absence.

With Lagway apparently done for the year, the question now is what his absence means for Billy Napier’s job security with Warner due to finish out the season as the starting quarterback.

On one hand, a 4th straight losing season (the 3rd straight under Napier) at this point seems more or less inevitable. Lagway’s name is just the latest entry on a long list of injuries that already included the team’s leading rusher (Montrell Johnson Jr.), receiver (Eugene Wilson III), and top draft prospect on defense (Jason Marshall Jr.), not to mention erstwhile starting QB Graham Mertz. Minus their rising star, Florida is even less likely to crack the win column over the next 3 weeks against Texas, LSU or Ole Miss than it was at this time last week, and the odds weren’t great then. Napier’s fate already hinged more on the vibes and momentum accompanying Lagway’s promotion to a full-time role than on tangible results; Lagway on crutches is a bad omen for all of the above.

Then again, as long as the team remains remotely competitive, it hardly seems fair to bang the gavel with the offense in the hands of an obscure walk-on from the Ivy League. The Gators opened as 3-touchdown underdogs for this weekend’s trip to Texas, and the lines against LSU and Ole Miss aren’t likely to be much more forgiving. The finale against Florida State — which as of this writing has not fired coach Mike Norvell, but very likely will by the time Florida limps into Tallahassee on Nov. 30 — is going to be a depressing scene in a half-empty-at-best Doak Campbell Stadium, the last place it makes sense to take stock of the future.

Speaking of the future: Ask the locals, and they’ll tell you the biggest mark against Napier’s tenure right now isn’t what’s happening in between the lines in Year 3 of a rebuild. It’s what’s not happening in recruiting. Heading into the final stretch of the 2025 cycle, Florida’s class ranks next-to-last in the SEC according to 247Sports’ Composite Rating, ahead of only Vanderbilt, and 51st nationally, a reflection of the broader lack of long-term optimism surrounding the program. The Gators have commitments from just 2 of the top 20 players in the state of Florida, an inconceivable state of affairs in the years when Florida was routinely competing for rings.

In Napier’s defense, the program’s diminished status on the trail was a longstanding issue he inherited when he took the job, which has persisted over multiple administrations in Gainesville dating to Will Muschamp’s. But, with the notable exception of Lagway’s signature last December, Napier has not made much headway in un-diminishing it, one of his top priorities when he was hired. (The pending Jaden Rashada lawsuit over a botched NIL deal, which names the university and Napier personally, certainly doesn’t help.) We’ll see how much gas the 2024 team has in the tank over the coming weeks as it plays out the string. But the results on the field are not necessarily the ones that are going to carry the most weight when it comes to time to deciding whether a Year 4 is in the cards.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart and WR Jordan Watkins. A prolific box score is one thing, but Dart and Watkins didn’t just break records in the Rebels’ blowout win over Arkansas: They made it look easy, hooking up so effortlessly that Sam Pittman openly wondered aloud after the game if the Razorbacks were somehow tipping off their coverages.

On his end, Dart set school records for passing yards (515) and total yards (562), as well as personal career highs for touchdowns (6), pass efficiency (284.1) and Total QBR. Watkins, assuming the go-to role in place of an injured Tre Harris, set school records for receiving yards (254) and touchdowns (5), all of them coming in the first 3 quarters. (He didn’t touch the ball in the 4th.) Three of his 5 scores covered 60+ yards, all of them downfield shots that featuring Watkins running open — on one occasion absolutely wide open — behind the Arkansas secondary.

Dart also hit a couple of career milestones, moving to No. 1 all-time at Ole Miss for total offense (10,805 yards) and wins as the starting quarterback (25). His place in school history is officially secure. But none of those wins to date have been nearly as meaningful as a potential upset over Georgia would be this weekend.

2. South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers and RB Rocket Sanders. Sellers has been up and down in his first season as a starter, but he looked the part and then some against Texas A&M, leading the Gamecocks to more yards (530) and points (44) against the Aggies than any opposing SEC offense since the 2020 Alabama attack that featured 3 Heisman Trophy finalists. Although he was just 13-for-27 passing, Sellers finished with a season-high 244 yards and 2 TDs through the air while adding 106 yards (also a season high) and a tone-setting touchdown on the ground. (Just as important: No turnovers.) Per PFF, his 12 missed tackles forced ranked 2nd in the FBS for the weekend behind only the nation’s premier tackle-breaker, Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty.

Meanwhile, Sanders turned in his best game as a Gamecock, by far, giving the home crowd a glimpse of what they hoped to see from him when he portaled in from Arkansas: 25 carries, 144 yards, 2 touchdowns, plus another 92 yards as a receiver. That represented his best output in terms of yards from scrimmage (236) in nearly 2 years. When he’s heathy — a crucial qualifier, unfortunately — Sanders remains arguably the conference’s most bankable workhorse.

3. South Carolina Edge Dylan Stewart. The official stats credited Stewart with a single sack against A&M, and an emphatic one at that. But that didn’t come close to reflecting his impact: As a pass rusher, Stewart turned in his best game of the season, leading the SEC for the weekend in both QB pressures (9) and overall PFF grade (89.8) while thoroughly ruining Aggies QB Marcel Reed’s night.

https://twitter.com/_RyanFowler_/status/1853112403791094056/

It’s an incredibly deep year for SEC edge rushers, which could limit Stewart’s potential for accolades beyond the ones reserved for freshmen. But if you were drafting for the long-term, he might be the first off the board, and with the exception of Tennessee’s James Pearce Jr., it might not be close.

4. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson. While the Vols are waiting on Nico Iamaleava to make the leap, the offense continues to run through Sampson, who continues to deliver on a weekly basis. He was his usual, workmanlike self Saturday in a 28-18 win over Kentucky, grinding out 140 yards and 2 touchdowns on 27 carries, the longest of which gained 17 yards. In eight games this season, Sampson has run for 100+ yards and multiple touchdowns in all but 1 — and even the outlier wasn’t far off the mark.

5. Ole Miss Edge Princely Umanmielen. Umanmielen gets the nod this week as the token rep for Ole Miss’ d-line, which really deserves to be recognized as a unit. He was responsible for 4 QB pressures and 2 of the Rebels’ 5 sacks against Arkansas, as well as a fumble recovery that up their last touchdown of the afternoon.

Honorable Mention: Georgia edge Chaz Chambliss, who set career highs for tackles (6), TFLs (2.5) and sacks (2) in UGA’s win over Florida. … Florida DB Aaron Gates, who picked off a pass, broke up another, and allowed just 1 reception in coverage (for 3 yards) on an active afternoon against the Dawgs. … South Carolina TE Joshua Simon, who had a career-high 132 yards and 2 touchdowns on 4 catches in the Gamecocks’ win over Texas A&M. … Ole Miss TE Dae’Quan Wright, who contributed a career-high 99-yards and 2 TDs to the Rebels’ offensive bonanza at Arkansas. … Oklahoma RB Jovantae Barnes, who ran for 203 yards and 3 TDs on 11.3 per carry in a 59-14 blowout over Maine. … And Tennessee DL Joshua Josephs, whose strip sack in the 3rd quarter against Kentucky set up a short-field, go-ahead touchdown and swung the momentum decisively in the Vols’ favor.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Obscure Stat of the Week

Arkansas’ 63-31 debacle against Ole Miss was a mirror image of their Week 9 win at Mississippi State, putting them on the opposite end of virtually identical beatdowns in consecutive weeks. In Starkville, they outgained the Bulldogs by 202 yards in a 33-point win; against the Rebels, they were outgained by exactly 202 yards in a 32-point loss.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Georgia (7-1). Winning ugly is still winning, but if the Dawgs have a complete game in them, the next 2 weeks against Ole Miss and Tennessee are the ideal time to prove it. | Last Week: 1 ⬌

2. Texas (7-1). The Longhorns are in fine shape health-wise, schedule-wise and stats-wise, especially on defense. But as badly as Steve Sarkisian wants to snuff out any hint of a controversy between Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning, Ewers’ mediocre performance since returning from injury has left the door cracked for nagging doubts to creep in. Coming out of an open date, the next 3 games against Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky are an opportunity to reevaluate before the stakes get too high. | Last Week: 2 ⬌

3. Tennessee (7-1). Freshman kicker Max Gilbert is going through it: With 3 misses against Kentucky, he’s an alarming 1-for-6 on field-goal attempts in the Vols’ past 2 games. His 2 misses against Alabama in Week 8 were easier to shrug off, both of them coming from 50+ yards out. Gilbert’s misses against the Wildcats, on the other hand, were much more makeable attempts from 43, 40 and 34, respectively. It hasn’t mattered yet, but the thing with kickers is you never know when it will. | Last Week: 3 ⬌

4. Alabama (6-2). Last year’s win over LSU in Tuscaloosa marked the beginning of Jalen Milroe’s emergence from volatile underclassman surviving from one week to the next to rising star capable of commanding a big stage. Coming off a glitchy October the Tide would love to see that version of Milroe setting the pace in Baton Rouge. | Last Week: 5

5. Ole Miss (7-2). Jaxson Dart is not generally considered a first-round prospect in 2025, even in a relatively underwhelming class of draft-eligible quarterbacks. This weekend may be his last, best chance to play his way into the conversation against a streaky but potentially gettable Georgia defense. | Last Week: 7

6. Texas A&M (7-2). The Aggies beat the stripes off LSU in Week 9 in what was supposed to be a defining win for the Mike Elko administration, only to drop below the Tigers a week later in both major polls. Hey, some of us still respect the actual results (for at least a week, anyway). | Last Week: 4

7. LSU (6-2). And before you remind me, yes, I’m aware that makes me a hypocrite for ranking the Tigers behind Ole Miss despite their head-to-head win over the Rebels in Week 7. But that was a) 3 weeks ago, and b) in overtime, so there’s a little more wiggle room. Beat Alabama and we won’t have to have to this discussion again. (Well, uh, unless Ole Miss also beats Georgia, in which case it will be one of the only discussions we’ll be having for the rest of the month.) | Last Week: 6

8. Missouri (6-2). No quarterback in the country needed a week off more than Brady Cook, who’s dealing with ankle and hand injuries that have forced him to miss the majority of the Tigers’ past 2 games against Auburn and Alabama. Eli Drinkwitz said last week that he expects Cook to return this season, but didn’t elaborate on a timetable. Given the dismal performance of backup Drew Pyne in his absence, the sooner, the better. | Last Week: 9

9. Vanderbilt (6-3). As a team, Vandy averaged a pedestrian 3.7 yards per play against Auburn with more incomplete passes (14) than first downs (12) and a long gain on the ground of just 7 yards … and won, 17-7, to secure bowl eligibility. For possibly the first time ever, it’s just been that kind of year for the ‘Dores. | Last Week: 10

10. South Carolina (5-3). For a long time I dismissed home-field advantage as a borderline superstition, but the older I get the more I believe. The “Williams-Brice After Dark” effect is palpable: Under Shane Beamer, Carolina is an astounding 14-3 in home games that kick off at 7 pm ET or later vs. 11-18 in all other games. | Last Week: 12

11. Arkansas (5-4). Before Saturday’s loss to Ole Miss, ESPN caught Sam Pittman on a hot mic talking about Arkansas’ relative lack of NIL funds compared to the competition: “We had to settle for the blue-light special on our o-line. Well, from what I hear they (Ole Miss) went out and got Louis Vuitton.” The really funny part was he said this on a field that literally has the Wal-Mart logo painted on the 25-yard line. | Last Week: 8

12. Florida (4-4). The loss to Georgia was Florida’s 7th straight vs. a ranked opponent (as of kickoff) and dropped the Gators’ overall record vs. ranked teams to 2-12 on Billy Napier’s watch. | Last Week: 11

13. Oklahoma (5-4). The Sooners scored 8 offensive touchdowns in a 59-14 blowout over Maine, which, sure, it’s just Maine. Considering Oklahoma’s offense has managed a grand total of 7 touchdowns in 5 SEC games, at this point they’ll take it anywhere they can get it. | Last Week: 13 ⬌

14. Auburn (3-6). Social media made much of the fact that, following Saturday’s loss to Vanderbilt, Hugh Freeze’s record at Auburn stands at 9-13 — 1 game worse than the guy he replaced, the much-maligned Bryan Harsin, who was 9-12 on The Plains when he got the boot midway through the 2022 season. Of course, the circumstances aren’t exactly the same: Auburn’s regression under Harsin (the reason he was fired in the first place) left Freeze with a much steeper rebuild than the one Harsin inherited from Gus Malzahn. But every Auburn head coach of my lifetime has been more or less permanently on the hot seat within a couple of years of taking the job, anyway, so honestly Freeze is right on schedule. Forgetting to hand the ball to a healthy Jarquez Hunter while calling for Payton Thorne to drop back 34 times in a neck-and-neck game is inexplicable. | Last Week: 14 ⬌

15. Kentucky (3-6). Brock Vandagriff was knocked out of the Wildcats’ loss at Tennessee on one of the most violent hits you’re going to see in the modern “protect the QB at all costs” era.

"That is a big miss by this officiating crew."

Tom Hart and Jordan Rodgers have the Kentucky-Tennessee call for SEC Network. pic.twitter.com/ZFxGS03JHj

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 3, 2024

No, no. The other one.

James Pearce almost killed a guy pic.twitter.com/DbV9y7H8xP

— V͎O͎L͎d͎e͎m͎o͎r͎t͎ (@vo_ldemort) November 3, 2024

Yeah, that’ll do it. Vandagriff limped off and didn’t return, yielding to backup Gavin Wimsatt for the rest of the night. No update as of this writing of his status, but with the season dwindling fast it’s about time for the Wildcats to start looking ahead to what the position is going to look like in 2025 — that is, once they settle whether Marks Stoops is still going to be the head coach. | Last Week: 15 ⬌

16. Mississippi State (2-7). The Bulldogs trounced UMass, 45-20, notching their first FBS win under coach Jeff Lebby and ensuring that at the very least they’re not going to enter the offseason on an 11-game losing streak. Their pursuit of their first SEC win in more than a full calendar year resumes this weekend at Tennessee. | Last Week: 16 ⬌

Moment of Zen of the Week

pic.twitter.com/q39OzK0MQc

— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) November 3, 2024

•     •     •

The post Monday Down South: November is here, and the national championship race is wide open appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Florida vs. Georgia (-14.5)

The stakes:

High, as always, albeit for very different reasons. Georgia (6-1) is exactly where it expected to be at this point on the calendar — relatively healthy, ranked No. 2 in the polls, coming off an emphatic win at Texas, and hitting the home stretch with all of its championship-or-bust goals intact. Florida (4-3), on the other hand, is facing exactly the situation it dreaded: Embarking on a brutal November gauntlet with a fledgling quarterback, no realistic path to the Playoff, and Billy Napier‘s status hanging by a thread.

To the Gators’ credit, they have rallied since stinking up the joint in a couple of early home losses to Miami and Texas A&M. At that point, it seemed like axe could fall on Napier at any moment, the only question being not if but when. In the meantime, they’ve played their way off the gallows. They’re 3-1 over their past 4, with all 3 wins coming by double digits and the lone defeat coming in an overtime heartbreaker at Tennessee. (Not for nothing, all 3 losses to date have come against teams currently ranked in the top 10 with a combined record of 21-2.) Their last time out, a 48-20 romp over Kentucky, was their most lopsided win in SEC play in nearly 2 years.

Now comes the moment of truth: A 5-week stretch against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State that will almost certainly determine Napier’s fate. Florida’s inability to manage the end of the schedule in his first 2 seasons is the main reason he’s on the hot seat in the first place. The Gators went out on a 3-game losing streak in 2022 and a 5-game skid last year, both ensuring losing records. Avoiding the same fate in ’24 will require an upset over the next 4 games in addition to beating a thoroughly poisoned version of FSU.

More important, beyond the record, the next month is simply about looking like a team that belongs on the field against the ranked half of the conference. The flops against Miami and A&M were less damning for the results than for the margins; both games were essentially over at halftime, leaving the crowd that remained in The Swamp to stew in their collective misery. But a series of performances like the Tennessee game, which Florida had a legitimate chance to win, would stand as a compelling argument that the project still has a future behind blue-chip freshman QB DJ Lagway. Of course, “close but no cigar” won’t cut the mustard for long. In the short run, though, it might very well do to get Napier to 2025. Saturday will be the first test of whether the bridge is sturdy enough to bear the weight.

The stat: 4.2%

That’s Georgia QB Carson Beck‘s interception rate in SEC play, worst in the conference among full-time starters and a dramatic increase over his 1.4% interception rate in 2023. Through 5 SEC games, he’s thrown 8 picks on 192 attempts, including multi-INT outings against Alabama (3), Mississippi State (2), and Texas (3) — a stark departure from last year, when he didn’t have a single game with multiple interceptions all season.

What’s behind the spike? Beck hasn’t been under more pressure; in fact, per Pro Football Focus, only 1 of his 8 interceptions to date has come under duress. (That was true last year, too: All 6 INTs in 2023 came from clean pockets.) He has, however, been under more pressure to make plays through the air to pick up some of the slack for a defense and ground game that have not quite been up to the usual Georgia standards. Prior to the Dawgs’ epic loss at Alabama in Week 4, he’d never attempted 40 passes in a game. In 4 games since, he’s hit that mark routinely: He put it up 50 times in comeback mode against Bama; 48 times in a high-flying, 41-31 win over Mississippi State; and 41 times at Texas. Altogether, Beck has accounted for 72% of the team’s total offense vs. Power 4 opponents, a big jump over his 57% share of the production in ’23. The Dawgs have put more on his plate, largely out of necessity; the picks have followed in due course.

Still, while he has not lived up to the hype statistically, Beck remains the SEC’s best Heisman bet for a reason: His team is still a national frontrunner, and he can still move the needle over the next 3 weeks in high-profile dates against Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee. (Not to mention the SEC Championship Game, if UGA wins out.) A repeat of last November, his best month in ’23, and he could be back in the race in a hurry.

The big question: Is DJ Lagway ready for his closeup?

First of all, forget the hype: Even for a player as touted as Lagway, a true freshman quarterback making his 3rd career start against Georgia is a true freshman quarterback making his 3rd career start against Georgia. Florida fans only have to think back a few years to the 2021 game, when no less a talent than Anthony Richardson was thrown into the fire against UGA after just a handful of intriguing cameos up to that point, to remind themselves that the 19-year-old Lagway deserves a generous curve.

That said, clearly the kid is every bit the specimen he was made out to be. At 6-3, 239 pounds, Lagway is big, mobile and can absolutely rip it. Per PFF, fully half of his 1,024 passing yards on the season have come on attempts of 20+ air yards, where he has flashed the easy downfield arm strength that Florida was sorely missing from 6th-year shopkeeper Graham Mertz. Before his season was cut short by a torn ACL in Week 7, Mertz was a pedestrian 4-for-11 for 86 yards on attempts of 20+ air yards on the year. Lagway, who’d been relegated to a rotational role over the first half the season, surpassed that in one game, going 5-for-7 for 211 yards on downfield attempts in the Gators’ blowout win over Kentucky. Three of those completions found their way into the hands of his favorite target, Arizona State transfer Elijhah Badger, covering 50, 58 and 40 yards, respectively, on 3 of the most aesthetically pleasing throws you’ll see from a college quarterback this season.

DJ Lagway strike. Hard to replicate this a talent.

Gators lead 13-6.

pic.twitter.com/iUS0m3v0fi

— Neil W. Blackmon (@nwblackmon) October 20, 2024

LAGWAY DIME pic.twitter.com/t3PXKtYuzl

— Old Row Florida (@OldRowGators) October 20, 2024

BADGER, LAGWAY, FLORIDA GATORS!!! pic.twitter.com/HIGRSNhEHP

— Gators fan for Life (@fhstigers_) October 20, 2024

All 3 of those completions set up short touchdown runs by true freshman RB Jadan Baugh, who went for 106 yards 5 touchdowns against the Wildcats (all from 10 yards or less) in his first career start. But although the Gators kept the ball on the ground on roughly three-quarters of their total snaps, the majority of their 476 yards on the night came on just those handful of flicks of Lagway’s wrist.

The flip side of his explosiveness, for now, remains his inexperience (obviously) and inconsistency. Lagway has thrown as many interceptions (5) as touchdowns on the season, and that’s counting 3 TDs in a Week 2 win over Samford. In the intermediate 10-to-19-yard range he’s completed just 9-of-22 attempts with 4 picks. He is very much a work in progress, which is why Napier was so reluctant to fast-track him to the top of the depth chart in September when the entire country was begging him to dump Mertz before it was too late.

Mertz was actually in the process of justifying that decision prior to his injury, which occurred on a touchdown pass that put the Gators up 10-0 in the 3rd quarter of their eventual overtime loss at Tennessee; Lagway subsequently threw an interception on Florida’s next snap, setting up a short-field field goal for the Vols that evened the score. It was too much to expect of him to fend off a top-10 opponent on the road, and even with 2 weeks’ worth of preparation as the unquestioned starter it’s too much to expect of him on Saturday to keep pace with Beck in anything other than a low-scoring slugfest. (And no one is anticipating Florida’s defense pulling off a low-scoring slugfest.) But if he can continue to offer glimpses of bigger things to come, he’ll be holding up his end of the bargain.

The key matchup: Florida OT Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson vs. Georgia LB/Edge Jalon Walker

Walker had a breakout game against Texas, recording 3 of Georgia’s 7 sacks on a dominant night for the pass rush as a unit. But he was already a known commodity to the Gators, against whom he accounted for 3 QB pressures and a strip sack in last year’s meeting on just 11 snaps, all of them as a pass rusher. In retrospect, that now looks like the first step in his rapid emergence as a likely first-rounder in next year’s draft.

#Georgia OLB Jalon Walker delivered his best performance of the year vs. Texas

3 sacks | 1 FR | 8 Tkls | 3 TFLs

He’s so good as a rusher, I don’t know why they don’t play him there full time

: Here are all 3 of his sacks from last night against the Texas O-line pic.twitter.com/qeePmf3Cld

— The Draft Room (@TheDraftRoomNFL) October 20, 2024

Crenshaw-Dickson, a 6th-year transfer from San Diego State in his first year in Gainesville, is not nearly as decorated. But he has played significantly more snaps at the FBS level than any other Florida o-lineman, and since his promotion to the starting lineup in Week 2 he’s been arguably the most reliable member of the front. In 6 starts at right tackle, he’s allowed just 3 pressures and no sacks as a pass blocker while posting the top PFF run-blocking grade on the team. At 6-7, 322 pounds, he boasts an NFL-ready frame; if he manages to hold his own against Walker and fellow bookend Mykel Williams, the scouts will have no choice but to take notice.

The verdict …

The Cocktail Party has been a one-sided affair in the Kirby Smart era, with Georgia taking 6 of the past 7 in the series. (The lone exception coming in 2020, the pandemic-ravaged season that should be relegated to a footnote in the historical record if not stricken entirely.) The previous 3 entries were laughers decided by 27, 22 and 23 points, respectively, and in real time they all felt even worse than the scores implied.

Barring a miraculous turn by Lagway or an unforeseen meltdown by Beck, there’s nothing that suggests this one will go any differently. The current version of Georgia’s defense is not the week-in, week-out monolith it was in the Dawgs’ back-to-back national title runs — the week before their trip to Texas they gave up 306 yards and 3 touchdowns passing to a true freshman, Mississippi State’s Michael Van Buren Jr., who was not sacked once — but the vintage butt-kicking it administered in Austin was proof enough that it’s still capable of that kind of performance on a big stage. With big-ticket dates against Ole Miss and Tennessee on deck, now is the point on the calendar when the Dawgs need to be rounding into postseason form.
– –  –
• Georgia 37 | Florida 19

Texas A&M (-3.5) at South Carolina

If you’ve watched enough college football, this is one of those games that gets your spidey sense tingling. Surging Texas A&M, coming off an emotional, come-from-behind win over LSU, on the road against a feisty South Carolina team coming off an open date? In primetime? Yeah, I recognize a classic Upset Special script when I see one. For one thing, the Gamecocks already came within a hair’s breadth of knocking off LSU and Alabama in games decided on the last play, losing both by a combined margin of 5 points. For another, they’re a different team at night, at home. Under Shane Beamer, Carolina is 13-3 in home games that kicked off at 7 pm ET or later – the majority of those wins coming in upsets – compared to 11-18 in all other games, home or away. Williams-Brice After Dark is a legitimately hostile environment, as Aggies fans know well.

Also: Who is Texas A&M’s starting quarterback? Redshirt freshman Marcel Reed stole the show against LSU, coming off the bench to lead 5 consecutive scoring drives after replacing a struggling Conner Weigman in the 3rd quarter. Still, as dynamic as Reed was in his brief appearance, recall that it was only a few weeks ago that the shoe was on the other foot — in the Aggies’ other big win this season, a Week 6 blowout over Missouri, it was Weigman who looked the part, reasserting his status as QB1 following a 3-game absence due to a shoulder injury. That was the same week that coach Mike Elko told reporters that settling on a starter was “likely to be a game-time decision the rest of the year.”

Well, here we are. Elko, predictably, has declined to clarify the pecking order this week, telling reporters on Monday “it’s probably too early in our minds to make that decision,” and “even we did, we probably wouldn’t tell you right now anyway.” Fair enough. Between Weigman’s arm and Reed’s mobility, there’s a case to be made for either, or both, depending on the circumstances on any given Saturday. Personally, Reed strikes me as the more practical option against South Carolina due to his ability to elude the Gamecocks’ sweltering pass rush. But then, when you’ve won 7 in a row en route to the top of the standings, suddenly all of your options tend to look pretty good.
–     –     –
• Texas A&M 26 | South Carolina 17

Ole Miss (-7.5) at Arkansas

Trying to draw a bead on Arkansas is futile: From blowing a double-digit lead against Oklahoma State to ambushing Tennessee to flopping like a fish on dry land against LSU to hanging 58 on Mississippi State, the Razorbacks haven’t looked like the same team from one week to the next at any point this season. One thing that has remained consistent, though, is that the outcome aligns with turnovers. Arkansas is +7 in turnover margin in its 5 wins but –8 in its 3 losses, having generated a single takeaway in defeat.

On that note, a big factor against Ole Miss will be how well QB Taylen Green takes care of the ball under pressure. The Rebels’ investment in the pass rush has paid off — they rank No. 2 nationally in sacks (34) and boast 6 players with at least 20 QB pressures on the season, per PFF. (For context, the rest of the SEC combined has 12 players with 20+ pressures.) Last week, they recorded 10 sacks against Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold, all of them coming on standard 3- and 4-man rushes.

For his part, Green has faced a steady diet of pressure from opposing defenses and handled it well, boasting an SEC-best 75.4 PFF grade under duress. His mobility is a big factor in that; it’s no coincidence that the Razorbacks’ worst game of the season, a 34-10 loss at LSU in Week 8, came on a night Green was limited by a sore knee. He was back to full speed in last week’s blowout win at Mississippi State, but faces a unique challenge on Saturday opposite Ole Miss edge Suntarine Perkins, a former 5-star coming off a career game against the Sooners. Perkins can win off the edge, but truly excels as a spy, where his closing speed erases open space as quickly as opposing QBs can find it. Watching the 6-6 Green on the hoof is a spectacle in its own right; add a specimen like Perkins in pursuit, and you’ve got the makings of a scene straight out of a documentary about predator and prey on the savannah.
–     –     –
Ole Miss 29  | • Arkansas 24

Kentucky at Tennessee (-16.5)

Is Mark Stoops on the hot seat? On one hand, he’s built up a solid decade of goodwill, and it’s farfetched to imagine Kentucky paying a $44.4 million buyout to fire the winningest coach in school history. On the other hand, the situation has felt stagnant for a couple of years now, and the natives are getting restless as the Wildcats careen toward their first non-pandemic losing season since 2015. They’re 3-11 in their past 14 games vs. power opponents, including a seven-game home losing streak in SEC play.

As my SDS colleague Connor O’Gara wrote earlier this week, while Stoops is unlikely to be fired outright, after 12 years the time might be right for a mutual parting of ways. As it stands, the program is much better off now than it was when Stoops took over in 2013, competitively and financially. The university and the fan base are invested; the “basketball school” rep is in quasi-retirement. Stoops’ successor would have a chance to continue to build off that progress. But the longer the arc bends toward decline, the bigger the risk of eventually having to start over from square one.
–     –     –
• Tennessee 30 | Kentucky 13

Vanderbilt at Auburn (-7.5)

For all the Auburn fans who have spent the Hugh Freeze era muttering “run the dang ball,” last week’s 24-10 win at Kentucky was for you: Senior RB Jarquez Hunter logged a career-high 23 carries for 278 yards, the best single-game rushing total for any FBS player this season. That line included 10 carries of 10+ yards, among them Hunter’s 3 longest runs of the year; as a team, the Tigers finished with more rushing yards (328) than passing (172) against a power opponent for the first time since last year’s near-upset in the Iron Bowl. Not coincidentally, they also snapped a 7-game losing streak vs. power opponents in the process.

Hunter’s previous career high? A 183-yard, 2-touchdown effort against … Vanderbilt, in last year’s meeting in Nashville, a 31-15 win for Auburn. Obviously, the Commodores are a better team this time around across the board, particularly against the run. But Freeze should be committed to making them prove it before he resorts to dialing up 30 pass attempts for Payton Thorne.
–     –     –
Auburn 27  | • Vanderbilt 23

Maine at Oklahoma (-34.5)

A 5-touchdown spread against an obscure FCS outfit might seem like a gimme, until you consider the depths of Oklahoma’s offensive collapse: Can the Sooners even score 5 touchdowns right now, against anybody? They haven’t hit that mark since the opener against Temple, due in large part to a +6 turnover margin in that game. In their 4 SEC losses, they’ve managed just 5 touchdowns total vs. 11 turnovers and an astounding 28 sacks allowed. Over the past 6 weeks, they’ve fired their offensive coordinator, juggled a pair of ineffective quarterbacks and shuffled their offensive line on a weekly basis. They remain bereft at the skill positions due to injuries. If there’s a shred of optimism left for this unit to salvage, this is the week to find it.
–     –     –
Oklahoma 38 | • Maine 6

Massachusetts at Mississippi State (-17.5)

Finally, a chance for Mississippi State to put one in the win column after losing 7 straight — almost certainly its last chance, too, with little remaining hope of getting on the board in conference play against Tennessee, Missouri or Ole Miss. Not that beating UMass moves the needle in any other way: Since joining the FBS ranks in 2012, the Minutemen are 0-28 vs. power conference opponents by an average margin of nearly 30 points per game, including a 45-3 blowout against Missouri earlier this year. Sill, at this point any opportunity for the Bulldogs to feel good about themselves is one to savor, because the next one might be a long time coming.
–     –     –
• Mississippi State 41 | UMass 16

–     –     –
Off This Week:  Alabama, LSU, Missouri, Texas

Scoreboard

Week 9 record: 6-0 straight-up | 5-1 vs. spread
Season record: 71-16 straight-up | 55-29 vs. spread

The post Week 10 SEC Primer: Georgia is revving up for its annual Playoff push. Florida is bracing for the gauntlet appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Sweeping generalizations about the state of the game have a tendency to age poorly, but let’s face it: After a solid decade of offensive inflation in college football, the defenses have caught up. That’s true all over the country, but especially in the SEC, where for the first time in a long time there is no dominant offense or even a dominant individual player.

Production is down across the board, but most clearly at the top. Heading into November, the average totals for scoring offense, total offense and yards per play in SEC games are all below the averages in the same categories from 2016-23. The lows this season are slightly lower, too. But the real decline is on the high end, where the top team in each column so far in 2024 comes in more than 15% below the average high over the previous eight years:

Historic output from LSU in 2019 and Alabama in 2020 is skewing the baseline upward a bit, but the bottom-line trend is plain enough. It’s obvious in the Heisman race, as well. The last time the SEC failed to produce a Heisman finalist was 2017; if we count players from Oklahoma and Texas, you can extend that streak all the way back to 2002. This year? The SEC player with the best odds (Georgia’s Carson Beck) is currently sitting at a distant 6th place according to FanDuel, and even that is based more on Beck’s status as a preseason favorite than his significantly diminished production so far. Barring a major revelation over the next month, the league’s chances of being represented in New York are dwindling fast.

If you were going to attempt to make a Heisman case for an SEC quarterback, on paper it would have to be Dart, still the conference leader in total offense, yards per attempt, overall passer rating, overall PFF grade and Total QBR. But there’s that qualifier still, because he racked up the lion’s share of that production against a string of nonconference tomato cans in September. He has been efficient in Ole Miss’ conference wins over South Carolina and Oklahoma, but also accounted for just 1 touchdown in those 2 games; in the Rebels’ losses to LSU and Kentucky, he was average at best. As a team, they’ve yet to score 30 points against an SEC opponent.

Yet as far as the Rankings are concerned, Dart remains a soft but clear No. 1. The fact that none of the league’s other established starters have managed to assert themselves in the meantime is one of the defining stories of the season. Let’s hope there will be more to remember in November.
– – –
(Last week: 1⬌)

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

The defense took the lead in a 34-0 romp over Missouri, which was frankly a welcome change of pace from another thrilling ride on the Milroe Express. Given the choice between a vintage-Bama effort on defense or leaving it up to Milroe to carry the day in a borderline shootout, I suspect Bama fans will take the defense every day of the week. Not coincidentally, the win over Mizzou was his first turnover-free outing since the Tide’s Week 3 trip to Wisconsin.
– – –
(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Carson Beck | Georgia

Beck has not lived up to the hype, statistically — his midseason interception spree was a jarring development — but he remains the conference’s best Heisman bet for a reason: His team is still a national frontrunner, and he can still move the needle in high-profile dates against Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee over the next 3 weeks. (Not to mention the SEC Championship Game, if Georgia wins out.) A repeat of last November, his best month in 2023, and he could be back in the race.
– – –
(Last week: 3⬌)

4. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Ewers is sharp when he’s protected, but his lack of athleticism and creativity remains a red flag. Earlier in the year, I thought he flashed improved pocket mobility in Texas’ Week 3 win at Michigan. But that has not been the case since he’s returned from the oblique injury that sidelined him for most of the following month.

He was a sitting duck in the ‘Horns’ Week 8 loss to Georgia, and not much better under pressure in Saturday’s 27-24 win at Vanderbilt, where he occasionally reminded me of a late-career NFL vet with rusted-out knees who has stopped trying to make anything happen that he doesn’t see right away. (Per Pro Football Focus, Ewers averages an SEC-low 2.50 seconds before releasing the ball, although that’s a byproduct of a scheme that throws a high percentage of passes behind the line of scrimmage; he also ranks near the bottom of the FBS in average depth of target at just 5.9 yards per attempt.)

He was sacked 9 times in those two games on 34 pressured drop-backs, more sacks than he’d taken over any previous 2-game period in his career. The rest of the Longhorns’ season is riding on keeping him upright.
– – –
(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

I don’t really think there’s an honest case for Pavia as the SEC’s best quarterback this season. But I do think he’s the most compelling, and arguably the most watchable. How in the world did he complete this pass?

WHAT A THROW. WHAT A CATCH #SCTop10 | #2Turnt pic.twitter.com/ZYLC1xT6Mo

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) October 26, 2024

There’s throwing into a tight window, and then there’s throwing through the windows of cars moving in opposite directions across 3 lanes of traffic.
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(Last week: 6)

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier’s had a roller-coaster of a season to date, but the second half of LSU’s 38-23 loss at Texas A&M was the first time it went off the rails. In the first half, he looked like an aspiring first-rounder, throwing for 259 yards and 2 touchdowns in an unforgiving road environment. In the second, he was a basketcase, serving up 3 interceptions as a potentially season-defining win gave way to an emphatic defeat. Nussmeier’s first 2 picks, especially, were killers, setting up a pair of short-field A&M touchdowns that swung the pendulum decisively toward the Aggies.

https://twitter.com/AggieFootball/status/1850357768479277374/

That’s the kind of decision that can drive an otherwise sane person to pound a table. In all 5 of their losses the past 2 seasons, LSU has been even or ahead at halftime, only to be outscored in the second half by a combined 124-51.
– – –
(Last week: 5)

7. Marcel Reed or Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

So far, Mike Elko declined to clarify the pecking order following the Aggies’ come-from-behind win over LSU, telling reporters on Monday “it’s probably to early in our minds to make that decision” for this weekend’s trip to South Carolina. (“Even if we did,” he added, “we probably wouldn’t tell you right now anyway.”) Fair enough. But is this really a question? Based on Saturday night, the answer seems obvious: It’s Reed O’Clock. The Aggies’ fortunes turned the exact moment he came on to replace a visibly struggling Weigman midway through the third quarter.

At that point, A&M trailed by 10 points and hadn’t come close to scoring since its lone touchdown drive at the end of the first quarter; Weigman was a dismal 6-for-18 passing with a 12.9 QBR. Enter Reed, who immediately galvanized the offense en route to 5 consecutive touchdowns on the Aggies’ next 5 possessions. Reed accounted for 3 rushing touchdowns himself, and completed his only downfield attempt of the night for a gain of 54 yards. He came up a few snaps short of qualifying for the weekly QBR leaderboard, but if he had his 99.8 rating would have gone down as the best single-game rating for an A&M quarterback since joining the conference.

Then again, wasn’t it only a few weeks ago that the shoe was on the other foot? In the Aggies’ last big win, a Week 6 blowout over Missouri, it was Weigman who stole show, reasserting his status as QB1 coming off a 3-game absence due to a shoulder injury. As dynamic as Reed looked against LSU, Weigman was equally in his bag against Mizzou. Prior to that game, Elko said settling on a starter was “likely to be a game-time decision the rest of the year,” which at the time sounded like pure coachspeak. Now, between Weigman’s arm and Reed’s mobility, it’s possible to imagine it coming down to a series-by-series decision depending on who has the hot hand on any given Saturday — just as long as they keep winning. In the light of a 7-game winning streak, all of your options tend to look pretty good.
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(Last week: n/a | 7⬌)

8. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Mississippi State’s defense is on pace to go down as one of the worst in the modern history of the SEC, and no single player has made a bigger contribution to the Bulldogs’ misery than Green in a 58-25 blowout in Starkville. As a passer, he finished 23-for-29 for 314 yards, setting season-highs for completion percentage (79.3%), yards per attempt (10.8), touchdowns (5) and efficiency (220.3); as a rusher, he accounted for 79 of Arkansas’ 359 yards, highlighted by an absurd bit of open-field athleticism to kick off the bonanza:

the ole razzle dazzle pic.twitter.com/TZRSEcjffW

— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) October 26, 2024

Folks, the man is 6-6, 230 pounds. Altogether, Arkansas racked up 673 total yards against MSU and scored on 10 of 12 offensive possessions despite finishing … wait, do I have this right, 0-for-7 on 3rd-down conversions? I suppose when you’re averaging more than 10 yards per play for an entire game, the 3rd-down column takes on slightly less urgency.
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(Last week: 10)

9. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook’s value to Mizzou has never been more obvious than in his absence over the past 2 weeks. With Cook sidelined by assorted injuries, backup Drew Pyne has looked in over his head, turning in a pair of brutal performances against Auburn (78.8 efficiency, 8.6 QBR) and Alabama (29.4 efficiency, 11.4 QBR). Cook managed to salvage the Auburn game by literally returning from the hospital to lead 2 touchdown drives in the 4th quarter. No such heroics were in store in Tuscaloosa, where he exited in the first half and was quickly ruled out for the second after twice banging his throwing hand on another player’s helmet. Pyne came off the bench to throw 3 interceptions in his first 4 possessions en route to Missouri’s first shutout loss since 2019.

As of this writing, Cook’s status for this weekend’s date against Oklahoma remains TBD; between his hand and the gimpy ankle that preceded it, his effectiveness if he does play is doubtful, too. Either way, with the Tigers effectively eliminated from Playoff contention and Cook out of eligibility after this season, frankly it’s about time to start thinking about how Eli Drinkwitz plans to address the position going into 2025.
– – –
(Last week: 8)

10. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

With a rare Bama win in their pocket, Vols fans are already looking past bottom-dwellers Kentucky and Mississippi State to a Week 13 trip to Georgia where their postseason fate will be largely determined. Coming off a rough start in SEC play, it would be nice for Iamaleava to long-stride into Athens looking like the guy Tennessee expected him to be before the season. There is far too much potential on hand for this offense to be averaging just 21.5 points in conference games.
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(Last week: 9)

11. DJ Lagway | Florida

I don’t think anyone is expecting Lagway to be a revelation against Georgia in his 3rd career start — I hope not — but he has certainly flashed enough to imagine him making a play or two that reminds everyone why he was considered a blue-chip stock. Just making it a 4-quarter game would be achievement enough: Florida’s 3 post-pandemic losses in the series have come by 27, 22 and 23 points.
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(Last week: 11⬌)

12. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren accounted for 3 total touchdowns against Arkansas (2 passing, 1 rushing), and barely missed out on 2 more when TE Seydou Traore was ruled down inches shy of the goal line on back-to-back possessions in the first half; both calls were toss-ups, and the Bulldogs came away with just 3 points off those 2 opportunities. But then, when your offense commits 5 turnovers opposite a defense giving up 10.2 yards per play to the other team, the refs are the least of your problems.
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(Last week: 13)

13. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Thorne was an accessory in Auburn’s first conference win, a 24-10 decision at Kentucky, where his highlight reel consisted mainly of handing off to Jarquez Hunter. Altogether, the Tigers finished with more rushing yards (326) than passing (172) for just the 2nd time since last year’s near-upset in the Iron Bowl, and the first time against a power opponent. If that hasn’t been the goal all along, obviously it should be from here on out.
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(Last week: 15)

14. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers has spent much of his first season as a starter under duress, and has not handled it well. He’s faced pressure on 43.1% of his total drop-backs, per PFF, the highest rate among full-time SEC starters; meanwhile, he’s also been cited for 9 “turnover-worthy plays” on those snaps, most in the conference, including 4 interceptions and multiple fumbles. His overall grade under pressure (33.4) ranks 145th out of 175 FBS quarterbacks. Growing pains, yes, but if he expects to remain the incumbent in 2025, now is the time to begin demonstrating some growth.
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(Last week: 12)

15. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

Each game adds new layers to the onion of sadness that is Oklahoma’s offense. Last week, Arnold was sacked 10 times in the Sooners’ loss at Ole Miss, setting the single-game school record for sacks allowed. It gets worse: Per PFF, all 10 sacks were the result of a standard rush by a 3- or 4-man front, not a single one of them coming on a blitz. And, in keeping with the theme of the season, it gets even worse: The previous record was set just 7 days earlier, in a wipeout loss against South Carolina that cost offensive coordinator Seth Littrell his job. Arnold is widely presumed to be bound for the portal in December; in the meantime, it might be all can do just to get there in one piece.
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(Last week: 16)

16. Brock Vandagriff or Gavin Wimsatt | Kentucky

Vandagriff was bad in the Wildcats’ loss to Auburn, turning in an 18.0 QBR before getting benched at halftime. Wimsatt was worse, coming off the bench to post a 10.8 QBR in a scoreless second half. Coaches have declined to specify a starter for this week’s trip to Tennessee, but for an offense that’s averaged just 13.5 points in SEC play, at this point it seems like a distinction without a difference.
– – –
(Last week: 14 | n/a)

The post SEC QB Rankings, Week 10: Where have all the stars gone in 2024? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Respecting the Reed Option

Mike Elko’s introduction as Texas A&M’s head coach, a 23-13 loss to Notre Dame, was a night Aggies fans would rather forget. Two months and 7 consecutive wins later, they mostly have. In hindsight, though, it turns out the shape of the season to come was right there from the beginning, even in a game that’s beginning to look more and more like an outlier by the week. It wasn’t on the scoreboard, or in the meltdown by blue-chip quarterback Conner Weigman. It was in the viral clip of Elko, draped in an ill-fitting hoodie, sans headset, unloading on an off-screen underling on the sideline: “Tell them to run the f—ing ball! Run the f—ing ball!”

10-4, coach. Message received. Since opening night, the Aggies have been more committed to and more effective at running the ball than any other SEC offense, with the record to show for it. They’ve lined up, slugged it out and won. Against Florida in Week 3, they ran 55 times for 310 yards, amassing a 15 1/2-minute advantage in time of possession in a demoralized Swamp. Against Missouri in Week 6, they ran for 236 yards and 5 touchdowns on 6.6 per carry, steamrolling a then-top-10 team by 31 points in the process. In Saturday’s come-from-behind 38-23 romp over LSU, they chewed up 264 yards on 5.9 per carry (excluding sacks), the majority of it coming between the tackles. By the fourth quarter, A&M’s massive offensive line, averaging 327 pounds per man, was pushing around LSU’s smaller, spread-oriented front seven virtually at will, paving the way for chunk after chunk as the Aggies turned a nail-biter into a party.

When was the last time the Aggies won a game that made a statement about the kind of team they are, identity-wise? Sure, A&M had its fair share of upsets and high-profile wins under Jimbo Fisher: Florida in 2020, Alabama in ’21, LSU in ’22, just to hit the high notes. All those teams were ranked in the top 10 at the time. (Bama, of course, was No. 1.) None of them, however, pointed the way out of the doldrums that eventually cost Fisher his job.

In keeping with the old cliché about teams taking on the personality of their coach, Fisher’s teams were like Fisher: Well-heeled but never quite on the same page about exactly what it was they were supposed to hang their hats on. It’s almost impossible, for example, to imagine Fisher arriving at the decision to bench Weigman, one of the gems in the 2022 recruiting class that was hailed as the crown jewel of Fisher’s tenure, in the middle of the third quarter of a must-win game, no matter how stagnant the offense had looked up to that point. After all, just a few backs, Weigman had played well in the blowout win over Missouri that rejuvenated the Aggies’ season coming off a 3-game absence due to a shoulder injury. That was the version of Weigman everyone around the program had been waiting 2 long, injury-plagued years to see. They’re invested in Weigman, literally. It’s his team.

Elko, who inherited the pocket-bound Weigman and his more dynamic understudy, redshirt freshman Marcel Reed, made the call, and potentially salvaged his team’s season.

Weigman went to the bench midway through the third quarter (to his visible disappointment) with A&M trailing 17-7 and stuck in neutral offensively; Reed, who was 3-0 as a starter in Weigman’s absence in September wins over Florida, Bowling Green and Arkansas, came off the bench like a missing key that immediately started the ignition. Benefiting from a suddenly stingy defense and operating offensive coordinator Collin Klein’s zone-read scheme to perfection, Reed led 5 consecutive scoring drives that covered a combined 198 yards on 23 plays — nearly all of them on the ground. Excluding a screen pass (which gained 16 yards, for the record), Reed only put the ball in the air once, connecting on a 54-yard strike that served as an exclamation point and a dagger.

https://twitter.com/AggieFootball/status/1850371939526644075/

With the ground game running on schedule, that was all he needed. Reed’s emergence — or re-emergence, to be more precise — opened up parts of the playbook that Weigman didn’t have access to, which happen to be the parts that align with what this offense does well: Run the (dang) ball. Whoever the Aggies thought they were at the beginning of the night, by the end there was little doubt who they’re going to be going forward: A no-frills outfit in their head coach’s image, built from the trenches up, with the quarterback who gives them the best chance of playing to their strengths.

Is that enough to get them to the Playoff? Whatever the the percentages say, Texas A&M is in enviable position. Saturday’s win moved the Aggies into sole possession of first place in the SEC standings with only a pair of ominous but manageable road trips to South Carolina and Auburn standing between them and a season-ending date with Texas in College Station. (We’ll go ahead and pencil in a nonconference W against New Mexico State on Nov. 16.) If they avoid the upset hammer against Carolina and Auburn, the reunion with the Longhorns will arrive with a trip to the SEC Championship Game on the line, and potentially with a ticket to Atlanta already sewn up. They have a solid road win on their résumé at Florida and have walloped top-10 opponents in 2 of their past 3 games.

More important, they know who they are — and, after Saturday night, have a better idea of who they’re not. If A&M has a sustained postseason run in it, it’s going to be by playing defense, pounding the rock, keeping the quarterback involved as a runner, and picking their spots to go for broke. That’s the style of offense Elko hired Klein from Kansas State to install, and which Reed has proven adept at running.

Time will tell how long he sticks once defenses are better prepared for his game, as well as if Weigman still has a future in Maroon and White. By trusting his instincts with the walls closing in, though, their head coach has kept A&M more relevant heading into the November stretch than almost anyone outside of College Station imagined. Whatever happens next, these are more Elko’s Aggies with each passing week.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter. Anyone who has watched Auburn’s offense the past 2 seasons could have told you that Hunter, a born workhorse, wasn’t touching the ball enough. For all the locals who have spent the Hugh Freeze era muttering “run the dang ball,” Saturday’s 24-10 win over Kentucky was for you: Hunter logged a career-high 23 carries for 278 yards, the best single-game rushing total for any FBS running back this season. (The previous high for an SEC back was a 199-yard effort by Missouri’s Nate Noel vs. Vanderbilt in Week 4.) That number included 10 carries of 10+ yards, highlighted by Hunter’s 3 longest runs of the year, covering 50, 46 and 45 yards, respectively.

HAVE A NIGHT, @JArquez27 pic.twitter.com/3CgCUNe85O

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) October 27, 2024

Hunter’s output was the 4th-best in school history, which given the history of Auburn running backs is a fine list to be on. And considering nearly all of it came after the Tigers trailed 10-0 in the first quarter, “playing from behind” no longer qualifies as an excuse for neglecting to keep him fed.

2. Arkansas QB Taylen Green. Mississippi State’s defense is on pace to go down as one of the worst in the modern history of the SEC, and Green’s contribution to the Bulldogs’ misery in a 58-25 blowout in Starkville is a big reason why. As a passer, he finished 23-for-29 for 314 yards, setting season-highs for completion percentage (79.3%), yards per attempt (10.8), touchdowns (5), and efficiency (220.3); as a rusher, he accounted for 79 of Arkansas’ 359 yards on the ground, highlighted by an absurd bit of open-field athleticism to kick off the bonanza:

the ole razzle dazzle pic.twitter.com/TZRSEcjffW

— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) October 26, 2024

Folks, the man is 6-6, 230 pounds. Altogether, Arkansas racked up 673 total yards and scored on 10 of 12 offensive possessions despite finishing … wait, do I have this right, 0-for-7 on 3rd-down conversions? Huh. I suppose converting on third down takes on slightly less urgency when you’re averaging more than 10 yards per play.

3. Ole Miss edge Suntarine Perkins. Perkins is here representing the entire Ole Miss defensive line, which collectively dominated Oklahoma’s offensive line in historic fashion in a 26-14 win in Oxford. After a rocky first half, the Rebels made OU quarterback Jackson Arnold’s life miserable in the second, ultimately sacking him 10 times — the most sacks ever allowed by an Oklahoma offense. (That broke a 7-day-old record set in Week 8 by South Carolina, which recorded 9 sacks in a blowout win in Norman.) For his part, Perkins was credited with a team-high 11 total tackles and 4 of those 10 sacks, moving him into a tie for the conference lead with 8.5 sacks on the year. Prince Umanmielen, JJ Pegues, Walter Nolen, Jared Ivey and Akelo Stone also recorded at least 1 takedown.

Just as telling as the sack total was the fact that they didn’t have to bring any extra rushers to generate it: Per PFF, Ole Miss blitzed on just 7 of Arnold’s 49 drop-backs, and didn’t record a sack on any of them. All 10 takedowns were the result of a basic 3- or 4-man rush.

4. Texas A&M QB Marcel Reed. It was only three weeks ago that I wrote “so much for a QB controversy” after Conner Weigman’s successful return from injury against Missouri, so I’ll hold off for at least another week or two before anointing Reed the new face of the program. For now, let’s just say a 99.8 QBR rating in a must-win game against a top-10 opponent is a pretty good start.

5. Texas A&M DB BJ Mayes. On the other side of the ball, Mayes was just as unlikely a catalyst in A&M’s second-half rally as Reed. A UAB transfer making his first start as an Aggie, Mayes set the comeback in motion when he picked off an ill-advised pass by Garrett Nussmeier midway through the third quarter, returning it to the LSU 8-yard line; Reed scored the first of his 3 rushing touchdowns on the next play, and the pendulum never swung back. Later in the quarter, with A&M still trailing 17-14, Reed stepped in front of another pass for his second INT, this one setting up the offense at the LSU 26-yard line; 5 plays later, Reed was back in the end zone and the Aggies were on top for good.

Honorable Mention: Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart, who passed for 311 yards and a touchdown with an 88.6 QBR rating in the Rebels’ win over Oklahoma. … Texas A&M edge Nic Scourton, who led the Aggies’ pass rush against LSU with 7 QB pressures and 1 sack. … Texas A&M LB Taurean York, who had a team-high 7 tackles and the game-clinching interception. … LSU WRs Kyren Lacy and Aaron Anderson, who combined for 232 yards and a touchdown in a losing effort. … Texas DB Michael Taafe, who picked off a pass, broke up another and forced a fumble in the Longhorns’ 27-24 win at Vanderbilt. … Vanderbilt DB Randon Fontenette, who recorded 2 sacks and forced a tip-drill interception against Texas. … Alabama DB Malachi Moore, who had an interception and a PBU in the Tide’s shutout win over Missouri. … And Arkansas RBs Braylen Russell and Rashod Dubinion, who contributed to the Razorbacks’ annihilation of Mississippi State with a combined 273 rushing yards on 10.1 per carry.

–     –     –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Georgia (6-1). For such a wide-open season in the polls, there’s near-unanimity at the top. Georgia received a single first-place vote this week in both the AP and Coaches’ polls, with the other 114 votes all going to consensus No. 1 Oregon. | Last Week: 1 ⬌

2. Texas (7-1). The 27-24 margin over Vanderbilt wasn’t nearly as concerning as the ongoing struggle to protect Quinn Ewers, who was sacked 4 times in Nashville after taking 5 sacks in the Longhorns’ Week 8 loss to Georgia. Ewers is sharp when he’s kept clean, but under pressure his lack of mobility is glaring. For a 21-year-old he often looks like a late-career NFL vet who’s been reduced to a sitting duck in the pocket if the ball doesn’t come out right away. | Last Week: 2 ⬌

3. Tennessee (6-1). The Vols are well-positioned, CFP-wise, but after a middling October offensively it would be nice to see some explosiveness over the next two weeks against Kentucky and Mississippi State ahead of a Week 12 trip to Georgia. | Last Week: 4

4. Texas A&M (7-1). The immediate assumption on Saturday night was that Mike Elko’s postgame line, “it’s not politician running this program, talking fast and BSing everybody,” was a dig at his former boss/predecessor, Jimbo Fisher. (Fisher did indeed talk a hundred miles a minute, as any reporter who ever had to transcribe his interviews learned the hard way.) But it could have just as easily been a reference to Elko’s other former boss, Brian Kelly, on the opposite sideline. Given that Kelly’s father was a politician, he majored in political science, and he’s one of the smoothest talkers in the business, Elko’s line could cut either way. In fact, why not both? | Last Week: 5

5. Alabama (6-2). The sigh of relief on Saturday wasn’t only for the defense: The backfield committee piled up 282 yards on 8.1 per carry, easily Bama’s best rushing line of the season vs. a Power 4 opponent. | Last Week: 6

6. LSU (6-2). I’m not an LSU fan, but if I was I think I’d rather have been beaten soundly right out of the gate at A&M than watch yet another would-be win topple like a sand castle. In all 5 of their losses the past 2 seasons, the Tigers have been even or ahead at halftime, only to be outscored in the second half by a combined 124-51. | Last Week: 3

7. Ole Miss (6-2). Lane Kiffin’s offense have always been more balanced than he generally gets credit for, but running the ball against SEC defenses this season has been a slog. The Rebels finished with a season-low 69 yards on 2.2 per carry against Oklahoma, their first conference win under Kiffin with less than 100 yards on the ground. | Last Week: 7 ⬌

8. Arkansas (5-3). If I’m a team in the Playoff hunt, the Hogs with a healthy Taylen Green are one of the last teams I want to see up next on the schedule. They’ve already ambushed 1 contender in Fayetteville, upsetting Tennessee in Week 6; next up, Ole Miss and Texas visit the league’s answer to the Bermuda Triangle on the other side of an open date. | Last Week: 10

9. Missouri (6-2). Mizzou still has a path to 10 wins, but Brady Cook or no Brady Cook, getting outscored 75-10 against the only 2 currently ranked teams on the schedule is a nail in the coffin for the Tigers’ bid to crash the Playoff. | Last Week: 8

10. Vanderbilt (5-3). How in the world did Diego Pavia complete this pass?

WHAT A THROW. WHAT A CATCH #SCTop10 | #2Turnt pic.twitter.com/ZYLC1xT6Mo

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) October 26, 2024

There’s throwing into a tight window, and then there’s throwing through the windows of cars moving in opposite directions across 3 lanes of traffic. | Last Week: 9

11. Florida (4-3). The Gators are in a better place heading into the dreaded November gauntlet against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss than they were a month ago. Billy Napier’s future still depends on how competitive they are over the next few weeks with hyped freshman DJ Lagway still just getting his feet wet as QB1. | Last Week: 11 ⬌

12. South Carolina (4-3). Saturday’s date against Texas A&M is the Gamecocks’ first primetime home game of the year in Williams-Brice Stadium, where they’ve made a habit of springing after-dark upsets under Shane Beamer. If the vibes aren’t convincing, maybe the ability of South Carolina’s outstanding d-line to hold up against the Aggies’ ground game will be. | Last Week: 12 ⬌

13. Oklahoma (4-4). The offense actually showed some signs of life in the first half at Ole Miss, moving the ball consistently and putting 14 points on the board courtesy of a couple of extended touchdown drives. But then, in the end that only served to make the historic sack-fest in the second half that much crueler. Nineteen sacks allowed over the past 2 weeks is 2 more than Oklahoma allowed in the entire 2023 regular season. | Last Week: 13 ⬌

14. Auburn (3-5). Ideally, the Tigers would like to be in a place where they could treat routine wins over the likes of Kentucky as, well, routine. As it actually stands, snapping a 7-game losing streak vs. Power 4 opponents dating to last season qualified as a much-needed catharsis. Back to the grind this week against Vandy, another one they can’t afford to take for granted. | Last Week: 15

15. Kentucky (3-5). Remember that brief moment last November when Mark Stoops was the next head coach at Texas A&M for about an hour before a fan revolt wrecked the deal? I suspect it’s been on his mind a lot lately. The Wildcats’ loss to Auburn was their 7th consecutive loss at home in SEC play, and 2nd straight as the betting favorite. | Last Week: 14

16. Mississippi State (1-7). The Bulldogs looked like they were moving in the right direction heading into Saturday’s game against Arkansas, their best shot at notching an SEC win in Jeff Lebby’s first season. Instead, they got run out of their own stadium in one of the worst defensive performances in school history. This weekend’s date against UMass should get them back in the win column for the first time since Week 1, but barring a miracle in the home stretch, they’re well on their way to their first 10-loss season since 2003. | Last Week: 16 ⬌

Moment of Zen of the Week

pic.twitter.com/pdpsRdCj9I

— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) October 26, 2024

• • •

The post Monday Down South: Texas A&M found the blueprint against LSU. Are Mike Elko’s Aggies built to last? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(All betting lines provided by FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: LSU at Texas A&M (-2.5)

The stakes

Sole possession of first-place in the SEC standings and prime Playoff positioning as the calendar turns to November. The Tigers and Aggies came into the season as wild cards, and in many ways still are. For all the lingering question marks, though, they’re hitting the home stretch as arguably the hottest teams in the league: Both have ripped off 6-game winning streaks in the wake of opening-day disappointments against USC and Notre Dame, respectively, and come in as the only 2 SEC teams yet to suffer a loss in conference play.

Swing games don’t get much swingier than this.

As it stands, both sides are looking at very similar Playoff odds; LSU has a 40.8% chance to make the cut and Texas A&M a 31.2% chance, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. Those numbers are about to diverge in dramatic fashion, with the winner taking a big step toward securing a ticket and the loser relegated to the bubble with 2 losses and zero margin for error over the final month of the regular season.

If it’s not literally a must-win, it’s only because season-defining rivalry games against Alabama (for LSU) and Texas (for A&M) still loom large with certain Playoff implications of their own. But just how large, and for whom, depends on which way the scoreboard breaks on Saturday night.

The stat: 37

That’s the number of “stops” credited to LSU linebacker Whit Weeks this season by per Pro Football Focus, most among all Power 4 defenders. PFF defines stops as “tackles that constitute a ‘failure’ for the offense” based on down and distance — essentially a more comprehensive take on the concept of tackles for loss. For some context, with 5 games still to play in the regular season, Weeks’ 37 stops already matches the Tigers’ team-leading total for all of 2023 (by his more experienced running mate, Greg Penn III) and is just 1 shy of the team-leading total in 2022.

Now, it would be unfair to both players to compare Weeks, a true sophomore with just 8 career starts under his belt, to preseason headliner Harold Perkins Jr., one of the unique talents in the college game over the past few years. Weeks is more of a traditional off-ball linebacker than the free-ranging Perkins, and less versatile in coverage; their roles are not identical. Still, with more reps available since Perkins suffered a torn ACL in Week 4, it’s hardly a coincidence that Weeks’ production has spiked in the meantime, especially as a blitzer: In Perkins’ absence, Weeks has recorded 14 QB pressures and 3 sacks on just 27 pass-rushing snaps, as well as a tip-drill interception from point-blank range in last week’s win at Arkansas. Whatever his limitations in space, in a race to the ball you’re rarely going to catch him coming in second place.

The big question: Can Texas A&M establish the run?

As evenly matched as these teams are, the offenses represent a clear contrast of styles: LSU is comfortable putting the ball in the air early and often, averaging an SEC-high 41.6 passes per game, while A&M prefers to slug it out behind a huge offensive line. (OK, all modern offensive lines are “huge” as a rule, so let me specify that even by prevailing SEC standards in 2024 this bunch is absolutely massive: The 11 players listed on the official two-deep average 325 pounds per man.) Running backs Le’Veon Moss and Amari Daniels are both thickly-built grinders who have generated more than 70% of their combined 966 rushing yards after contact.

At their best — see lopsided wins over Florida in Week 3 and Missouri in Week 6 — the Aggies have imposed their will in the trenches en route to big numbers on the ground, a significant edge in time of possession, and (maybe most important) their most efficient passing outings of the season. The more space the ground game gives QB Conner Weigman to operate on his own terms, the more effective he’ll be.

For its part, LSU’s defense has been a squarely middle-of-the-pack unit against the run, running hot and cold from one week to the next. They’ve been dominant at times, holding UCLA to 56 yards rushing (excluding sacks) in Week 4 and Arkansas to 62 yards last week; at other times, they’ve been gashed, giving up 285 yards at South Carolina and 211 yards to Ole Miss — both razor-thin, come-from-behind wins decided on the last play of the game.

Notably, the latter 2 games featured a couple of running quarterbacks, Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers (107 rushing yards vs. LSU despite missing the entire second half to injury) and Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart (59 yards), who played a big role in those efforts. By the same token, in last week’s win at Arkansas the Razorbacks’ supremely athletic QB Taylen Green was a shadow of his usual self mobility-wise due to a sore knee. Weigman is not known as a running threat, by any means, but if the opportunity presents itself, letting him pull it on a zone read or two might be worth it, just to let the Tigers’ edge defenders know it’s a possibility they have to respect.

The key matchup: LSU OT Emery Jones Jr. vs. Texas A&M Edge Nic Scourton

LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier has been one of the best-protected quarterbacks in the country, facing pressure on just 22.6% of his total drop-backs, and getting him on the ground has been nearly impossible: He’s taken just 2 sacks all season, both against South Carolina. Otherwise, opposing defenses have come up empty in the sack column even when they’ve managed to turn up the heat. PFF credited Ole Miss with 21 QB pressures against LSU but somehow not a single hit among them, much less a sack.

That’s a testament to Nussmeier, a fast processor who gets rid of the ball in 2.62 seconds on average, and his veteran o-line, especially first-class left tackle Will Campbell Jr. Yet as eager as NFL scouts will be to watch Campbell working against A&M’s blue-chip edge-rushing rotation, the Aggies’ path to disrupting Nussmeier most likely runs through the other side of the line, where RT Emery Jones has struggled to live up to his early-round billing. Although he hasn’t been cited for allowing a sack, PFF does have Jones down for 17 QB pressures allowed, easily the most on the team and just 1 fewer than he allowed in all of 2023. More than half of those (9) came in the Ole Miss game alone.

Keeping Scourton at bay would be a fast way to get back in the scouts’ good graces. An aspiring first-rounder in his own right, Scourton has made a smooth transition from Purdue, where he led the Big Ten in sacks in 2023, to the SEC, where he’s looked right at home over the first half of the season. His 11 tackles for loss ranks 2nd in the conference and tied for 6th nationally; that number includes 4.5 sacks, most memorably a game-clinching strip sack in the Aggies’ Week 5 win over Arkansas.

Big time sack & recovery

ESPN#Gigem | #BTHOarkansas pic.twitter.com/HnmaqW4pF6

— Texas A&M Football (@AggieFootball) September 28, 2024

Between Scourton (19 QB pressures), former 5-star Shemar Stewart (20 pressures) and Bowling Green transfer Cashius Howell (16 pressures), Texas A&M boasts 3 future pros on the edge capable of ruining Nussmeier’s night without forcing coach Mike Elko to dip into the “exotic blitz” section of the playbook. In fact, the Aggies are counting on it, because against LSU wideouts Kyren Lacy and Aaron Anderson they’re going to need every available body on the back end they can get.

The verdict …

The 2.5-point spread in Texas A&M’s favor is strictly a home-field tilt, which tracks with the recent history of this series. The home team has won 7 straight, 5 of them by double digits. Surprisingly, although one side or the other was ranked in the AP top 20 in each of those games, LSU and A&M haven’t met with both teams ranked in the top 20 since 2013, in Johnny Manziel’s last game in Kyle Field. (A 34-10 LSU win, for the record.)

Can LSU hold up in the trenches? Offensively, that means protecting Nussmeier and giving him time to expose a just-okay A&M secondary. Defensively, it means stuffing the run and putting the onus on Weigman, who remains a work in progress, to make plays on obvious passing downs. Both are easier said than done. If the Aggies win up front, it’s their night.
–     –     –
• Texas A&M 27 | LSU 23

Missouri at Alabama (-16.5)

A make-or-break game for both teams’ Playoff chances, and the worst possible time for Missouri (6-1) to get hit by the injury truck. Quarterback Brady Cook, the hero of last week’s come-from-behind, 21-17 win over Auburn, is listed as “doubtful” to play on Saturday due to the high ankle sprain that sidelined him for most of the game against the Tigers; leading rusher Nate Noel is reportedly out with a foot injury; and 4 regulars in the secondary who have played in every game this season are listed as “questionable.” If Cook is out, the next man up is Notre Dame/Arizona State transfer Drew Pyne, who posted a brutal 7.7 QBR rating in Cook’s absence last week.

If Cook is in, Alabama’s defense is as vulnerable as it has been in ages: The Tide rank 15th out of 16 SEC teams in total and scoring defense vs. Power 4 opponents. Only Mississippi State has fared worse. Mizzou arguably has more explosive playmakers in Luther Burden III, Theo Wease Jr., and Mookie Cooper than any of the opposing offenses (Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Tennessee) that have sent Bama plummeting in the rankings the past 3 weeks. Without a healthy Cook, though, that’s like having an expensive, finely tuned sports car but no key to start the engine.
–     –     –
Alabama 30 | • Missouri 18

Texas (-18.5) at Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt has thrived by hogging the ball, racking up at least a 9-minute advantage in time of possession in all 4 of its FBS wins. That blueprint is going to be difficult to pull off against Texas, for 2 reasons: 1), the Longhorns excel at getting off the field on defense, ranking in the top 10 nationally in 3rd-down defense, first downs allowed and available yards allowed; and 2), the Commodores are unsure of the status of their leading receiver and primary chain-mover, TE/WR Eli Stowers, who appeared on the weekly injury report with an undisclosed injury.

Stowers, a former Texas A&M signee who detoured through New Mexico State before resurfacing in Nashville, has gone over 100 receiving yards in 3 of Vanderbilt’s past 5 games, including a 6-catch, 113-yard outing in the ‘Dores’ historic upset over Alabama. Twenty-two of his 33 catches have gone for first downs, including all 6 vs. Bama. If he’s available, Texas can expect a heavy dose, especially with top RB Sedrick Alexander also listed as questionable. If not, Vandy’s clock-killing options are thin, to say the least. Folk hero QB Diego Pavia is an effective short-yardage runner, but he can only account for so much.
–     –     –
Texas 34 | • Vanderbilt 19

Oklahoma at Ole Miss (-20.5)

Oklahoma has reinstated beleaguered sophomore Jackson Arnold as its starting quarterback — for now, anyway — but the issues that have plagued the Sooners all season still persist: They can’t run, can’t protect the quarterback (whoever it is), and the top half of the depth chart at wide receiver remains on track for a medical redshirt. The only faint glimmer of hope after last week’s 35-9 debacle against South Carolina is that at least it can’t get much worse. On that note, Oklahoma does have a new play-caller, Joe Jon Finley, who was promoted to interim offensive coordinator on Sunday following the dismissal of OC Seth Littrell. Don’t hold your breath for a spark: Per the Action Network, the 3-touchdown spread in Oxford is the largest OU has faced as an underdog since 1997.
–     –     –
Ole Miss 31 | • Oklahoma 13

Auburn at Kentucky (-2.5)

A couple of depressing streaks are on the line: Auburn has dropped 7 straight against power-conference opponents dating to last season, while Kentucky has lost 6 straight at home in SEC play. Worse, the Wildcats have averaged a dismal 16.7 points in those losses, the most recent of which came in a 20-13 flop against Vanderbilt in a game the ‘Cats were favored to win by 2 touchdowns. Did we mention that Kentucky is a run-first offense on the verge of running out of available running backs? Forget the point spread: If Auburn blows this game, Hugh Freeze and Payton Thorne should have to find their own way back to campus, buddy comedy-style.
–     –     –
• Auburn 22 | Kentucky 17

Arkansas (-6.5) at Mississippi State

If Mississippi State is going to avoid a winless finish in SEC play, this is its best chance. I am tentatively on the Michael Van Buren Jr. bandwagon, but as promising as their fledgling new QB has been the past couple of weeks, the defense continues to offer little hope. Against FBS opponents, the Bulldogs rank 125th nationally in total defense and yards per play, and 122nd in scoring, allowing at least 30 points in every game of a 6-game losing streak.
–     –     –
• Arkansas 31 | Mississippi State 23

Off This Week: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee

Scoreboard

Week 8 record: 5-3 straight-up | 4-4 vs. spread
Season record: 65-16 straight-up | 50-28 vs. spread

The post Week 9 SEC Primer: LSU and Texas A&M are on a roll. Only one of them can keep it going into November appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Can I leave the top spot vacant? No? Ah, well. In that case, Dart was the big winner in Week 8, which he spent watching from the couch while nearly every other quarterback in the top half of the Rankings struggled to one degree or another on a Saturday dominated by the defenses. Although his stock has tailed off significantly in conference play, for the season Dart still ranks among the top 3 nationally in yards per attempt, passer rating and overall PFF grade.

– – –
(Last week: 3)

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

It was a little less than a month ago that Milroe was rocketing to the top of the Heisman charts following a historic performance against Georgia. It’s been downhill since:

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Milroe has regressed, if only because Alabama is absolutely dependent on his dual-threat skill set — in the 3 games on the right side of the chart he’s accounted for just shy of 80% of the Crimson Tide’s total offense. Frankly, between a sketchy ground game, an overreliance on precocious freshman WR Ryan Williams, a defense hanging on by a thread and a plague of penalties, Milroe is arguably the least of Bama’s problems right now. It can’t be all up to the quarterback to keep carrying a team wobbling in that many areas.

But he certainly remains an enigma, as much so with 21 career starts under his belt as he did last year as an underclassman still getting his feet wet as QB1. The big difference between now and then is that, in 2023, he had a defense he could generally count on to hold up its end of the bargain while he learned to rein in his most reckless tendencies. These days, not so much, opposite a defense that ranks 15th out of 16 teams in SEC play in both yards and points allowed. (Seriously, read that again. Alabama: 15th out of 16 on defense!) It’s up to Milrpe to do the compensating now, with all that entails.
– – –
(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Carson Beck | Georgia

The bigger the load the Dawgs ask him to shoulder, the more the once-reliable Beck reveals himself to be a turnover machine. In 2023, Beck threw 6 interceptions in 399 attempts; in the past 4 games alone, he’s thrown 8 picks in 168 attempts, with multiple-INT games against Alabama (3), Mississippi State (2) and now Texas (3).

Make no mistake: Despite the 30-15 final score, Beck had a rough night in Austin, finishing with a career-low 77.3 passer rating and a negative EPA. All but 1 of Georgia’s 6 scoring drives against the Longhorns started inside the UT 35-yard line. Even with the defense in top form (not as easily taken for granted with this group as with some of the vintage Kirby Smart-era defenses of the past few years), it’s hard to win consistently with a quarterback who’s consistently throwing the ball to the wrong team.
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(Last week: 4)

4. Quinn Ewers | Texas

When you’re winning, having 2 viable quarterbacks is a blessing: Behold our bounty! When you’re not, though, it becomes a burden in a hurry. The second quarter of Texas’ loss to Georgia was the moment the dynamic between Ewers and Arch Manning crossed the line separating the good kind of problem from just a plain old problem.

Steve Sarkisian, of course, badly wants to avoid the whiff of a controversy. He insisted after Saturday’s loss that “Quinn’s our starter,” apparently leaving no wiggle room about the pecking order ahead of this weekend’s trip to Vanderbilt. But then, actually entrenched starters don’t need their coach constantly reinforcing their status, do they? A bogus social media “report” that Ewers was planning to opt out for the draft, while swiftly debunked, only bubbled to the surface because of what was already in the water. Despite his assurances, Sarkisian’s willingness to hand the ball over to Manning at the end of the first half, with Texas down 20-0 and Ewers struggling in the face of a resurgent Georgia pass rush, spoke for itself.

Manning got 2 series before halftime, looked like a deer in the headlights himself, and yielded to Ewers for the entire second half. Still, the message was plain enough: If Ewers is the starter, he’s also never more than a bad quarter or two from the bench.

Arch Manning and Quinn Ewers when they realize this is the SEC not the Big 12 pic.twitter.com/xeB8voJUrK

— George Jarjour (@GeorgeOnTap) October 20, 2024

The biggest red flag Saturday was Ewers’ dismal performance under pressure. Contrary to how it felt in real time, he was actually kept clean more often than not, per PFF, facing pressure on 19 of his 50 drop-backs. But Georgia feasted on those opportunities, which generated 5 sacks and a pair of fumbles vs. just 2 first downs allowed via Ewers’ arm. (The Dawgs also sacked Manning twice in his brief appearance, forcing another fumble in the process.) Ewers has never been considered a particularly creative or an elusive athlete, mobility-wise, and has rarely had to be behind a veteran o-line featuring multiple future draft picks. But if sticking with him means the offense is going to grind to a halt against Playoff-caliber defenses capable of turning up the heat, the Longhorns’ ceiling is limited.
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(Last week: 1)

5. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier is not breaking the bank statistically, but as the headliners have faltered, he has quietly risen to the top of the conference rankings in touchdown passes (18), Total QBR, and EPA over the course of a 6-game LSU winning streak. This weekend’s trip to Texas A&M is a major breakout opportunity in a collision of the only remaining unbeaten teams in SEC play.
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(Last week: 6)

6. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Pavia gives off gunslinger vibes, but his best asset this season has been his ball security. He’s thrown just 1 interception and hasn’t lost a fumble (despite leading the team in carries and yards) since the opening series of Vandy’s Week 3 loss at Georgia State. The lone pick is a big reason he’s leading the SEC in pass efficiency vs. Power 4 opponents. If the Rankings were confined to considering only the current season, he and Nussmeier would both be strong contenders for No. 1 right now.
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(Last week: 5)

7. Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

It’s not getting any easier to peg Weigman down. His season to date has consisted of 1 alarming performance (in a Week 1 loss to Notre Dame), 1 reassuring performance (in a Week 6 blowout over Missouri), a month-long injury absence in between, and a meh outing Saturday in the Aggies’ 34-24 win at Mississippi State. This weekend’s primetime date against LSU is the biggest start of his still-young career, and will go a long way toward defining it, one way or the other.
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(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook might be quickly forgotten by the rest of the country when his campus days are over, but Saturday’s come-from-behind, 21-17 win over Auburn was a good example of why he’s going to drink free in Missouri for life. He twisted his ankle in the first quarter, left the stadium to be transported to the hospital, only to return in the second half to rally Mizzou from a 17-6 deficit to win. In his absence, backup Drew Pyne led the Tigers to just 3 points on 7 possessions. After Cook’s return at the end of the third quarter, they drove for 2 touchdowns on their last 4 possessions, including a 17-play, 95-yard march capped by the go-ahead/ultimately game-winning TD with 46 seconds left.

Time will tell just how meaningful that effort turns out to be. Even at 6-1, Missouri is flying well under the radar as a potential Playoff dark horse, for obvious reasons. The schedule is the most forgiving in the SEC; still, the offense has averaged just 22 points vs. Power 4 opponents, including an overtime escape against Vanderbilt and now a close shave against last-place Auburn. Altogether, the 31-point margin of defeat in the Tigers’ only loss, a 41-10 debacle at Texas A&M, was more than twice as large as the combined margin of victory in all 3 of their Power 4 wins (13 points). ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Mizzou just 16.5% odds of making the CFP cut.

That can all change overnight after this weekend’s trip to Alabama, a must-win game (for both sides) that stands to make or break the season. Besides deepening the existential crisis in Tuscaloosa, a Missouri win would clear the path to an 11-1 finish through an extremely manageable November schedule. (Toughest remaining game after Saturday: At South Carolina on Nov. 16.) If Cook has a legacy beyond “local overachiever made good,” springing an upset on the Tide is probably his last chance.
– – –
(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

I’m still not sure how much I trust Iamaleava, who has had a rough October in SEC play and spent much of Tennessee’s 24-17 win over Alabama inspiring visions of Joe Milton. He finished 2-for-8 on attempts of 20+ air yards against Bama while repeatedly overthrowing open receivers, especially in the first half. But the 2 downfield throws he did connect on were difference-makers in high-leverage situations. The first, a 55-yard strike to Dont’e Thornton Jr. near the end of the third quarter, moved the chains on 3rd-and-6 and set up a first-and-goal inside the Bama 5-yard line; the Vols scored on the next play to take their first lead, 14-10. The second came with just under 6 minutes to go in the fourth, with Tennessee trailing 21-17 and facing a crucial 3rd-and-5 at the Bama 16-yard line; this time, Iamaleava lofted a beauty into the end zone for Chris Brazzell II, who came down with what turned out to be the game-winning points.

https://twitter.com/Vol_Football/status/1847780351248363916/

On paper, Iamaleava is still a mess statistically. With the game on the line, though, those are the kinds of throws you invest in a 5-star quarterback to make in those kinds of moments.
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(Last week: 10)

10. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Green’s mobility is an asset, but his production as a runner has plummeted over the past month. In Arkansas’ first 4 games, he ran for 393 yards (excluding sacks) and 4 touchdowns with 23 missed missed tackles forced, per PFF. In the past 3, he’s managed just 39 yards with no touchdowns and 4 missed tackles forced. Some of that decline has to be chalked up to injury: Green was clearly limited in Saturday’s 34-10 loss by a knee injury he suffered late in the Razorbacks’ Week 7 upset over Tennessee, and the scoreboard reflected it. Until he’s back to looking like himself again on the hoof, the Hogs’ odds of inflicting more chaos against the top half of the conference are greatly diminished.
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(Last week: 9)

11. DJ Lagway | Florida

If you just glanced at the box score of Florida’s 48-20 romp over Kentucky, Lagway’s stat line doesn’t exactly leap off the screen: He completed just 7 of 14 passes, none for touchdowns. He also threw his 5th interception of the year in just 86 attempts. In context, though, his first SEC start in place of an injured Graham Mertz was exactly what Florida fans have been clamoring to see all year — specifically, a quarterback who is a live threat to push the ball downfield at all times.

If anything, in Lagway’s case “threat” might be putting it mildly.

Per PFF, half of his 14 attempts and 5 of his 7 completions came on attempts of 20+ air yards, yielding 211 yards on a little more than 30 yards per attempt on downfield throws alone. (Contrast that with Mertz, who was just 4-for-11 for 86 yards on downfield attempts on the season before suffering a torn ACL in Week 7.) Three of those completions found their way into the hands of his favorite target, Arizona State transfer Elijhah Badger, covering 50, 58 and 40 yards, respectively, on 3 of the most aesthetically pleasing throws of this or most other Saturdays.

DJ Lagway strike. Hard to replicate this a talent.

Gators lead 13-6.

pic.twitter.com/iUS0m3v0fi

— Neil W. Blackmon (@nwblackmon) October 20, 2024

https://twitter.com/OldRowGators/status/1847808997018992750/

https://twitter.com/fhstigers_/status/1847837190321287438/

All 3 of those completions set up short touchdown runs by true freshman RB Jadan Baugh, who went for 106 yards and 5 touchdowns (all from 10 yards or less) in his first career start. But although the Gators kept the ball on the ground on roughly three-quarters of their total snaps, the majority of their 476 yards on the night came on just those handful of flicks of Lagway’s wrist.

The flip side of his explosiveness, for now, remains his inexperience (obviously) and inconsistency. He’s thrown as many interceptions (5) as touchdowns on the season, and that’s counting 3 TDs in a Week 2 win over Samford. He is very much a work in progress, which is why Billy Napier was so reluctant to fast-track Lagway to the top of the depth chart earlier this season even when the entire country — this space included — was begging him to dump Mertz before it was too late to salvage his job. Mertz was in the process of justifying that decision prior to his injury, which occurred on a touchdown pass that put Florida up 10-0 at Tennessee in the third quarter of an eventual overtime loss in Knoxville; that game is all that’s separating the Gators from taking a four-game winning streak into a brutal November schedule.

But if Napier still has a job on the other side of that gauntlet, it’s going to be for one reason only: Lagway’s potential to generate optimism for 2025 and beyond. Even at his savvy, veteran best, Mertz’s mission ended at stopping the bleeding in the present. Lagway, green as he is, actually represents something to look forward to. The Gators are probably in for a rough landing to the season, but as he proved on Saturday, with his gifts, it only takes a few brief glimpses of what’s possible to make the future look very bright.
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(Last week: 12)

12. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers didn’t have to do much in a 35-9 romp over Oklahoma, which was over almost as soon as it began due to an immediate flurry of OU turnovers. (See below.) South Carolina’s defense scored 2 of the ‘Cocks’ 4 first-half touchdowns directly, and set up another with starting field position in OU territory; the offense shifted into ball-control mode at halftime. Notably, Sellers somehow still managed to get sacked 5 times, running his total to an SEC-worst 24 sacks on the season.
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(Last week: 13)

13. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Caveat emptor and all that, but a little stock advice: Buy your ticket on the Van Buren bandwagon while there’s still room. A true freshman thrust into the lineup following an injury to starter Blake Shapen, Van Buren has breathed life into an otherwise listless rebuilding campaign, leading 6 touchdown drives of 75+ yards over the past 2 weeks in competitive losses to Georgia and Texas A&M. Whether Mississippi State wins an SEC game or not — and a rock-bottom defense still suggests not — doing whatever is necessary to keep Van Buren in the fold in 2025 needs to be a priority.
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(Last week: 15)

14. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff was a big fish on the offseason transfer market, but outside of a workmanlike effort in a 20-17 upset at Ole Miss, he hasn’t moved the needle. His production ranks at or near the bottom of the SEC in yards per attempt, efficiency and Total QBR, and that’s with a significant boost in nonconference games. Kentucky is 2-9 in its past 11 SEC games dating to last year, including 6 straight losses at home.
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(Last week: 11)

15. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Auburn owed its 17-3 lead at Missouri as much to the defense and special teams as it did to the quarterback, but for once the offense was not actively undermining the effort with untimely giveaways. (Thorne did lose a fumble in the first half, but Missouri missed a subsequent field goal attempt.) Then came the late Mizzou rally behind Brady Cook, after which point Auburn’s offense was an albatross. With the momentum swinging hard toward the home team, the Tigers’ 4 4th-quarter possessions went 3-and-out, 5-and-out, 3-and-out, turnover on downs; in the same span, Thorne finished 1-for-6 passing while Cook led 2 touchdown drives the other way. All in all, just another week on The Plains.
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(Last week: 14)

16. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

Arnold was seriously considering a redshirt after being benched earlier this season, presumably with an eye toward portaling out in December. Instead, he’s back in the saddle this week after replacing his former understudy, true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr., in a pitiful outing against South Carolina. Hawkins committed 3 rapid-fire turnovers to open the game in a span of just 9 snaps, all 3 of them resulting in Carolina touchdowns. He threw an interception on the first play; coughed up a fumble on the next series that turned into a scoop-and-score touchdown the other way; and followed that up by tossing a pick-6 under duress that put Oklahoma in a 21-0 hole barely 5 minutes into the game.

Arnold went the rest of the way with as much dignity as he could muster while getting sacked 8 times in a blowout. (Not for nothing, PFF also cited Oklahoma receivers for 6 drops.) Even if he’s back for good, though, he’s not exactly a prime candidate for a redemption arc. Arnold was sent to the bench for a reason following his Week 4 meltdown against Tennessee, and his long-term outlook remains as murky as ever amid upheaval in the program. Offensive coordinator/QB coach Seth Littrell was fired on Sunday after just 7 games on the job, the first step in what will almost certainly be a much larger exodus after the season.

At any rate, Arnold’s issues are well-documented. But the offense as a whole has been the worst in the conference by almost every relevant measure, and bottomed out in his absence. The Sooners can’t run the ball, can’t protect the quarterback, and for the past month haven’t had a healthy wideout who began the season on the two-deep. In their 3 losses, they have 3 times as many turnovers (9) as touchdowns (3), with all 3 of the latter coming in garbage time of games that were over at halftime.

Nor is there a light at the end of the tunnel: Oklahoma will be a decided underdog in each of its 4 remaining conference games against Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU, beginning this weekend as a 3-touchdown dog in Oxford, according to FanDuel. At this point, Arnold may as well be auditioning for his next head coach. The real question is whether that ultimately means finding a new home on the open market, or convincing whoever replaces Brent Venables in Norman.
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(Last week: n/a)

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 9: Let the controversy begin at Texas appeared first on Saturday Down South.

It’s late October. The mid-point of the regular season has come and gone. The weather is turning, finally. The home stretch looms. It’s time to ask: Is there a championship team in this conference?

Somebody has to be the standard bearer, and there are no shortage of candidates. Nine SEC teams are ranked in the updated AP poll — including Vanderbilt, at No. 25, look at y’all — and 8 teams have at least 15% odds of making the Playoff per ESPN’s Football Power Index. Still, the question stands. The last undefeated team, Texas, ate dirt Saturday night in a decisive, 30-15 loss to Georgia, which came into the game with question marks of its own and came out with a couple of new ones.

The Longhorns were the last team that could carry themselves like a clear-cut frontrunner. Now, no team has separated itself from the pack, and for every argument that any of the would-be contenders is good enough to win it all, there’s an equally compelling case to be made that they’re not — at least, not yet. From the most likely to make the Playoff per FPI to the least, here are the biggest obstacles in their path:

• Georgia (87.1%): The bigger the load the Dawgs ask him to shoulder, the more the once-reliable Carson Beck reveals himself to be a turnover machine. In 2023, Beck threw 6 interceptions in 399 attempts; in the past 4 games alone, he’s thrown 8 picks in 168 attempts, with multiple-INT games against Alabama (3), Mississippi State (2) and now Texas (3).

Make no mistake: Despite the final score, Beck struggled in Austin, finishing with a career-low 77.3 passer rating and a negative EPA (-1.5). All but 1 of Georgia’s 6 scoring drives against the Longhorns started inside the UT 35-yard line. Even with the defense in top form (not as easily taken for granted with this group as with some of the vintage Kirby Smart-era defenses), it’s hard to win consistently with a quarterback who struggles to take care of the ball.

• Texas (78.9%): The Longhorns cruised through the first half of their schedule so effortlessly that a lot of us were starting to wonder if they had a soft spot. Georgia found it in a hurry: The offensive line. Quinn Ewers (and Arch Manning, briefly) looked like a deer in the headlights in the face of Georgia’s rejuvenated pass rush, but much of the blame for that falls on a veteran o-line that was out of its depth against a blue-chip SEC front. The Dawgs racked up 7 sacks and 23 QB pressures, per Pro Football Focus, abusing the Longhorns’ touted left tackle, Kelvin Banks Jr., right along with his less-decorated line mates.

Jalon Walker sack! pic.twitter.com/TWVphnz4ug

— Billy M (@BillyM_91) October 20, 2024

It didn’t help that the running game was a nonfactor, or that Texas spent the better part of the last 3 quarters in comeback mode after falling behind by double digits in the first half. The front has generally been considered a strength this season, but after Saturday it will have to reprove itself all over again against top-shelf competition.

• Tennessee (67.1%): The defense and running game have consistently held up their end of the bargain, including in Saturday’s season-defining, 24-17 win over Alabama. The passing game is a work in progress, to put it mildly. Nico Iamaleava pulled out of his month-long slump long enough to lead a second-half comeback against the Tide, but is still in search of a go-to target among a bevy of intriguing but as-yet undistinguished options. As a team, Tennessee is next-to-last in the SEC in passes gaining 20+ yards vs. FBS opponents; meanwhile, no individual Tennessee receiver ranks among top 20 in the conference in receptions or receiving yards. How can it be that Bru McCoy and Squirrel White have played in every game and neither has scored a touchdown? Given the talent on hand, the lack of firepower from this group (erratic young quarterback very much included) is an ongoing source of frustration.

• Alabama (43.5%): Bama’s problems begin and end with a shockingly generous defense. Yes, Jalen Milroe’s regression on the turnover front over the past month is alarming. But much of that stems from the fact that the Tide need him to do so much to compensate for a defense in bad decline. Against Power 5 opponents, Alabama — Alabama! — ranks 15th out of 16 SEC teams in yards and points allowed, and 14th in gains of 20+ yards allowed.

Vanderbilt hanging 40 on the Tide was not a fluke. In Week 4, Georgia rallied from a dismal first half to outscore Bama 27-11 in the second, nearly completing an epic comeback in the process; in Week 8 Tennessee rallied from a scoreless first half to outscore Bama 24-10 in the second, and finished the job. All that’s standing between the Crimson Tide and a 4-game losing streak right now is an end zone interception that sealed the win against Georgia and a missed field goal by South Carolina as time expired.

• LSU (39.8%): Can the secondary be trusted? An improved pass rush has gone a long way to paper over the issues that plagued the defense last year, but the Tigers still rank 14th in the conference in yards per pass allowed and pass efficiency D, and they’re still less than two months removed from being shredded by USC’s Miller Moss in their only loss in the season opener. The pass rush made life miserable for Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart in LSU’s wild overtime win over the Rebels in Week 6, but a quality offense that can keep its man upright still has a chance to make hay through the air.

• Texas A&M (31.3%): Where’s the juice? Like Tennessee, A&M has dudes to spare at wideout but no one who moves the needle on his own. Leading receiver Noah Thomas, an imposing specimen, ranks 28th in the SEC in receptions and 29th in receiving yards. The Aggies sorely miss once-prized recruit Evan Stewart, who in a different timeline could have been a difference-maker on what has so far been a fairly nondescript offense.

• Ole Miss (22.3%): The Rebels’ vastly improved defensive line is a portal success story. The offensive line, on the other hand, remains behind the curve. There is a surplus of experience on the o-line, but talent-wise? There’s no one who projects as a potential all-conference pick or future pro. In Ole Miss’ 2 losses to Kentucky and LSU, Jaxson Dart was sacked a combined 10 times despite facing mostly standard 3- and 4-man fronts.

• Missouri (15.8%): Mizzou isn’t especially deficient in any area, but what is it especially good at? Luther Burden III and Theo Wease Jr. are NFL-ready wideouts, but the offense has averaged just 22 points in 4 games vs. Power 4 opponents, and that includes an overtime touchdown against Vanderbilt. The 31-point margin of defeat in the Tigers’ only loss, a 41-10 debacle at Texas A&M, was more than twice as large as the combined margin of victory in all three of their Power 4 wins (13 points).

Mob Rules

This column must address the bizarre episode on Saturday night in which Texas fans rained debris on the field in protest of the refs, and actually won the protest.

To review: Late third quarter, Longhorns trail 23-8 following their first touchdown. On the ensuing possession, Texas DB Jahdae Barron stepped in front of an ill-fated Carson Beck pass to the sideline for his second interception of the night, returning the ball to the UGA 9-yard line and stoking a palpable momentum shift in Texas’ favor … for a few seconds, anyway, before officials called the INT back due to a flag for defensive pass interference against Barron as he engaged with Georgia wideout Arian Smith at the top of Smith’s route. The home crowd (along with the TV audience at home) got one look at the replay and erupted. A lone beer can flew onto the field, followed by a shower of water bottles from the student section into the end zone opposite the action. The game was delayed for several minutes to restore order, in which time Steve Sarkisian crossed the field to personally implore the students to get a grip.

Chaotic scene in Austin:

A Texas interception vs Georgia was — *initially* — negated after the officials ruled defensive pass interference on the play.

Texas fans then threw bottles onto the field, leading to Longhorns HC Steve Sarkisian pleading with the fans to stop. pic.twitter.com/v5yJQMSqol

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 20, 2024

OK. Meanwhile, amid the pandemonium and subsequent cleanup — good hustle by Texas cheerleaders to join the ad hoc cleanup crew, by the way — officials huddled to discuss the play and determined, some 10-plus minutes after the fact, that the mob was right: No penalty, sorry about all that, 1st-and-goal Longhorns. Now it was Georgia’s turn to erupt. Texas scored 2 plays later to trim the margin to 23-15.

In the end, the sequence amounted to a moot point that did not swing the outcome of the game, although in real time it certainly could have. An official statement from the SEC explained that “the calling official reported that he erred” in throwing the flag, and “the original evaluation and assessment of the penalty was not properly executed,” which, no argument there. (The statement also condemned the reaction from the crowd, of course, and later fined Texas $250,000 for bad sportsmanship.) Kirby Smart said after the game that he was told the initial call was “on the wrong guy,” implying that the flag was initially intended to be for offensive pass interference against Smith but was announced against the wrong team.

Regardless, it was impossible to separate the eventual reversal from the hostile revolt that preceded it, especially in a massively hyped game that suddenly got a lot more interesting in the fourth quarter if the interception was allowed to stand than if it wasn’t. Watch the full sequence again: Officials not only announced the penalty, but marked off the yardage, spotted the ball, started the clock and signaled ready for play without discussing anything. By all appearances, the game was proceeding as usual with Georgia on offense. Twelve seconds ran off the clock before the first solitary beer can hit the turf, causing a brief stoppage to remove the can before the clock started again; another 8 seconds ran off before the water bottles started coming en masse, at which point officials whistled for a dead ball with Georgia’s offense in formation to run its next play. It was only after that point, amid a full-blown protest that forced the delay, that the crew finally huddled and decided to reverse the call. Had fans not started throwing stuff, there was no indication at all that officials were poised to rethink the penalty — quite the opposite.

Whatever the conference office claims, it was fairly obvious that the final call was at least in part in response to the crowd. Cue paranoia:

“I have never seen that before,” Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino told The Athletic. “A flag has never been picked up before after that long of a delay. It does seem like replay got involved either from the stadium or the SEC command center. Purely speculation, but it is hard not to come to that conclusion.”

Indeed it is not. There are two ways to go with this. One on hand, it’s hard to blame the refs for (eventually) reconsidering a bad call in a crucial, potentially game-changing situation and ultimately getting it right, even if the original mistake was egregious and it took far too long to correct it. Despite the hostility of the crowd, it would have been much easier in the moment to just stick with the original call. Then again, preferably they’re not going to, you know, incentivize a riot in the process. As Smart said, “now you’ve set a precedent that if you throw a bunch of stuff on the field and endanger athletes, that you got a chance to get your call reversed.” Once the bottles start flying, maaaaybe getting the call on the field right is no longer the top priority.

Then again, I’m under no obligation to have a capital-T TAKE here, so maybe not. When it comes to precedents, who knows? The sequence of events that led to the reversal on Saturday night was unique, as was the intensity of the crowd, the stakes of the game, and the pivotal circumstances of the call itself. (Not to mention the obviousness of the call, which had no defenders anywhere except on Georgia’s sideline.) It’s not like anybody actually believes officials are suddenly more susceptible to the whims of an angry crowd as a result of this, right? I guess we’ll find out the next time an outraged base decides that if a mass tantrum worked for Texas, maybe it can work for us, too.

Oklahoma: OC overboard

Oklahoma fired offensive coordinator Seth Littrell on Sunday after just 7 games on the job, effective immediately, and it’s a testament to just how badly those 7 games have gone that his exit felt inevitable. The stench wafting off Littrell’s unit has gotten more unbearable by the week. The Sooners rank last or next-to-last in the conference in just about every offensive category you can think of — scoring offense, total offense, rushing offense, passing offense, pass efficiency, yards per play, EPA, first downs, 3rd-down conversions, sacks allowed, plays of 20+ yards — and the reality has been arguably worse than the numbers. They can’t run the ball, can’t protect the quarterback, and for the past month haven’t had a healthy wideout who began the season on the two-deep. In their 3 losses, they have 3 times as many turnovers (9) as touchdowns (3), and all 3 of the latter came in garbage time of games that were over at halftime.

If last week’s 34-3 loss to Texas was an embarrassment, Saturday’s 35-9 debacle against South Carolina in Norman was something even worse: A collapse so thorough it bypassed mockery on the way to outright pity. Oklahoma’s fledgling quarterback, Michael Hawkins Jr., committed 3 rapid-fire giveaways in a span of 9 snaps to open the game, all of them resulting in Gamecocks touchdowns. The first, an interception on Hawkins’ first attempt, set the tone just seconds into the game, setting up a short-field TD drive for Carolina’s offense. The second, a fumble on the very next series, conjured up the spectacle of a 288-pound defensive tackle rumbling in the open field for a scoop-and-score TD that cast a pall over the stadium. The third, a pick-6 served up under duress, was a nail in the coffin barely 5 minutes into the game.

https://twitter.com/GamecockFB/status/1847687210570498222/

Hawkins, plainly overmatched, mercifully gave way at that point to the guy he replaced a month ago, Jackson Arnold, who finished the game with as much dignity as he could muster while coming off the bench to get sacked 8 times in a confirmed blowout. (Not for nothing, PFF also cited Oklahoma receivers for 6 drops.) But Arnold was sent to the bench for a reason following his first-half meltdown against Tennessee in Week 4, and prior to Saturday he was being sized up for a potential redshirt with an eye toward portaling out in December. The redshirt is off the table, but when a coordinator’s head rolls at midseason, it’s usually a sign of bigger changes to come. Littrell, a former captain on Oklahoma’s 2000 national championship team, is a canary in the coal mine.

The question now is whether his boss, Brent Venables, is in danger of becoming part of the exodus himself. If you were among the many, many people over the weekend googling “Venables buyout,” you learned that a) he just signed a contract extension in June that extended his $8.5 million-a-year deal through 2029, and b) buying out that contract this year that will cost in the neighborhood of $44.8 million. That’s not Jimbo Fisher money, but it is significant for a coach who was considered a no-brainer hire 3 years ago and oversaw a 10-3 season in 2023. At this rate, though, his bosses may not be left with much choice.

The name John Blake is beginning to surface with alarming regularity, in the context of “worst since …” The 26-point flop against South Carolina was Oklahoma’s most lopsided home loss against an unranked opponent since the nadir of the Blake years in 1997. The Sooners are 1-3 in SEC play (the lone win coming in a come-from-behind, 27-21 nail-biter at Auburn, where OU trailed 21-10 in the 4th quarter) with the steeper half of the conference slate still ahead: At Ole Miss, at Missouri, back home against Alabama, and at LSU to close the season. They’ll be significant underdogs in all of those games – they opened as 20.5-point dogs for this weekend’s trip to Oxford, to give you a taste of just how significant we’re talking about — meaning they’ll have to spring an upset just to reach the lowest rung of mediocrity, bowl eligibility. And that’s taking for granted a win over an FCS patsy, Maine, on Nov. 2, which … well, let’s not go there.

Of course, it’s not unheard of for a midseason coordinator change to pay off. The new play-caller, Joe Jon Finley, is another former OU captain who has been on staff the past 3 years after following former Sooners OC/current Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby from Ole Miss. He’s never called plays; he has been around success, and could benefit from some of the walking wounded at wide receiver trickling back into the rotation. But the other issues, particularly at quarterback, do not have a ready solution. If there’s a silver lining to this situation, it’s only that after Saturday there’s nowhere to go but up.

Lagway lets it rip

It was one of those Saturdays for SEC quarterbacks, when even the best performances qualified to one degree or another as “winning ugly.” Then there was Florida’s DJ Lagway, whose performance in a 48-20 romp over Kentucky was a breath of fresh air in The Swamp.

Admittedly, if you’re just looking at the box score that might seem like a strange way to describe a night on which Lagway finished just 7-for-14 with no touchdowns and 1 interception. Seven completions on 14 attempts? Fresh air? In context, though, his first SEC start in place of an injured Graham Mertz was exactly what Florida fans have been clamoring to see all year — specifically, a quarterback who is a live threat to push the ball downfield at all times.

If anything, in Lagway’s case “threat” might be putting it mildly. Per PFF, half of his 14 attempts and 5 of his 7 completions came on attempts of 20+ air yards, yielding 211 yards on a little more than 30 yards per attempt on downfield throws alone. (Compare and contrast that with Mertz, who was just 4-for-11 for 86 yards on downfield attempts on the season before he suffered a torn ACL in Week 7.) Three of those completions found their way into the hands of his favorite target, Arizona State transfer Elijhah Badger, covering 50, 58 and 40 yards, respectively, on 3 of the most aesthetically pleasing throws of this or most other Saturdays.

DJ Lagway strike. Hard to replicate this a talent.

Gators lead 13-6.

pic.twitter.com/iUS0m3v0fi

— Neil W. Blackmon (@nwblackmon) October 20, 2024

https://twitter.com/OldRowGators/status/1847808997018992750/

https://twitter.com/fhstigers_/status/1847837190321287438/

All 3 of those completions set up short touchdown runs by true freshman RB Jadan Baugh, who went for 106 yards 5 touchdowns (all from 10 yards or less) in his first career start. But although the Gators kept the ball on the ground on roughly three-quarters of their total snaps, the majority of their 476 yards on the night came on just those handful of flicks of Lagway’s wrist.

The flip side of his explosiveness, for now, remains his inexperience (obviously) and inconsistency. He’s thrown as many interceptions (5) as touchdowns on the season, and that’s counting 3 TDs in a Week 2 win over Samford. He is very much a work in progress, which is why Billy Napier was so reluctant to fast-track Lagway to the top of the depth chart earlier this season even when the entire country — this space included — was begging him to dump Mertz before it was too late to salvage his job. Mertz was in the process of justifying that decision prior to his injury, which occurred on a touchdown pass that put Florida up 10-0 at Tennessee in the third quarter of an eventual overtime loss in Knoxville; that game is all that’s separating the Gators from taking a 4-game winning streak into November.

Speaking of November, Napier’s status is still a hot topic with Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss looming on the other side of an open date. Florida has to win at least 1 of those to have a chance at breaking even for the season against Florida State, which still qualifies as a fairly depressing state of affairs by Florida standards. Beyond the record, though, the real goal down the stretch is generating a sense of forward momentum, reassurance that the growing pains are worth it and the best is yet to come, etc. Even at his savvy, veteran best, Mertz was never going to pull that off against a gauntlet of Playoff contenders. Lagway, green as he is, has a shot. As he proved on Saturday, with his gifts, it only takes a few brief glimpses of what’s possible to make the future look very bright.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Georgia LB/Edge Jalon Walker. Walker led Georgia’s resurgent pass rush against Texas, accounting for a team-high 7 QB pressures and 3 of the Bulldogs’ 7 sacks in a vintage performance for the front seven. Between Walker and a healthy Mykel Williams (4 pressures, 2 sacks), the giant red question mark hanging over UGA’s edge-rushing prospects the past 2 years is fading fast.

2. Tennessee Edge James Pearce Jr. It’s been a relatively quiet year for Pearce, stat-wise. But he confirmed his first-round bona fides against Alabama, turning in his best game of the season and arguably his career with 9 QB pressures and both of the Vols’ sacks against Jalen Milroe — a welcome breakout for a player who began the season with high expectations, and who the Vols will need to deliver on big stages to sustain their championship hopes opposite an offense still working it out.

3. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson. The SEC’s leading rusher put the offense on his back against the Tide, grinding out a career-high 139 yards and 2 touchdowns on 5.3 yards per carry — Sampson’s 6th 100-yard effort on the ground in 7 games.

4. LSU LB Whit Weeks. There is no replacing Harold Perkins Jr.’s unique skill set, but Weeks’ production in place of the injured Perkins has been second to none. He followed up a breakout game against Ole Miss in Week 7 with another high-volume stat line Saturday in a 34-10 win at Arkansas: 9 tackles, 5 QB pressures, 1 sack, and 1 tip-drill interception, for good measure.

https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1847813159421100210/

Weeks, a true sophomore, is already very much in the running for best linebacker in the SEC, a distinction he might still hold if his higher-profile teammate was still in the rotation.

5. South Carolina DB Nick Emmanwori. Most of South Carolina’s starting defense deserves to come for recognition for a sweltering effort at Oklahoma. Consider Emmanwori a rep for the entire unit. The junior ballhawk finished with a team-high 11 tackles and a pair of interceptions, including the pick-6 posted above that effectively ended the competitive portion of the proceeding barely 5 minutes into the game. That was his second pick-6 of the season, making him 1 of only 3 players nationally with multiple house calls on the year.

Honorable Mention: Tennessee DB Jermod McCoy, who picked off 1 pass, broke up another, and held Alabama receivers to 44 yards on 11 targets in his direction. … Alabama DB Malachi Moore, who had an interception and forced a fumble against the Vols. … Oklahoma LB Danny Stutsman, who recorded 16 tackles and 2 TFLs in a solid but futile effort against South Carolina. … Texas A&M DL Shemar Turner, who had 2 TFLs and forced a fumble in a 34-24 win at Mississippi State. … Florida QB DJ Lagway and WR Elijhah Badger, for reasons outlined above. … Florida RB Jadan Baugh, a true freshman, who ran for 106 yards and 5 touchdowns against Kentucky in his first career start. … Florida LB Devin Moore, who had an interception and a pair of PBUs in addition to 7 tackles. … Auburn LB Eugene Asante, whose 7 tackles against Missouri included a pair of sacks. … Vanderbilt TE Eli Stowers, who caught 8 passes for 130 yards (the vast majority of them coming after the catch) and a touchdown in 24-14 win over Ball State. … Auburn punter Oscar Chapman, who dropped 5 of his 7 punts against Missouri inside the 20-yard line without allowing a return. … And Missouri QB Brady Cook, who returned from a prolonged injury absence to lead Missouri from a 17-3 deficit to a 21-17 win over Auburn.

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The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Georgia (6-1). Nobody believed in them, but after 3 grueling weeks in the wilderness, poor little ol’ Georgia is back on top. | Last Week: 2

2. Texas (6-1). Steve Sarkisian badly wants to avoid the whiff of a quarterback controversy, insisting after Saturday’s loss that “Quinn’s our starter.” But his willingness to hand the ball over to Arch Manning for 2 series to close the first half let everyone know where the situation really stands. If he continues to struggle, Ewers is never more than a series or 2 from the bench. | LW: 1

3. LSU (6-1). Very quietly the Tigers are playing their way into solid position for the home stretch. Saturday’s 34-10 win at Arkansas was their 6th consecutive win since dropping the opener against USC and their most complete effort of the year. Next up: At Texas A&M, which has also won 6 straight since its opening-night flop against Notre Dame, in a collision of the SEC’s only remaining unbeatens in conference play. | LW: 4

4. Tennessee (6-1). I’m still not sure how much I trust Nico Iamaleava, who has had a rough month and spent much of Saturday afternoon inspiring visions of Joe Milton. He finished 2-for-8 on attempts of 20+ air yards against Bama while repeatedly overthrowing open receivers. With the game on the line, though, Iamaleava’s go-ahead touchdown strike to Chris Brazzell II with just under 6 minutes to go was a thing of beauty. Those are the kinds of throws you invest in a 5-star quarterback to make in those kinds of moments. | LW: 6

5. Texas A&M (611). The Aggies opened as 3.5-point favorites (via FanDuel) over LSU this weekend in College Station, a critical swing game for both teams’ Playoff outlooks. If the chalk holds, they’ll be in sole possession of first place in the conference standings with a straight shot to 10-1 heading into the regular-season finale against Texas. | LW: 5⬌

6. Alabama (5-2). For a long time, I had what I thought was a pretty good idea of how the post-Saban era at Bama would unfold, which was essentially a slow, barely perceptible decline over time ending in a crash several years down the road. So much for that vision of the Tide’s staying power. They aren’t crashing (yet), but it’s safe to say Kalen DeBoer is not going to win a Larry Coker-style national title strictly on inertia. | LW: 3

7. Ole Miss (5-2). The Lane Kiffin-to-Florida stuff must click because new speculation continues to regenerate itself weekly based on nothing in particular. Imagine if the Florida job actually becomes available. | LW: 7⬌

8. Missouri (6-1). Brady Cook hurt his ankle in the first quarter, went to the hospital, then returned in the second half to rally Mizzou from a 17-3 deficit against Auburn to a 21-17 win. Just one more reason that, while he may be quickly forgotten by the rest of the country, Cook drinks free in his home state for life. | LW: 8⬌

9. Vanderbilt (5-2). Vandy, baby, y’all is ranked. Enjoy it while it lasts. Next up: Texas, in Nashville. | LW: 9⬌

10. Arkansas (4-3). LSU’s trip to Fayetteville projected as a wide-open game ripe for chaos, as reflected in a 2.5-point spread. Instead, Arkansas fell behind early and wilted late, possessing the ball for just 1:56 in the 4th quarter of a decisive loss. Which, when you think about it, isn’t turning in a lame-duck effort when everyone is expecting chaos kind of like, more chaotic? No? Eh, maybe the Hogs just spent all their chaos tokens on their Week 6 upset over Tennessee. | LW: 10⬌

11. Florida (4-3). Gators are heading into November above .500 and in relatively high spirits, a dramatic emotional turnaround from a month ago. Check back in another month. | LW: 12

12. South Carolina (4-3). In the Gamecocks’ past 3 conference wins dating to last season, they’ve averaged a meager 254 yards of total offense on 4.5 yards per play. But they’re +8 in turnover margin in those games, which in the Shane Beamer era is almost always the decisive factor. Since the start of the 2021 season the ‘Cocks are 13-4 when they finish on the plus side of the giveaway/takeaway ledger vs. 3-15 when they end up in the red. | LW: 13

13. Oklahoma (4-3). Yeah, the Sooners are down bad, but it could always be worse. At least they’re not Florida State. | LW: 11

14. Kentucky (3-4). Mark Stoops has built up a lot of goodwill in Lexington but they’re not paying him $9 million a year and investing in big-ticket transfers for this. The Wildcats are 2-9 in their last 11 conference games, including four straight losses in games they were favored to win. | LW: 14⬌

15. Auburn (2-5). The Tigers are 0-4 in SEC play for the second year in a row, but the fact that this team has been more competitive in the process somehow makes it worse: Rather than a predictable slog, every week has brought a fresh new way to be disappointed. Their best remaining chance at a conference win is this weekend’s trip to Kentucky, where Auburn opened as a 3.5-point underdog in one of the more depressing matchups of the season. | LW: 15⬌

16. Mississippi State (1-6). The Bulldogs probably will not win an SEC game due to a rock-bottom defense, but freshman QB Michael Van Buren clearly has a future. Time to start passing the collection plate to keep him in the fold. | LW: 16⬌

The post Monday Down South: Down goes Texas, the SEC’s last, best shot for a clear frontrunner. Bring on the chaos appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Georgia at Texas (-4.5)

The stakes

Enormous, as expected. Dawgs/Horns had all the makings of a main event from the moment it appeared on the schedule, and for all the chaos at the top of the polls over the first half of the season, the matchup is what we expected it to be back in August: A test of the consensus No. 1 team in the country in arguably its biggest game of the year, with Playoff Implications, Heisman buzz and NFL-ready talent out the wazoo. The only thing that’s changed is that the expected roles of kingpin and contender have reversed.

Before the season, the pole position clearly belonged to Georgia, which occupied the top spot in the AP poll for 36 weeks in 2021-23 and dominated preseason voting for the second year in a row. But then, by Week 3, the Dawgs were beginning to fray at the edges. The offense was a no-show in the SEC opener, a 13-12 slugfest at Kentucky that featured a single touchdown by either side; voters dropped them from No. 1 in response. Two weeks later, they fell head-first into a 28-0 hole at Alabama that an epic second-half comeback could not quite get them all the way out of. Last week, the defense allowed more points in a 41-31 win over Mississippi State than Georgia had allowed to an unranked opponent since 2016, in the first month of Kirby Smart‘s first season as head coach.

The Bulldogs arrive in Austin 5-1, ranked 5th in the country, and with all of their championship-or-bust goals still in front of them. They’re also nearly two months removed from their only complete, vintage-Georgia performance to date, a 34-3 romp over Clemson in the opener, and have yet to settle on a week-in, week-out identity in the meantime.

Then there’s Texas, the only team in America yet to break a sweat. The Longhorns have dispatched their first 6 opponents by at least 3 touchdowns, including the defending national champ and a blood rival in games that were over by halftime. Their average margin of victory, 35.6 points per game, is the widest in SEC history through 6 games. On one side of the ball, they lead the nation in total and scoring defense; on the other, they have the luxury of 2 top-flight quarterbacks at a moment when most of the competition is just keeping its fingers crossed that it has 1. They’re comfortably atop the major polls this week by wide margins, and boast easily the best odds of both making the Playoff and winning it all, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. The vibes haven’t been this good in Austin since Colt McCoy’s shoulder exploded in the Rose Bowl.

Of course, vibes can shift overnight, especially against a team as loaded and as accustomed to playing on big stages as Georgia. (Hell, against Alabama they shifted 3 or 4 times in the 4th quarter alone.) Texas’ big-ticket wins against Michigan and Oklahoma came at the expense of a couple of struggling offenses groping for solutions at quarterback. Carson Beck, owner of an 18-2 record as a starter and a longstanding fan club among NFL scouts, is a different story. Whichever version of the Bulldogs shows up, it’s one that’s going to be in it for 60 minutes.

The stat: 1.7 yards per play

That’s the average gain this season by opposing offenses against Texas’ defense in the red zone. Through 6 games, the Longhorns have defended just 7 trips inside their own 20-yard line, fewest in the nation, and faced just 17 plays on those trips; altogether, those plays have gained a grand total of 29 yards — 23 yards rushing, 6 yards passing. Opponents have managed a single red-zone touchdown, on a 12-yard run by Mississippi State QB Michael Van Buren Jr. in the 4th quarter of a lopsided game in Week 5. (He commemorated the occasion, naturally, by flashing the Horns Down.)

For its part, Georgia’s offense has been nearly perfect in the red zone the past 3 weeks, cashing in on 13 of its 14 opportunities with 12 touchdowns. The only trip that didn’t result in points: The game-clinching interception in the end zone on the Bulldogs’ last-gasp drive against Alabama.

The key matchup: Texas WR Ryan Wingo vs. Georgia DB Malaki Starks

Texas’ leading receiver, Alabama transfer Isaiah Bond, was upgraded late in the week from “questionable” to “probable” after suffering an ankle injury against Oklahoma. Regardless of how much they can expect from Bond, though, the Longhorns’ most gifted receiver is Wingo, a big, blue-chip freshman with alarmingly smooth run-after-catch skills for a dude who checks in at 6-2, 210 pounds. Wingo has averaged 22.8 yards per catch with 7 of his 15 touches (as a rusher and receiver) going for 25+ yards; if he’s not quite on the same level as his higher-profile classmates Jeremiah Smith at Ohio State and Ryan Williams at Alabama, that might only be due to lack of opportunity, not potential.

If there’s a defender in the college game with the combination of size and athleticism to hang with an all-purpose freak like Wingo, it’s Starks, a former 5-star in his own right who has started every game since he set foot on campus and remains the runaway favorite to be the top safety off the board in next year’s draft. Don’t read too much into the designation: He’s a free-range defender who’s perfectly comfortable turning and running with wideouts.

Play Maker

: Watch live on ABC#GoDawgs | @StarksMalaki pic.twitter.com/G9jxVOgTRE

— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) August 31, 2024

Georgia is not generally in the business of assigning its DBs specific matchups. But when Starks and Wingo do lock up, they’ll have the full attention of every scout in the building, which on this particular night is saying something.

The verdict …

Kirby Smart has spent years dreaming up new and creative ways to cultivate a chip on his team’s shoulder, so what a godsend it is for him to go into a game as an honest-to-god underdog. Georgia hasn’t played a game it wasn’t favored to win in four years, since a pandemic-era trip to Alabama in October 2020. The fact that a second loss could relegate the Dogs to the Playoff bubble before Halloween only adds to the urgency. For once there’s no fear of his team showing up feeling complacent.

This preview has not mentioned arguably the most important player on the field, Texas QB Quinn Ewers. For a guy with 26 career starts, Ewers is still something of a wild card on this stage. Have we already seen him at his best? Even when he’s been healthy this season, the context has called for vanilla. Per PFF, out of 21 SEC quarterbacks with at least 50 drop-backs on the year, Ewers ranks 21st in average depth of target (6.1 yards) and the percentage of his attempts that have covered 20+ air yards (9.3%). Texas just hasn’t needed him to do much more than take care of the ball.

Vanilla is not going to cut it against Georgia. The Dawgs are not as imposing as usual on defense, but they’ve proven in both of their big games to date against Clemson and Alabama that they can score points in bunches against top-shelf competition; unlike Michigan or Oklahoma, a UGA offense that erased an 18-point deficit in a little more than half a quarter in Tuscaloosa ensures that no lead is safe. Ewers hasn’t played in a 60-minute game that was competitive in the fourth quarter since the Longhorns’ semifinal loss to Washington on Jan. 1, when he finished 24/43 for 318 yards, one touchdown, and a good-not-great QBR rating of 73.0. If he’s made as much progress in the meantime as they hope, he won’t get a better chance to prove it until the postseason rolls back around.
– –  –
Texas 27 | • Georgia 25

Alabama (-2.5) at Tennessee

I would not go so far as to call Tide/Vols an “elimination game,” since strictly speaking either team could take a second loss and still plausibly sneak into the Playoff with an at-large bid at 10-2. But it is certainly a “separation game.” The winner will be in enviable position for the stretch run, with its conference championship hopes and margin for error intact. The loser will limp out with its odds hanging by a thread, the third strike swaying over its head the rest of the season like the sword of Damocles.

Not that either side is coming in at full swagger as it is. Bama and Tennessee were two of the big losers in the Week 6 massacre at the top of the polls, biting the dust as big favorites against Vanderbilt and Arkansas, respectively, and didn’t reassure anyone last week in close shaves against South Carolina and Florida. After a high-octane September, the Vols’ offense has sputtered so far in SEC play, averaging just 21.3 points in regulation across three SEC games. At the same time, the Tide have wobbled on defense, allowing 92 points over the last 10 quarters since a taking a 30-7 lead to halftime against Georgia. Bama fans have watched in disbelief as their defense has repeatedly allowed extended, time-consuming touchdown drives in three consecutive games.

 Between them, Georgia, Vandy, and Carolina combined for 29 3rd- and 4th-down conversions, moving the chains at a rate of 52.7% on those opportunities. The past 2 weeks, especially, the upshot is not only that hogging the ball on long drives has resulted in points: It’s also kept Jalen Milroe on the bench for long stretches of time, limiting the number of possessions Alabama’s explosive offense has had to pull away while magnifying its miscues. (Four turnovers, plus an intentional grounding penalty that resulted in a safety against the Gamecocks.) No team, even one with as dynamic a combination as Milroe and phenom freshman WR Ryan Williams at its disposal, can thrive when its defense can’t get off the field.

The question Saturday is whether Tennessee’s slumping offense has the juice to follow that blueprint. The Nico Iamaleava hive has had a rough few weeks: His last touchdown pass, a 67-yard strike in the first quarter of the Vols’ Week 4 win at Oklahoma, was nearly a month ago. Since that throw — a real beauty, one that’s going to lead the highlight package when he’s a first-round pick someday — Iamaleava is in a bona fide funk, averaging a pedestrian 5.7 yards per attempt over the subsequent 11 quarters. His QBR rating has plummeted by the week, from 60.7 vs. the Sooners (not great) to 38.2 at Arkansas (woof) to 17.5 in last week’s overtime escape against Florida (sirens wailing). In the same span, he’s 2-for-11 on attempts of 20+ air yards, taken 10 sacks, lost 3 of 5 fumbles, and generally looked more like a work in progress than a rising star.

But Tennessee doesn’t need Iamaleava to resurrect his September Heisman campaign. If he hits his marks in a few high-leverage situations, he can trust the league’s leading rusher, workhorse RB Dylan Sampson, and a stout defense to hold up their end of the bargain. At the moment, though, that is a significant if.
– –  –
• Alabama 29 | Tennessee 24

LSU (-2.5) at Arkansas

For such a lopsided series — LSU has won 7 of the past 8 — the margins when the Tigers and Hogs get together have been razor-thin: Each of the past 4 games has been decided by exactly 3 points. (Hence that diabolical point spread.) That tracks with the 2024 matchup, featuring a couple of wild-card outfits that between them have already played six games decided by single digits.

Is LSU a Playoff contender? Last week’s come-from-behind, overtime win over Ole Miss was a springboard into the conversation, at least, vaulting the Tigers into the top 10 in both major polls. Beyond that that, the outlook is hazy. The oddsmakers don’t really trust them in Fayetteville, and regardless of the result on Saturday they still project as likely underdogs in their next two games against Texas A&M (in College Station) and Alabama (in Baton Rouge). ESPN’s Football Power Index gives LSU just a 24.8% chance to make the CFP, and a mere 3.9% chance to win the SEC despite being one of three teams off to an unblemished start in conference play. Unfortunately for LSU fans, staying power in their case probably means enduring one grueling heart-stopper after another.
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• LSU 26 | Arkansas 21

Auburn at Missouri (-4.5)

Missouri has been a low-key but reliable pipeline for next-level defensive linemen, producing 12 All-SEC picks (first- or second-team), 10 draft picks and 4 first-rounders since joining the conference in 2012. Who is that guy in 2024? The most disruptive presence to date is an interior player, Florida transfer Chris McClellan, who despite his run-stuffer frame leads the team in QB pressures (10) and sacks (3) in his first year as a Tiger. As for the edge rushers, though, they’ve been nondescript, with starters Johnny Walker Jr. and Zion Young accounting for a combined 17 pressures and 2 sacks. If the Tigers have a dark-horse CFP run in them, this is the point in the season where a difference-maker needs to emerge ahead of a make-or-break Week 9 trip to Alabama. And Auburn, which has been unsettled at both offensive tackle spots for much of the year, is as good an opponent as any to emerge against.
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• Missouri 27 | Auburn 17

South Carolina at Oklahoma (-1.5)

Yeah, this one is gonna get ugly. To be fair, the starting quarterbacks, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers and Oklahoma’s Michael Hawkins Jr., are plus athletes with plenty of time to grow into their potential. For now, though, they’re squarely in the “growing pains” stage, especially under duress. Per PFF, Sellers and Hawkins have faced pressure on a little more than 46% of their combined drop-backs, resulting in more sacks (30) than completions (24). Both rank in the bottom 10 nationally in PFF’s pressure metric, with Hawkins posting a 29.5 grade and Sellers a 28.8.

Sellers, at least, has the benefit of a relatively intact surrounding cast. Not so for Hawkins, who has yet to play with anything close to a full deck. Four of Oklahoma’s top 5 wideouts remain on the shelf, with the 5th, Deion Burks, tentatively listed as “questionable” for the 3rd consecutive game. (He hasn’t played in either of the past 2.) It would be a big help to their beleaguered young QB if the Sooners had any semblance of a ground game; as it stands, that’s just one more burden Hawkins has mostly had to take on himself.
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• South Carolina 23 | Oklahoma 19

Texas A&M (-16.5) at Mississippi State

Mississippi State might have found a keeper in freshman QB Michael Van Buren Jr., who impressed in a surprisingly competitive loss at Georgia. The defense, on the other hand, still belongs on the scrap heap. Name a category — scoring defense, total defense, rushing defense, passing defense, pass efficiency defense, 3rd-down defense, yards per play allowed, first downs allowed, tackles for loss, sacks — and the Bulldogs rank last in the conference, usually by wide margins. Altogether, opposing offenses have banked 67.8% of available yards while punting just 18 times — nearly half of those coming in the Dogs’ lone win against Eastern Kentucky in Week 1.
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• Texas A&M 40 | Miss. State 17

Kentucky (-1.5) at Florida

It’s no secret how much pressure is on Billy Napier in this game, with Florida sitting at 3-3 and a brutal November gauntlet against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss looming on the other side of an open date. But what about Mark Stoops? In last year’s meeting in Lexington, Kentucky thumped the Gators, 33-14, piling up 324 rushing yards in the process; that win improved Kentucky to 5-0 and briefly vaulted them into the Top 25. Since, the Wildcats are a dismal 3-9 vs. power opponents, their lone win this year coming in a Week 5 ambush at Ole Miss. Last week’s loss to Vanderbilt (as a double-digit favorite, no less) extended their home losing streak in SEC play to seven games over more than a full calendar year.

Put it this way: After Stoops’ reported candidacy for the Texas A&M job was swiftly rejected by the fan base last November, is there any expectation that he’s going to get a call worth taking in the next cycle? Of course, he’d say he’s happy right where he is, making $9 million a year at a program where he’s built up enough goodwill to go on finishing 7-6 for the foreseeable future. But even that is going to be a difficult mark to hit if he doesn’t get back to winning games like this one.
– –  –
• Kentucky 24 | Florida 20

Ball State at Vanderbilt (-25.5)

Ball State is in the running for the title of Worst Defense in America over the first half of the season, especially against the pass: Letterman U ranks last in the FBS in yards per catch allowed (10.2), touchdowns allowed (22), completions of 20+ yards allowed (37) and overall efficiency (190.5). On the other side, the Vandy wagon is picking up new passengers by the week. Vanderbilt was the first team out in the latest AP poll coming off back-to-back wins over Alabama and Kentucky, and has a good chance to crack the rankings heading into a Week 9 trip to Texas. Assuming Diego Pavia‘s knee holds up, brace yourself for the possibility that the ‘Dores are going to Austin as a ranked team.
– –  –
• Vanderbilt 45 | Ball State 13

Off This Week: Ole Miss

Scoreboard

Week 7 record: 6-1 straight-up | 6-1 vs. spread
Season record: 60-13 straight-up | 46-24 vs. spread

The post Week 8 SEC Primer: Texas has the juice. Georgia wants it back appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Quinn Ewers | Texas

It might seem a little weird to think of Ewers, an entrenched upperclassman with 26 career starts, as some kind of wild card. As much as we’ve seen of him, though, he still faces plenty of question marks heading into Texas’ steepest test of the regular season against Georgia. Chief among them: Have we already seen him at his best?

If we have, it wasn’t for long. Ewers’ untapped potential was a big part of the reason he opened the season atop the rankings; halfway home, it still is, for the very good reason that he hasn’t faced any particular urgency to tap it. He got off to a hot start in Texas’ Week 2 trip to Michigan, leading 4 scoring drives in the first half, but holstered his guns early once it was obvious the Wolverines didn’t have the ammunition to keep pace. And while he was decidedly not hot in the early going of Saturday’s 34-3 thumping of Oklahoma — Texas’ first 3 possessions resulted in an interception and a pair of 3-and-outs — there was never any question of the anemic OU offense threatening to pull away; Ewers shook off the rust in the second quarter, and once again had no reason to empty the chamber with the game well in hand.

The upshot is that it’s difficult to separate the “in command” vibes Ewers gives off in real time from the circumstances, and the numbers aren’t much help. His stats are skewed in part by the fact that he missed the better part of 3 games (all prime stat-padding opportunities) to an abdominal injury, and in equal part by the fact that when he has played the context has called for vanilla. Per Pro Football Focus, out of 21 SEC quarterbacks with at least 50 drop-backs on the season, he ranks 21st in average depth of target (6.1 yards) and the percentage of his attempts that have covered 20+ air yards (9.3%).

Vanilla is hardly going to cut it against Georgia, which is no doubt relishing its status as an actual underdog (albeit it a narrow one via FanDuel) for the first time in 4 years. The Bulldogs are not as imposing as usual on defense, but they’ve proven in both of their big games to date against Clemson and Alabama that they can score points in bunches against top-shelf competition; unlike Michigan or Oklahoma, a UGA offense that erased an 18-point deficit in a little more than half a quarter in Tuscaloosa ensures that no lead is safe. Ewers hasn’t played in a 60-minute game that was competitive in the 4th quarter since the Longhorns’ Playoff semifinal loss to Washington on Jan. 1, when he finished 24-for-43 for 318 yards, 1 touchdown, and a good-not-great QBR rating of 73.0. If he’s made as much progress in the meantime as they hope, he won’t get a better chance to prove it until the postseason rolls back around.
–     –     –
(Last week: 3)

2. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

Early on in his tenure as the Tide’s starter, Milroe earned a reputation as a boom-or-bust type prone to generating big plays and giveaways in equal measure. He quickly outgrew that label during last year’s Playoff run, and didn’t offer any reminders of it over the course of a 4-0 start this year. The past 2 weeks, though, the old — er, young? — Milroe has been back with a vengeance, accounting for nearly as many turnovers (4) as touchdowns (5) in a couple of underwhelming performances against South Carolina and Vanderbilt. (Add an intentional grounding penalty that resulted in a safety to the turnover column, and it comes out even.) Arguably the biggest difference in the outcomes of those 2 games is that Vandy cashed in both of its takeaways for touchdowns while Carolina managed only a field goal.

Frankly, it’s hard to blame Milroe for trying to do too much. He’s as much of a workhorse on the ground as any of the actual running backs (more so when it counts), and aside from freshman phenom Ryan Williams, the receivers are a relatively nondescript group by Bama standards. The defense is not holding SEC offenses to 20 points per game anymore, either, which it did while Milroe was growing into the job last year. If he’s not making plays, who is? As long as the positives keep coming, the negatives might just be the cost of staying in business.
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(Last week: 1)

3. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Dart took a beating in Ole Miss’ overtime loss at LSU, facing pressure on 21 of his 51 drop-backs with 6 sacks. But what really hurt in the morning was the sheer number of opportunities the Rebels missed to win a game they badly needed to win. Six red-zone possessions on offense yielded just 13 points; the most productive receiver in the country dropped a certain touchdown in the early going; the offense failed to cash in either of 2 takeaways, including its only possession in regulation that started in LSU territory; and finally, with a chance to put the game on ice, the defense allowed 2 4th-down conversions in the final 2 minutes, including the game-tying touchdown pass with seconds to go. Ole Miss never trailed until the Tigers connected on the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

The Rebels’ Playoff hopes are not dead, but with 2 losses in 3 weeks, they are on life support heading into an open date. They’ll almost certainly have to win out to make the cut, including an Oct. 19 date against Georgia in Oxford. Otherwise, Dart is destined to go down in the local tradition alongside Eli Manning, Chad Kelly and Matt Corral — prolific, but never quite enough to make Ole Miss an actual contender.
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(Last week: 2)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

Georgia’s 41-31 win over Mississippi State was a departure for the usually mild-mannered Beck, who set new career highs for completions (36) and passing yards (459) and could have added to both totals if not for multiple drops by his receivers. He also threw 2 interceptions, giving him nearly as many INTs in the past 3 weeks (5) as he threw all of last season (6). Read into that what you will. Personally, I suspect that after the Alabama game, the Dawgs realized they can’t trust the current version of the defense to enforce a slugfest game plan on a weekly basis and needed to let Beck cook before the scoreboard leaves them with no choice. We’ll see how well that theory holds up in this weekend’s trip to Texas.
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(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Once again, Pavia was a model efficiency in a grueling, 20-13 win at Kentucky featuring two teams determined to bleed the clock as dry as a bone. They managed just 7 offensive possessions apiece, with Vanderbilt ultimately winning the time of possession struggle by a little more than 9 minutes. Pavia finished 15-for-18 passing, accounted for 216 total yards (143 passing, 83 rushing, excluding sacks), and was responsible for 13 of the Commodores’ 19 first downs. The Vandy wagon is real, but it is a slog.
–     –     –
(Last week: 5⬌)

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier’s stat line in the Tigers’ come-from-behind, overtime win over Ole Miss had a little bit of everything. Actually, in a game that spanned a little more than 4 hours and featured 159 combined offensive snaps, it had a lot of everything. He was prolific (337 yards, 3 touchdowns), he was erratic (29 incompletions, 2 interceptions), he was under fire (21 pressured drop-backs), he was cool as a cucumber (zero sacks, somehow).

In the end, the only plays that are going to stick were Nussmeier’s twin TD passes on his final 2 attempts of the night — the first coming on a 4th-down strike that tied the game in the final minute of regulation, the second coming on a game-winning lob to Karen Lacy on LSU’s first snap in overtime. The latter is the kind of play that goes directly into the rotation of highlights that get cued up every time the teams involved play for as long as anyone is alive who remembers it. But it was the roller-coaster that brought them to that moment that made it worth remembering in the first place.
–     –     –
(Last week: 6⬌)

7. Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

Weigman had Week 7 off to nurse his sore shoulder and bask in the glow of a potentially career-saving performance against Missouri in Week 6. He’s reportedly 100% healthy for this weekend’s trip to Mississippi State for the first time this year.
–     –     –
(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook rebounded from a miserable afternoon at A&M with a reassuring outing at UMass, where he finished 14-for-19 for 219 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 45-3 romp. This weekend’s visit from a reeling but desperate Auburn is a must-win ahead of Mizzou’s Week 9 trip to Alabama.
–     –     –
(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Of course an SEC Saturday that featured no major upsets unfolded without Green, the league’s leading chaos agent. He’s back this week against LSU in Fayetteville, where the Razorbacks are officially 2.5-point underdogs via FanDuel, but everyone understands that almost literally anything could happen.
–     –     –
(Last week: 9⬌)

10. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

We need to talk about Nico. Conference play has been rough on our lanky boy: His last touchdown pass, a 67-yard strike in the first quarter of the Vols’ Week 4 win at Oklahoma, was nearly a month ago. Since that throw — a real beauty, one that’s going to lead the highlight package when he’s a first-round pick someday — Iamaleava is in a bona fide slump, averaging a pedestrian 5.7 yards per attempt over the subsequent 11 quarters. His QBR rating has plummeted by the week, from 60.7 vs. the Sooners (not great) to 38.2 at Arkansas (woof) to 17.5 in Saturday’s overtime escape against Florida (sirens wailing). In the same span, he’s 2-for-11 on attempts of 20+ air yards, taken 10 sacks, lost 3 of 5 fumbles, and generally looked more like a work in progress than a rising star.

Sharif Denson picks off Nico Iamaleava pic.twitter.com/XtP6M4uhiX

— NMD Grant (@NMDgrant) October 13, 2024

Now, does any of that mean that I recommend abandoning your seat on the Iamaleava bandwagon? Nah. The potential is plain enough and the glimpses we’ve seen so far impressive enough that it’s still hard to imagine him not panning out in the long run. Growing pains are normal, even if a little jarring for a precocious talent who was inspiring September Heisman buzz before his first SEC start.

The million-dollar question now is just how long a run are we talking about? Is the slump just that, or just the beginning of an extended, years-long project? Tennessee isn’t the high-octane offensive juggernaut the preseason hype anticipated, but it is still a borderline top-10 team in the thick of the Playoff chase on the strength of its defense and ground game. The Vols have a chance to tip the CFP odds decisively in their favor Saturday against Alabama, with only 1 other game remaining on the schedule (a Nov. 16 trip to Georgia) they won’t be heavily favored to win. For his struggles, Iamaleava has not regressed to the point that he’s a basketcase or a turnover machine — at least, not yet. It might be ugly otherwise, but if he can make enough plays to get over against the Tide, it will go a long way toward preventing a spiral and resetting expectations at a more manageable level for the stretch run.
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(Last week: 10⬌)

11. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff is not entirely to blame, but aside from the flaming wagon wreck at Oklahoma, Kentucky’s offense was the most disappointing in the conference over the first half of the season. The Wildcats rank dead last in scoring, and above only the Sooners in total offense, yards per play, passing offense and pass efficiency.
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(Last week: 11⬌)

12. DJ Lagway | Florida

It’s officially Lagway’s team after Graham Mertz suffered a torn ACL in the Gators’ overtime loss at Tennessee. It was a disappointing ending to a turbulent career for Mertz, a 6th-year senior, who had rebounded from a dismal start to the season to reassert himself as the starter. The fact that it came essentially at random, on a non-contact injury following a touchdown pass that put Florida up 10-0 in the third quarter, was particularly cruel.

Although Lagway’s ascension to QB1 has been highly anticipated since he set foot on campus in January, needless to say this is not the way anyone wanted it to happen. The 2-for-1 rotation devised by Billy Napier to ease his touted freshman into the lineup was going as well as could be expected. And for all his potential, Lagway has been very much a freshman to date, serving up 4 interceptions in just 57 attempts vs. FBS opponents. He takes the reins with just enough time to settle in ahead of the November gauntlet that has loomed over the Gators’ season from Day 1: They get Kentucky this week, followed by an open date, followed by a brutal 4-game stretch against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss. As it stands, Florida is 3-3. If a winning record is still on the table heading into the season finale at Florida State — and if Napier still has a job — the initial phase of the Lagway era will qualify as a success.
–     –     –
(Last week: 12⬌)

13. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers makes a couple of eye-opening plays per game, but has struggled with consistency and especially struggled under pressure. For one thing, he’s been under a lot of it, facing pressure on 44.1% of his total drop-backs, per PFF, among the highest rates in the country. His abysmal 28.5 grade on those snaps ranks next-to-last among Power 5 quarterbacks, and no one in the entire FBS has been responsible for more turnover-worthy plays (10).
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(Last week: 13⬌)

14. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Auburn didn’t play in Week 7, so Hugh Freeze had to go back to the Tigers’ Week 6 loss at Georgia to air his weekly criticism of Thorne’s decision-making at the behest of local media. This weekend’s trip to Missouri will surely offer up some fresh material.
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(Last week: 15)

15. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

I’m wary of reading too much into Van Buren’s 306-yard, 3-touchdown stat line at Georgia, which was a little bit like the shove he received from Kirby Smart in the process: Real, but not quite worth moving the needle over unless it becomes a trend. On one hand, yes, Van Buren was obviously better than he had any right to be, leading 4 TD drives of 75+ yards — a feat for a true freshman making just his second career start in one of the most intimidating environments in the country. He didn’t do it dinking and dunking, either. The highlight reel confirms an extremely live arm.

Michael Van Buren, SEC Freshman of the Week

306 yards and 3 TDs on the road at No. 5 Georgia

(h/t: @HumpDawgMSU)pic.twitter.com/ZF2ag10eMG

— Tru Maroon Nation (@TruMaroonNation) October 14, 2024

OK, that’s some SEC Freshman of the Week stuff, for sure. On the other hand, there was never a moment when it wasn’t clear he was toiling in a losing effort. Mississippi State trailed by as much as 24 points and never pulled within single digits after the midway point of the second quarter.

Put it this way: Let’s say the Miss State just found itself a keeper in comeback mode. A hidden gem, the quarterback of the future, a silver lining in an otherwise depressing season. Great. Now, in the portal era, can they actually afford to keep him in the fold long enough for the upside to pay off?
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(Last week: 16)

16. Michael Hawkins Jr. | Oklahoma

If Oklahoma’s season were unfolding according to plan, Hawkins’ biggest concern right now would be preserving his redshirt. Instead, he’s being served up as the goat on an offense that can’t run the ball, can’t protect him and still has no healthy wide receivers. Brent Venables reaffirmed his commitment to Hawkins after Saturday’s 34-3 debacle against Texas, naming him the starter for this weekend’s game against South Carolina; he also declined to rule out the possibility of bringing Jackson Arnold off the bench to share reps — that is, of course, unless Arnold opts to preserve his own redshirt with an eye toward portaling out in December. With Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU still on the ledger and no end to the offensive malaise in sight, Venables’ own status between now and then is suddenly an open question.
–     –     –
(Last week: 14)

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 8: Can Nico Iamaleava snap out of his slump before it becomes a spiral? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

We’ve officially hit the turn in the 2024 regular season: 7 Saturdays down, 7 Saturdays to go. How y’all feeling so far? Here’s where all 16 SEC teams stand at the halfway point according to the semiannual Monday Down South Vibes Index, from grooviest to grimmest:

Cruising at Altitude

Texas. It’s been a bloody year in the polls, one in which nearly every would-be contender has either crashed head-first into a surprise L or swerved just in time to avoid it at the last second. Only 4 of the 25 teams in the preseason AP poll are still unscathed, and 3 of those 4 — Oregon, Penn State and Miami — have each survived upset bids from unranked opponents decided on the last play of the game. (Miami, in fact, has survived 2 upset bids from unranked opponents decided on the last play of the game, after trailing by double digits in the 4th quarter in both.) Eight of the preseason top 15 have actually lost to an unranked opponent, including 3 SEC teams in the past 3 weeks.

Then there’s Texas, the only team in America that has yet to break a sweat.

The Longhorns have dispatched all 6 opponents to date by at least 3 touchdowns, including the defending national champ and a blood rival in games that were over by halftime. Their average margin of victory, 35.6 points per game, is the widest in the country. On one side of the ball, they lead the nation in total and scoring defense; on the other, they have the luxury of 2 top-flight quarterbacks at a moment when most of the competition is just keeping its fingers crossed that it has one. They’re comfortably atop the major polls this week by wide margins, and boast easily the best odds of both making the Playoff and winning it all, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. The vibes haven’t been this good in Austin since Colt McCoy’s shoulder exploded in the Rose Bowl.

Now, how much of the preceding paragraph remains intact at this time next week, on the other side of this weekend’s gauntlet entry against Georgia? TBD. But what a time to be a fan. Is anyone out there still trying to argue the expanded Playoff somehow makes the regular season feel smaller?

New Lease On Life

Vanderbilt. If Vandy doesn’t win another game this season, 2024 will still go down as a monumental year in school history simply for being the year the Commodores beat Bama. To anyone who doubted it could be more than that — that is, to anyone who’s paid much attention to Vandy over the years — Saturday’s 20-13 win at Kentucky as 2-touchdown underdogs was a statement that they have no intention of going back where they came from.

Cautiously Optimistic

LSU. There was a point Saturday night when the Tigers trailed Ole Miss 10-0 on the scoreboard, the margin on the field felt a lot worse, and the crowd in Tiger Stadium was on the verge of mentally simming ahead to the arrival of massively hyped QB recruit Bryce Underwood in 2025. Instead, their come-from-behind, 29-26 win in overtime salvaged their chance to wring a meaningful finish out of what was shaping up as a rebuilding year. They’ve won 5 straight since Brian Kelly pounded the table following their opening-night loss to USC; if they continue to win the ones they should over the second half, they only need to take 1 of 2 against Texas A&M and/or Alabama to make crashing the SEC Championship Game and CFP bracket a very real possibility.

Texas A&M. The Aggies also are on a 5-game winning streak since their opening-night flop against Notre Dame, and are also coming off a top-10 win that they hope serves as a catalyst for higher expectations. LSU and A&M both have tests to pass this week against Arkansas and Mississippi State, respectively, but the Tigers’ trip to College Station in Week 9 looks like another major checkpoint in the Playoff race that only the winner can pass.

Flawed But Fine (For Now)

⬌ Georgia. The Dawgs have played 1 complete game, a 34-3 romp over Clemson in Week 1, and even that one might be more accurately described as a complete second half. It’s been uneven since: A defensively-driven win at Kentucky; a frantic, high-scoring loss at Alabama; a standard-issue slugfest over Auburn; and, on Saturday, a sloppy, 41-31 win over Mississippi State that was never in doubt but didn’t offer much reassurance about the state of the defense heading into this weekend’s season-defining trip to Texas. It’s not literally a must-win game for Georgia’s Playoff chances, but if this is a championship-caliber team, now is the time to start putting it all together. Besides reducing their margin for error to zero with Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee on deck in November, a second strike would cast serious doubt on the Dogs’ ceiling even if they go on to make the cut.

⬌ Tennessee. The Nico Iamaleava bandwagon has lost a lot of steam over the past couple of weeks, if not necessarily all that many passengers given his enormous potential. Iamaleava looked every bit the fledgling starter in the Vols’ 23-17, overtime win over Florida, finishing 16-for-26 for 169 yards, 2 turnovers (1 fumble, 1 interception) and a dismal 17.5 QBR score, easily the worst of the weekend among SEC starters. The fact that the Vols managed to eke out a win anyway is a testament to a) how solid they are in the other phases, and b) Florida’s capacity to match any opponent gaffe for gaffe. Still, if they stand a chance this weekend against Alabama, or against Georgia just down the line, they need their precocious young QB back on the breakout track.

⬌ Arkansas. The Hogs’ upset win over Tennessee in Week 6 was arguably the biggest win of Sam Pittman’s tenure in Fayetteville and cooled his seat considerably heading into an open date. The coming month against LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Texas could determine his fate, but for now the fact that there’s still a fate to be determined is enough to count the first half of the season as a qualified success, or a wash at worst. The specter of “interim head coach Bobby Petrino” still looms.

Under Construction

⬌ Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are as bad as advertised under first-year coach Jeff Lebby, but things could be worse: This could be the same team that got blown out at home by Toledo in Week 3. Instead, an outfit resigned to the basement has been feistier in its past 2 games, road trips to Texas and Georgia, than it had any right to be against 2 of the conference’s heavy hitters, especially with a true freshman quarterback just getting his feet wet. If nothing else, Michael Van Buren Jr. looks like a keeper after throwing for 306 yards and 3 touchdowns against UGA, offering a glimmer of hope for the rebuilding project that opening-day starter Blake Shapen (out for the season with a shoulder injury) was never going to give them. Cracking the win column in SEC play remains a long shot, but as long as they’re playing competitive, four-quarter games the record is an afterthought.

Losing Their Edge?

Alabama. Let’s start by pointing out that, yes, at 5-1 the Crimson Tide still have everything in front of them, including a certain degree of margin for error. They also have (for the time being, anyway) the single best win of the season at the top of their résumé. But almost all of the goodwill they bought in their epic triumph over Georgia has been squandered the past 2 weeks in an equally historic flop against Vanderbilt and now a razor-thin escape against South Carolina, in a game the Tide trailed at the start of the 4th quarter. The Vandy loss was traumatic enough, but at least it could be filed away as a random, “any given Saturday” kind of lapse. Following it up with a legitimate nail-biter against the Gamecocks the very next Saturday, in Tuscaloosa, is a crisis.

Neither outcome was a fluke on the field. Vanderbilt outgained Bama overall, converted 12 3rd downs, and racked up a 25-minute advantage in time of possession. South Carolina also outgained Bama, and caused big problems in the pocket for Jalen Milroe, who committed 2 killer turnovers for the second week in a row. Carolina committed 4 giveaways itself, finishing with a -2 turnover margin, and also missed a key go-ahead field goal attempt late in the 4th quarter; if any one of those plays breaks the Gamecocks’ way, the conversation surrounding Alabama heading into the Third Saturday in October is being conducted in a register a couple of octaves higher than it is right now.

The truth is, Bama is still a supremely talented team with the potential to win it all, which was on full display against Georgia. What really set the Tide apart in the Saban years, though, was unwavering consistency in the routine games, which they never lost and rarely even came close to losing. As much as anything else, the program has been defined for 15 years by its refusal to play down to the competition, to an extent that the rest of the country has never managed to emulate. Eventually, it was probably inevitable that the post-Saban Tide would struggle to emulate it, too. The real surprise is that that moment has apparently arrived much sooner than anyone bargained for.

Ole Miss. The Rebels’ overtime loss at LSU was deflating in its own right, for the sheer number of missed opportunities alone. Six red-zone possessions on offense yielded just 13 points; the most productive receiver in the country dropped a certain touchdown on the first possession; the offense failed to cash in either of 2 takeaways, including its only possession in regulation that started in LSU territory; and finally, with a chance to put the game on ice, the defense allowed 2 4th-down conversions in the final 2 minutes, including the game-tying touchdown pass with seconds to go. Ole Miss never trailed until the Tigers connected on the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

But that fit the broader theme of the season, which is also shaping up as an enormous missed opportunity. Ole Miss invested as heavily as any team in America in upgrading its talent level for a Playoff run, only to find itself on the wrong side of the CFP bubble at midseason. The Rebels might not be eliminated, strictly speaking, but they almost certainly can’t afford to lose again, a tall order with Georgia still on the schedule, among other hurdles. And for a team built to win now, there is no next year. Jaxson Dart, Tre Harris and the vast majority of the highly-rated portal hauls of the past couple seasons will all be moving on. So might Lane Kiffin, who’s already being sized up to fill the potential vacancy at Florida. Does Ole Miss have deep enough pockets to keep going all-in on big-ticket transfer classes on an annual basis? If this team can’t fill that void, suddenly footing the bill for one that can starts to look like a tougher sell.

Missouri. The Tigers rebounded from their Week 6 flop at Texas A&M Saturday with a 45-3 win at UMass, but the sting of the wake-up call in College Station still lingers as they face down a crucial conference street against Auburn, Alabama and Oklahoma. A favorable schedule can be a blessing in certain ways, leaving a viable Playoff path open for a 5-1 team that just climbed back into the top 20 in both polls. But there’s no realistic path that doesn’t involve winning in Tuscaloosa, which considering how Mizzou’s last big conference road trip went over seems just as likely to be a curse.

Adrift

Oklahoma. More on the Sooners’ quarterback woes below. Suffice to say that the transition from Lincoln Riley to Brent Venables is proof that, as a rule, an offensive team with no defense is not nearly as depressing as a defensive team with no offense.

South Carolina. The Gamecocks have been all over the map in conference play, blowing out Kentucky, getting blown out by Ole Miss, and pushing Alabama and LSU to the brink in down-to-the-wire losses. At the end of the day, they’re 1-3 in SEC play despite being outscored by just 4 points, 96 to 92. The pass rush shows up on a weekly basis; the rest, TBD.

Kentucky. Most of what you need to know about Kentucky is that the most important stat in many Wildcat games is time of possession. When they win it, as the did by a big margin against Ole Miss, the Wildcats tend to win. (As they did at Ole Miss.) When they get out-possessed, as they did in Saturday’s 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt, they lack the firepower to make up the difference. If you zoned out of this entry at “time of possession,” I don’t blame you. After 12 years under Mike Stoops, slow and boring is what they do best.

Wake Us in December

Florida. Graham Mertz reportedly will miss the rest of the season, which is a shame. Mertz recovered from his miserable start in losses to Miami and Texas A&M to take a firmer grip on the job the past few weeks despite sharing snaps with freshman DJ Lagway. Zooming out, though, even with Lagway’s prodigious upside, the outlook for the rest of the season has never changed: Once the calendar turns to November, the gauntlet of Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss on consecutive Saturdays all but ensures a losing record for the 4th year in a row, which likely spells the end for Billy Napier. It’s to Napier’s credit that his beleaguered team can still go to Tennessee and put up a credible fight, but unless a couple of those fights end up in some very surprising Ws down the stretch, his fate appears sealed.

Auburn. The Tigers (0-4 vs. Power 4 opponents) have a favorable stretch of schedule ahead to get on the board against Missouri, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. But then, all of those teams certainly consider playing Auburn favorable at this point, too. The trajectory of the Hugh Freeze project isn’t changing until he figures out a solution at quarterback.

Oklahoma: The Road to QB Purgatory

Oklahoma fans must be sick by now of re-litigating the decision to allow starting QB Dillon Gabriel to portal out last December, to the extent that it was a decision at all. For what it’s worth, Brent Venables has suggested otherwise, telling reporters a few weeks back that when Gabriel informed him he was opting out of the Sooners’ bowl game, Venables was initially under the impression that he was leaving for the NFL Draft, not the portal, adding, “I didn’t realize he was even considering coming back (to school)” and “you can’t make a guy stay.” (Gabriel has juked the question altogether.)

Even if it had been a decision, though, it would hardly have been a slam dunk: Given the choice between Gabriel, an established but limited talent in his final year of eligibility, and heir apparent Jackson Arnold, the 5-star gem of the Sooners’ 2023 recruiting class, opting for the latter was a straightforward bet on the future. The reason Venables hadn’t felt compelled to address it until recently was because, prior to Arnold’s meltdown and subsequent benching against Tennessee in Week 4, nobody was asking.

Still, with the benefit of hindsight, it has to be difficult to square the Sooners’ foundering offense with Gabriel’s reemergence at Oregon, especially after watching him account for 373 total yards and 3 touchdowns in a landmark win over Ohio State on Saturday night. There’s always a chicken-or-egg quality to these sorts of hypotheticals: If Gabriel had stayed at Oklahoma, would he have kept the offense afloat despite the rash of injuries and myriad other issues that have plunged it to the bottom of the conference rankings — the Sooners rank last in the SEC in total offense, scoring offense, yards per play, rushing offense, passing offense, pass efficiency, 3rd-down conversions, first downs and plays of 20+ yards — or would he have gone down with the ship while the locals lamented letting a prized talent like Arnold get away instead?

In the timeline we’re actually living through, though, the fact remains: The quarterback who left is a star, and the attack he left behind is about as explosive as a firecracker without a fuse. The contrast between what they watched against Texas on Saturday afternoon and what they saw in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday night was too stark to ignore.

Does it matter what choice Venables makes now? He stuck with overmatched freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. for the duration against Texas, long after it was clear that Hawkins posed no threat to the Longhorns with his arm. The Sooners managed 1 sustained drive in the competitive portion of the game, on a first-quarter march that covered 38 yards in 11 plays to set up their lone points of the day via a field goal; otherwise, the Sooners didn’t cross midfield again until a late garbage-time drive that petered out as time expired. By halftime, even Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit in the TV booth were openly wondering when Arnold would get the call to come off the bench.

But the idea that Arnold might supply a spark required amnesia about why he was on the bench in the first place. (Just a few weeks ago, Herbstreit was on the call in Norman proclaiming Hawkins the Sooners’ new quarterback of the future after he replaced Arnold and led a couple of late, futile touchdown drives in the Sooners’ loss to Tennessee.) They can commit to one or the other and accept the growing pains against a steep schedule over the second half of the season, or they can play musical chairs in a vain hope that the light suddenly comes on. Either way, it seems at least as likely at this point that the actual quarterback of the future is not yet on campus.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr. On a dominant afternoon for the Texas defense, Hill was the most dominant player, turning in arguably the best performance of his young career on a big stage against Oklahoma: 11 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, a forced fumble that set up a touchdown just before halftime, and 1 planted flag at midfield, for good measure.

2. LSU LB Whit Weeks. LSU was left with an enormous void at the second level after Harold Perkins Jr. suffered a torn ACL in Week 4, and Weeks has risen to the occasion to fill it. He was impossible to miss in the Tigers’ overtime win over Ole Miss, finishing with a career-high 18 tackles, 2 TFLs and a forced fumble; 9 of those tackles qualified for PFF’s “stops” metric, defined as tackles that represent a failure for the offense based on down and distance — the most of any FBS player in Week 7.

3. South Carolina edge Kyle Kennard. Kennard turned in another money-making afternoon in a money-making senior season, turning up the heat on Alabama’s Jalen Milroe in relentless and versatile fashion. Officially, he finished with 7 tackles, 4 QB pressures and 2 sacks, including a takedown in Milroe’s own end zone that resulted in a safety after Milroe was flagged for intentional grounding. Unofficially, he was often creating havoc in ways that didn’t show up in the box score. For the season, Kennard’s 11.5 TFLs through 6 games ranks No. 2 nationally and tied for No. 1 among Power 4 defenders.

4. Georgia QB Carson Beck. Georgia turned Beck lose against an extremely vulnerable Mississippi State secondary, and responded by setting career highs for completions (36) and yards (459) in a wild game by Georgia standards. As usual, he was extraordinarily well-protected, facing pressure on just seven of 49 drop-backs (14.3%); unusually, he was also aggressive downfield in a game where he didn’t necessarily need to be, connecting on 4-of-8 attempts of 20+ air yards with 2 touchdowns.

5. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson. At 5-11, 200 pounds, Sampson is not exactly built like a stereotypical SEC workhorse, but he filled the role against Florida, churning out 112 yards and 3 touchdowns on a career-high 27 carries; he also set a career high with 10 missed tackles forced, per PFF, most of any SEC back on the weekend. The vast majority of that production (18 carries for 96) came after halftime, including all 3 TDs. Sampson’s game-winning plunge from a yard out in OT was his 15th rushing TD of the year in just 6 games, second nationally behind on Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty.

Fat Guy of the Week: Texas OL Hayden Conner

Quinn Ewers got the screen time against Oklahoma, and sophomore RB Quintrevion Wisner got the stat line, running for a career-high 118 yards on 9.1 per carry. But both have a veteran o-line to thank, beginning with Conner, a senior mainstay who has started all 33 games since he arrived on campus at left guard. He turned in a clean sheet Saturday in pass protection (zero pressures, hits or sacks allowed, per PFF) and made key blocks on both of Wisner’s breakaway, door-slamming touchdown runs off the left side late in the first half.

Catch of the Year of the Week: Ole Miss WR Tre Harris

TRE HARRIS IS NOT HUMAN pic.twitter.com/hAbsr0e6yu

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) October 13, 2024

Honorable Mention: Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, who was a model of efficiency in a 15-for-18, 2-touchdown performance against Kentucky while adding 82 yards rushing (excluding sacks). … Alabama LB Jihaad Campbell, who had 7 tackles as well as 4 QB pressures and a strip sack in the Tide’s win over South Carolina. … LSU WR Kyren Lacy, who caught 5 passes for 111 yards against Ole Miss, capped by the game-winner in overtime. … LSU CB Zy Alexander, who notched an interception, a PBU and the game ball from his head coach after facing 10 targets against Ole Miss. … LSU edge Bradyn Swinson, who led the Tigers’ pass rush with 6 QB pressures and 2 sacks. … And Ole Miss’ starting d-line rotation of Walter Nolen, JJ Pegues, Jared Ivey and Suntarine Perkins, whose combined 22 QB pressures against LSU produced disruptive results despite their failure to record a sack.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (6-0) | LW: 1⬌

2. Georgia (5-1) | LW: 2⬌

3. Alabama (5-1) | LW: 3⬌

4. LSU (5-1) | LW: 6

5. Texas A&M (5-1) | LW: 5⬌

6. Tennessee (4-1) | LW: 7

7. Ole Miss (5-2) | LW: 4

8. Missouri (5-1) | LW: 9

9. Vanderbilt (4-2) | LW: 10

10. Arkansas (4-2) | LW: 11

11. Oklahoma (4-2) | LW: 8

12. Florida (3-3) | LW: 12⬌

13. South Carolina (3-3) | LW: 13⬌

14. Kentucky (3-3) | LW: 14⬌

15. Auburn (2-4) | LW: 15⬌

16. Mississippi State (1-5) | LW: 16⬌

Moment of Zen of the Week

Don't mind if we do.

SEC Network #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/n2g1Elj3K4

— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) October 12, 2024

The post Monday Down South: Horns cruise, Tide confuse, Rebels sing the blues in the Midseason Vibes Index appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Texas (-14.5) vs. Oklahoma

The stakes

You can paint an “SEC” logo on the field, but the Red River Shootout Rivalry is a tradition unto itself: The Cotton Bowl, the Texas State Fair, the crowd split right down the middle into crimson and orange factions. As usual, one side arrives this year thinking big — Playoff, Heisman, national title, sky’s the limit — while the other is reduced to a spoiler, hoping to kickstart an underwhelming season with a major upset. The only thing that’s changed is that it’s been awhile since it was Texas in the former role and Oklahoma in the latter.

We’re not quite to the midway line, but so far it’s been a charmed season for the Longhorns. While every other SEC contender has taken an L directly to the gut, the ‘Horns have cruised, acing their big non-conference test at Michigan and hammering their other four opponents to date by more than 40 points per game. They’re comfortably atop both major polls for the first time since the weekend before Barack Obama’s first election, so long ago it was still possible to afford rent in Austin. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives them a 90.0% chance to make the Playoff and a 23.7% chance to win it all, the best of any team.

Their single biggest concern at this stage is handling the dynamic between an entrenched veteran quarterback, Quinn Ewers, who was leading the Heisman odds before suffering a short-term oblique injury in Week 3, and his blue-chip understudy, Arch Manning, who immediately confirmed the hype in Ewers’ absence. Ewers will be back in the saddle against the Sooners … but for how long? This is what passes for a problem right now at Texas.

Oklahoma has actual problems. The Sooners are 4-1, more or less as expected. But they got there the hard way, stumbling through what should have been a routine nonconference slate before getting waxed at home by Tennessee in their SEC debut, and they arrive at midseason staring down a schedule that promises harder times ahead. Their aspiring face-of-the-program quarterback, Jackson Arnold, was sent to the bench shortly before halftime against the Vols, possibly for good. The entire two-deep at wide receiver contracted injuries at the same time. By the end of September, a come-from-behind, 27-21 win over a mediocre version of Auburn qualified as a triumph.

An open date, a neutral site, and a rivalry atmosphere can go a long way toward leveling the playing field, as both sides in this rivalry have proven repeatedly in recent years. Despite some fairly lopsided circumstances at times, 9 of the past 10 games in the Cotton Bowl have been decided by 8 points or less. (That’s excluding a 39-27 Oklahoma win in the 2018 Big 12 Championship Game, their only meeting outside of the regular season.) We’re coming off a weekend that saw 5 of the top 11 teams in the AP poll lose to unranked or (in Missouri’s case) significantly lower-ranked opponents, while a 6th, Miami, barely escaped the same fate by the skin of its teeth.

Is Texas too good to succumb to the chaos? Let’s find out.

The stat: 6.2 yards

That’s Quinn Ewers’ average depth of target on pass attempts this season, per Pro Football Focus, lowest in the SEC and 2nd-lowest nationally among Power 4 quarterbacks. Prior to his injury in Week 3, Ewers was just 3-for-7 on attempts of 20+ air yards, while 30.4% of his attempts fell behind the line of scrimmage.

Chalk it up to small sample size, but that continues a downward trend in Ewers’ downfield aggressiveness, if not his overall production. His ADOT declined by 2 full yards from 2022 (10.5 ypa) to 2023 (8.4 ypa), and is on pace to decline by another 2 yards in ’24. In the same span, though, his net yards per attempt has improved, jumping from 7.3 ypa in ’22 to 8.8 last year and holding steady at 8.7 this year, a result of big gains in both completion percentage and yards after catch. The former gunslinger has learned to take the throws that are there and trust his receivers to make up the difference.

Of course, that all could change quickly in a game in which Ewers is likely to have a green light to take more chances. The offense was more aggressive in his absence, with Arch Manning connecting on 8-of-16 attempts in the 20+ yard range — a little over 20% of his total attempts, compared to just 8.9% for Ewers in the early going. The Longhorns probably doesn’t need to light up the scoreboard to win comfortably on Saturday, but as long as the outcome is in doubt their willingness to open things up downfield (or not) will be a window into the kind of attack they want to be with Ewers back in the fold.

The big question: Does Oklahoma’s offense have a pulse?

If your default image of the Sooners is still of a high-scoring, shootout-friendly outfit that plays no defense, time for an update: They left that identity in the Big 12. This is a full-fledged Brent Venables team from top to bottom, and if it has a snowball’s chance on Saturday it’s based on the defense’s capacity to turn the game into a slugfest.

It’s a little bit ironic that Oklahoma fans spent the Lincoln Riley years lamenting “if only we had a defense …” only to watch the dynamic reverse itself virtually overnight. Not only does OU rank dead last in the SEC in total offense: It ranks last in both rushing and passing offense, as well as in yards per play, 3rd-down conversion rate, first downs and plays of 20+ yards. It ranks near the bottom of the conference in scoring (13th), pass efficiency (15th), and Offensive SP+ (15th). Name a category, and the Sooners are probably struggling in it.

That extends to the injury list, which checks in just above a fluid quarterback situation and an anemic ground game as their most pressing concern. Four of the top 5 wideouts on the preseason depth chart have already been ruled out against the Longhorns, and the 5th, leading receiver Deion Burks, is likely to join them on the sideline due to a soft tissue injury. Elsewhere, the running backs are healthy but nondescript.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s the long-term outlook for freshman QB Michael Hawkins Jr., who has the potential to grow into a plus starter. Eventually. For now, Hawkins remains a work in progress. He ran hot and cold in his first career start at Auburn, pulling off a couple of explosive plays — a 48-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, a 60-yard bomb that set up another TD in the fourth — but not much else in between.

For a fledgling QB in a hostile environment with a depleted surrounding cast, that was all his team could ask for. (Although it still took a pick-6 by the defense to put the winning points on the board.) Hawkins has yet to throw the ball to the wrong team or cough it up as a runner, which certainly beats the alternative. Beyond that, well, he’s still a fledgling QB with a depleted surrounding cast facing baptism by fire against a Texas defense residing at or near the top of all the same columns where Oklahoma is languishing. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

The key matchup: Texas OL Kelvin Banks Jr. vs. Oklahoma Edge R Mason Thomas

There are bigger names on Oklahoma’s defense, but no one who has made quite as big an impact in the early going as Thomas. A role player in his first 2 seasons at OU, Thomas enjoyed a breakout September, generating 13 QB pressures and an SEC-best 6 sacks as a newly minted starter in Year 3.

More important, he’s been at his best with the game on the line.

In the win over Auburn, he singlehandedly snuffed out a late Auburn drive by recording back-to-back sacks on 3rd and 4th down, preserving a slim, 24-21 lead in the process; the turnover on downs set up a field goal that extended the margin to 6, leaving the Tigers with less than a minute and no timeouts for a futile, last-ditch drive that came up well short. A few weeks earlier, Thomas also took over the end of the Sooners’ Week 3 win over Tulane, slamming the door on the Green Wave’s comeback effort by wrecking 2 late drives in a row, both of which ended with Thomas getting to the quarterback in emphatic fashion.

I have not stopped thinking about this stretch of football by R Mason Thomas. Take a moment to enjoy the greatness he put on pic.twitter.com/P4MSaIu95h

— Sooners Insider (@SoonersInsider) September 17, 2024

Thomas doesn’t tend to favor one side of the line or the other (see above), but when he’s aligned over left tackle it will put him facemask-to-facemask with Banks, a preseason All-Everything who has played up to his advance billing. Banks is the SEC’s top-graded o-lineman per PFF, as advertised, coming in for a single QB pressure allowed on 167 pass-blocking snaps; he also boasts a massive size advantage over Thomas, whose 6-2, 240-pound frame is not nearly as well-suited to holding up against the run as it is to winning with speed off the corner. The more success the Sooners have forcing Texas into passing downs, the fairer the fight.

The verdict …

Oklahoma owned the series during Texas’ decade-plus stint in the wilderness, winning 11 of the past 15 entries since 2010 and 5 of the past 6. Last year’s meeting marked the first time Texas came into the game as the higher-ranked team since 2009, and a down-to-the-wire, 34-30 decision in OU’s favor turned out to be the Longhorns’ only loss of the regular season. Strange things happen in this game.

Is any of that relevant in 2024? If Texas brings anything close to its A-game, almost certainly not.

The Longhorns have more talent, more balance, fewer key injuries, and a huge advantage at the most important position. On paper, this matchup looks a lot like Texas’ 31-12 win at Michigan in Week 2, another team with quarterback issues (albeit for different reasons) and not nearly enough firepower to overcome them. Texas scored on 4 of its five 5-half possessions in that game, led 24-3 at halftime, and shifted into power-saver mode with zero concern about the Wolverines offense mounting a rally.

Oklahoma’s defense might be good enough to keep it from getting that out of hand that quickly, but if the Sooners are going to put enough points on the board it might be up to the defense and special teams to take matters into their own hands.
– –  –
• Texas 34 | Oklahoma 13

Ole Miss (-3.5) at LSU

Texas-Oklahoma might be the more high-profile game, brand-wise, but for my money the weekend’s most compelling matchup is the primetime collision in Baton Rouge. It’s a season-defining game for both sides, for longstanding blood-feud reasons as well as the more immediate one: With a loss apiece already on the books, the loser will be effectively bounced from the Playoff race by mid-October.

That cuts both ways, but given the enormous investment Ole Miss made in assembling a winner in 2024 the stakes are especially high for Lane Kiffin. Sure, they’re kvetching in Louisiana over the lack of big wins under Brian Kelly, whose team is 1-5 vs. ranked opponents since the Tigers’ memorable overtime upset over Alabama in 2022. (The lone win in the meantime coming against then-no. 21 Missouri last October.) Barring a complete meltdown, though, at least Kelly can always point to next year, when massively hyped QB recruit Bryce Underwood will arrive to reset the competitive window. Kiffin, on the other hand, is all-in right now, and already faces a season on the brink. A 2nd loss with Georgia still looming on the schedule would put the Rebels’ Playoff hopes on life support and send the rumor mill connecting Kiffin to a potential vacancy at Florida into overdrive.

Historically, a night game in Baton Rouge is where ambitious Ole Miss teams come in for a reality check. The Rebels haven’t won in Tiger Stadium since 2008, a 7-game losing streak that includes losses by undefeated, top-10 teams against lower-ranked LSU outfits in 2014 and 2022. Is this year really different? Saturday night is their first big chance to prove it.

•     •     •

Can Ole Miss turn up the heat on Garrett Nussmeier? Kiffin has made upgrading the defensive line a top priority, and it’s paid off so far in a dramatically improved pass rush: They lead the nation in sacks and boast at least 5 future pros in the rotation. (It’s 6 if you count linebacker Chris Paul Jr., a frequent and productive blitzer from the second level.) The edge rushers alone — Princely Umanmielen, Jared Ivey and Suntarine Perkins — have more combined sacks between them (14) than most FBS teams. Any combination of those guys on the field at the same time with Walter Nolen and/or JJ Pegues on the interior belongs in the conversation with the most fearsome front-line units in the country.

https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1840097267396817183/

Still, getting to Nussmeier might be as a steep a challenge as they’ll face all season. For starters, Ole Miss is likely to be shorthanded up front, with both Umanmielen and Pegues listed as “questionable” on the weekly injury report. And regardless of who’s available on the other side, Nussmeier has been one of the best protected quarterbacks in America. He’s faced pressure on just 17.8% of his total drop-backs, per PFF, the best rate among SEC starters and the 4th-lowest in the country.

LSU’s highly touted offensive tackles, Will Campbell and Emory Jones, deserve much of the credit for keeping their man clean. But so does Nussmeier himself, who gets rid of the ball quickly (in 2.51 seconds, on average) and rarely takes sacks even when under duress: Despite his limited mobility, only one of his 36 pressured drop-backs has resulted in a sack, good for a pressure-to-sack ratio of just 2.8% — easily the lowest rate of any Power 4 passer. If those numbers hold up, Ole Miss’ considerably less-decorated secondary could be in for a long night.
– –  –
• LSU 31 | Ole Miss 27

South Carolina at Alabama (-21.5)

Typically following the rare Alabama loss in the regular season, I’d review the Crimson Tide’s record in rebound games, which (spoiler alert) is impeccable over the past 15 years. Bama hasn’t lost consecutive regular-season games since Nick Saban’s first season in Tuscaloosa in 2007; only twice in that span, in 2010 and 2019, have they lost 2 games in the same month. But Nick Saban is not the coach anymore, and last week’s monumental defeat at Vanderbilt — still a surreal sequence of words to type! — was more unsettling by an order of magnitude than anything that might serve as a precedent from the Saban years. How Kalen DeBoer‘s Tide will respond is anybody’s guess.

Is it possible that they got waylaid by a perfect storm of bad luck and exhaustion coming off their epic Week 5 win over Georgia, and that flop in Nashville has no bearing on anything that happens going forward? Yes, of course. Is it possible that they were legitimately outplayed by Vandy because they’re a legitimately flawed team with a more vulnerable defense than anyone realized? Also yes.

My instincts lean toward the former, but I look forward to being reassured before I file away one of the most stunning results of my lifetime as a fluke.
– –  –
• Alabama 39 | South Carolina 16

Florida at Tennessee (-15.5)

Billy Napier might be the coach on the hot seat in this game, but Napier has been on the hot seat for the better part of the past 2 years. The hot seat is just his life at this point. Josh Heupel, on the other hand, is suddenly facing more pressure than he bargained for coming off a deflating, 19-14 loss at Arkansas. In the course of a few hours in Fayetteville, Nico Iamaleava went from a rising star to just another young QB subject to the typical growing pains, while Tennessee’s margin for error in the Playoff chase took a massive hit with Alabama and Georgia still on the schedule. Like Bama, the Vols still have everything in front of them; also like Bama, they want to be heading into the Third Saturday in October with some assurance that they are who they thought they were.
– –  –
Tennessee 36 | • Florida 24

Mississippi State at Georgia (-33.5)

Just thinking about this game makes me want to sim ahead to next week’s collision between Georgia and Texas in Austin, which with the way this season is unfolding can only mean something extremely weird is in store this week in Athens. Georgia doesn’t do weird, as a rule, especially when the other team is showing up with a true freshman quarterback making just his second start. Still, keep an eye on this one until notoriously slow-starting UGA is safely up by at least 3 scores.
– –  –
Georgia 38 | • Mississippi State 10

Vanderbilt at Kentucky (-13.5)

The Commodores and Wildcats are both coming off landmark upsets, and both pulled it off in identical fashion: By being epic ball hogs. In its Week 5 ambush of Ole Miss, Kentucky amassed a nearly 2-to-1 advantage in time of possession, holding the ball for nearly 40 minutes while limiting the Rebels to just 56 offensive snaps. Inspired, Vanderbilt went to even greater lengths last week against Alabama, amassing an incredible 25-minute advantage in TOP in its 40-35 stunner over the Tide; Bama’s explosive offense managed just 44 plays across 9 possessions. I’m at a loss to explain why a matchup that appears very competitive on paper warrants a 2-touchdown spread, but one thing I will say for certain is that regardless of the outcome, the passage of time in this game is going to feel like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
– –  –
Kentucky 29 | • Vanderbilt 24

Missouri (-27.5) at Massachusetts

Yeah, I did a double-take on this one, too: Why is any SEC team playing at UMass, in a stadium with a capacity of 17,000? No reason in particular; it’s just part of a standard home-and-home contract signed in November 2018, when UMass was merely another bad team vying to stay afloat as a “major” program. In the meantime, the Minutemen have been arguably the most hopeless outfit in the FBS ranks, going 4-48 vs. FBS opponents since the start of the 2019 season. Maybe rejoining the MAC in 2025 will be the first step toward turning things around. In the meantime, Mizzou can take out its frustration over last week’s 41-10 flop at Texas A&M in a secluded area where no one will come looking for the body.
– –  –
• Missouri 44 | UMass 6

OFF THIS WEEK: Arkansas, Auburn, Texas A&M

Scoreboard

Week 6 record: 3-3 straight-up | 3-3 vs. spread
Season record: 54-12 straight-up | 40-23 vs. spread

The post Week 7 SEC Primer: While contenders drop, Texas is riding high. Can Oklahoma summon the chaos to Red River? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

College football, man. One week, you’re playing like God’s gift to the game on one of the biggest stages in American sports. The next, you’re committing 2 killer turnovers in a monumental defeat on the SEC Network, against the backdrop of a literal construction zone.

A result like Vanderbilt 40, Alabama 35 is difficult to process. I mean, hey, good for Vandy! From Bama’s perspective, though, gauging whether it falls into the “any given Saturday” column or represents a crisis in the making is going to take some time. For his part, when not coughing up the ball, Milroe was his usual, explosive self against the ‘Dores, averaging a robust 12.9 yards per attempt and accounting for 2 touchdowns (1 passing, 1 rushing). He turned in perfectly cromulent marks in terms of efficiency (188.9), Total QBR (77.9) and overall PFF grade (88.9), and his presence was the main reason the Crimson Tide managed to make a 60-minute game out of it on an afternoon when the defense couldn’t get off the field to save its life.

In fact, the story of the game was that Milroe simply didn’t get his hands on the ball enough: Vanderbilt amassed an incredible 24-minute advantage in time of possession, limiting the Tide to just 44 offensive snaps on 9 possessions.

Then again, in that context the turnovers loomed especially large. The first, a tip-drill interception turned pick-6 on Milroe’s second attempt of the game, put the Commodores up 13-0 before Alabama’s offense was even out of the driveway. The second, a 4th-quarter strip sack with Bama down 5 and driving for a would-be go-ahead touchdown, was the moment the upset bid stopped being cute and started getting real. Vandy’s offense cashed in on another extended touchdown drive that extended the lead to 12; by the time Milroe’s turn came up again, it was too little, too late.

https://twitter.com/VandyFootball/status/1842704956450853336/

OK, that happened. An embarrassment, a nightmare, the worst-case scenario for the post-Saban project. What matters now is how they respond. Beyond their bruised egos, the Tide still have everything in front of them, Playoff and Heisman very much included. What they don’t have anymore is margin for error against a schedule that still features road trips to Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma. If Milroe is who we thought he was after the Georgia game, the Music City Meltdown winds up as a bizarre footnote. If it turns out his brilliant performance against the Dogs was his peak, well, what a huge missed opportunity.
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(Last week: 1⬌)

2. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Few if any quarterbacks have been more aggressive over the first half of the season than Dart, who has let it rip on a weekly basis. Nearly 23% of his attempts to date have covered 20+ air yards, per Pro Football Focus, the highest rate of any Power 4 quarterback; on downfield throws alone, he’s the P4 leader in yards (763), yards per attempt (19.1) and touchdowns (9). That’s not always the most efficient way to go about go about your business — Dart was just 2-for-9 on attempts of 20+ air yards last week in the Rebels’ 27-3 win at South Carolina — but as long as a couple of them connect, it is the most fun.
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(Last week: 3)

3. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Arch Manning‘s guest-hosting stint as QB1 could not have gone much better, but all signs point to Ewers returning to the top line against Oklahoma after nearly a month on the shelf. Per official Power Rankings policy, it remains Ewers’ job until further notice. But it is safe to assume that the moment there’s any doubt about that, the notice is probably going to be a lot shorter than it would have been if Manning was still in plastic.
–     –     –
(Last week: 2)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

I feel like I’ve watched Georgia play the exact same game so many times at this point that I can recite the box score of their dull-yet-decisive, 31-13 win over Auburn by heart. Beck’s line was standard-issue: 23-for-29 for 240 yards, 2 touchdowns, 171.6 passer rating, 89.2 QBR. Nothing too flashy. That tracks fairly closely with both his 2023 season averages and his Week 1 output against Clemson across the board. He was also typically well-protected against Auburn, facing pressure on just 6 of his 31 drop-backs — a nearly identical rate to last year’s.
–     –     –
(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Yes, Pavia is the ultimate underdog: A 5-foot-nothing scrapper from the outskirts of nowhere who has paid his dues in the bush leagues and, as of Saturday afternoon, come out on top. His former high school in New Mexico is essentially the last outpost before the Albuquerque sprawl yields to open desert. Ignored by FBS schools, he attended junior college in Roswell, spiritual home of little green men; he won an improbable JUCO national title there, then went on to post a 14-9 record as a starter at New Mexico State. (An achievement, if you know anything about New Mexico State.) He’s a character with a compelling backstory who plays with a reckless, Manziel-ian flair and drops f-bombs on live TV in the same breath that he praises God. But it’s probably time to consider that beyond the scrappy persona Pavia is also just a flat-out good college quarterback.

His performance in Vandy’s upset win over Alabama was, of course, the game of his life. Although he only put the ball in the air 20 times, Pavia’s 16 completions yielded 252 yards, 13 first downs, 2 touchdowns, a 218.8 passer rating, and a 95.9 QBR rating, 2nd-best among all FBS quarterbacks for the weekend. He added 4 more first downs as a rusher, including the game-clincher in the closing minutes; wasn’t sacked; and cashed in on his lone completion of 20+ air yards, a 4th-and-1 moon ball that came down for a dramatic, 36-yard touchdown that will lead his highlight reel for the rest of the season/his life.

As a team, the Commodores converted more 3rd downs (12) than any opposing offense against Alabama since at least 2016, executing their methodical, keep-away game plan to perfection. Six of their 9 offensive possessions resulted in points, 8 of 9 involved multiple first downs — the lone exception yielding the long 4th-down TD pass — and all 9 ended in Crimson Tide territory.

Level of competition aside, though, that was a fairly typical Pavia performance. He ranks in the top 20 nationally on the season in yards per attempt, efficiency, QBR and overall PFF grade. He’s thrown multiple touchdown passes in all 4 games vs. FBS opponents; meanwhile, he’s 1 of only 4 QBs nationally with at least 100 attempts who has yet to throw an interception. Per PFF, his rate of “turnover-worthy plays” is a minuscule 0.7 percent, best in the SEC, and his 80.6 grade under pressure ranks second nationally behind only Clemson’s Cade Klubnik. Altogether, Pavia has accounted for 71.3% of Vanderbilt’s total offense, the largest individual share in the conference.

Honestly, based on past experience chronicling the revolving door of futility that typically passes for the Vanderbilt QB depth chart (and with repeated assurances from my editor that nobody cares about Vandy), this entry is already 3 or 4 times longer than I expected to be spending on Pavia at any point this season. But pretty clearly he’s not going anywhere.

He told reporters earlier this week that his ultimate goal is to play in the NFL (specifically, his dream is “to win the Super Bowl, win some Super Bowls,” and “to be the greatest person to ever play football”), which given his Rudy-esque stature remains a long shot. “Sub-six-foot wild card who idolizes Johnny Manziel” is not exactly an ideal scouting report at the next level. At some point, though, presuming to know what this kid is or isn’t capable of starts to look a sucker’s bet.
–     –     –
(Last week: 8)

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Around here we believe sacks are primarily a quarterback stat, and few QBs have done a better job protecting themselves this season than Nussmeier, who has been sacked just once in 202 drop-backs, per PFF. Of course, having a couple of early-round draft picks on either end of the offensive line doesn’t hurt. But Nussmeier has also excelled at getting rid of the ball quickly, with an average time to throw of 2.51 seconds — 2nd-fastest among SEC starters behind Quinn Ewers — and a pressure-to-sack ratio of just 2.8%, best in the Power 5. Keeping him clean is a top priority in this weekend’s date with Ole Miss, which leads the nation in sacks.
–     –     –
(Last week: 5)

7. Conner Weigman | Texas A&M

So much for a QB controversy in College Station. After a 3-game absence due to an injured shoulder, Weigman returned to the starting lineup against Missouri looking like a new man, reasserting his grip on the starting job in a comprehensive, 41-10 beatdown of the No. 9 team in the country. On an afternoon when everything went right for the Aggies, he delivered the best performance of his career, finishing 18-for-22 for 276 yards with a 93.7 QBR rating, looking every bit the part of a franchise QB in the process.

https://twitter.com/AggieFootball/status/1842612246830072057/

With all due respect to redshirt freshman Marcel Reed, who went 3-0 as a starter with wins over Florida and Arkansas, a healthy Weigman is entrenched for the foreseeable future. The version the Aggies saw on Saturday is the one they were hoping to see prior to his injury-induced flop against Notre Dame, and if it’s the version they get the rest of the year they’re going to be a factor in the conference race. (Technically, A&M is alone in first place in the standings at 3-0.) Then again, given that Weigman has yet to play in more than 4 consecutive games in his career, that’s a very big if. As insurance policies go, Reed is not exactly Arch Manning, but it is nice to know he’s there.
–     –     –
(Last week: 9)

8. Brady Cook | Missouri

While Weigman’s stock rebounded, Cook’s plummeted just as abruptly. Hounded by a relentless A&M pass rush, he looked rattled and out of sync, taking 6 sacks and turning in his worst ratings in turns of both efficiency (103.0) and QBR (25.6) since his early days as a starter in 2022. Missouri’s first 6 offensive possessions resulted in 5 punts, 4 3-and-outs and a turnover on downs, after which Cook’s stat-padding efforts in garbage time amounted to lipstick on a pig.

It’s worth noting that, for all the attention on the Tigers’ blue-chip wideouts, Cook’s ascent in 2023 coincided with the emergence of a consistent, dynamic workhorse in the backfield, All-American Cody Schrader. The ground game was M.I.A. in College Station, mostly out of necessity after Mizzou fell into a 24-0 hole in the first half. If there was any doubt about whether Cook is the kind of quarterback who can be counted on to throw his team out of a deficit after the scoreboard renders the offense one-dimensional, the Aggies might have just put the question to rest.
–     –     –
(Last week: 6)

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Arkansas’ upset bid against Tennessee had all the makings of a disappointment: The Razorbacks dominated the first half statistically but repeatedly failed to cash in on scoring opportunities, led just 3-0 at halftime, and quickly fell behind 14-3 in the third quarter. You’ve seen this ending before, right? Not so fast, my friend! With the momentum decidedly against him, Green responded with his best passing streak yet in an Arkansas uniform, completing 6 consecutive passes for 117 yards on back-to-back, 75-yard scoring drives to pull Arkansas within a point, 14-13. After Green exited with a knee injury, his understudy, redshirt freshman Malachi Singleton, came off the bench to lead an improbable, go-ahead touchdown drive as the clock wound down, aided by Tennessee’s decision to let Singleton score with a little over a minute to go; the defense held on the other end, and the Hogs escaped with a 19-14 stunner over a top-5 opponent.

Although Green’s injury looked potentially severe in the moment, he walked off the field under his own power, and the locals are optimistic that he’ll be ready to go against LSU on the other side of an open date. They need him, obviously. For all his volatility, when it all comes together Green is a total package whose upside gives the Razorbacks a shot almost every time out.
–     –     –
(Last week: 10)

10. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

It’s a sober week on the Nico bandwagon following our boy’s first loss as a starter. Iamaleava was not a disaster against Arkansas, by any means, but the combination of a mediocre stat line (17-for-29, 158 yards, no touchdowns, 4 sacks, 39.5 QBR) and a failed 1-minute drill with the game on the line represented the first real setback in his brief but charmed tenure as the face of the program. So we can safely rule out the Heisman. Beyond that, let’s see how he responds this weekend against a very vulnerable Florida defense before reading too much into one sketchy night on the road.
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(Last week: 7)

11. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff is beginning to look like he’s going to make it as the Wildcats’ starter, which was hardly a given after a couple of red-flag outings against South Carolina and Georgia in his first 2 SEC starts. His last time out, a patient, 20-17 upset at Ole Miss in Week 5, was significantly more self-assured for his first road trip. Up next: Vanderbilt, a game in which both offenses are in mutual agreement that the clock must die a slow and painful death.
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(Last week: 12)

12. Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway | Florida

Mertz and Lagway continue to share an entry here, although it’s increasingly clear that the Gators are committed to Mertz as the starter while his freshman understudy serves in the “change of pace” off the bench. The rotation has served them well in the past 2 games, with Mertz turning in a couple of productive, efficient, and reassuringly turnover-free outings in wins over Mississippi State in Week 4 and UCF on Saturday. Meanwhile, Lagway has more than justified his reps, going 11-for-11 for 126 yards and leading multiple scoring drives in both games. The degree of difficulty ramps up this weekend at Tennessee, but if I had to bet on one or the other pulling away over the second half of the schedule I’d still lean toward the heir apparent.
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(Last week: 13)

13. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Shane Beamer is an optimistic guy by nature, and also a guy who is personally and professionally invested in his young quarterback’s success, so he was being fully in character this week when he said his main takeaway from Carolina’s 27-3 loss to Ole Miss was that Sellers “played his butt off.” At least Gamecocks fans can agree on which part of the anatomy that game evoked. Silver linings notwithstanding, Sellers remains a project: Among the players on this list, he ranks last for the season in yards per attempt, efficiency, QBR, EPA, overall PFF grade and sacks.
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(Last week: 11)

14. Michael Hawkins Jr. | Oklahoma

Hawkins did just enough get over in his first career start, a 27-21 win at Auburn in which Oklahoma’s top five receivers were all on ice. The injury report against Texas figures to be slightly more forgiving coming off an open date, but that’s where the optimism ends: The Longhorns are favored by 2 touchdowns. If nothing else, we should come away with a clearer picture of just how much distance there is between the freshman and the guy he replaced, the still-available Jackson Arnold.
–     –     –
(Last week: 14⬌)

15. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Thorne didn’t figure to make much of a dent against Georgia’s secondary, and he didn’t, with nearly half of his 200 passing yards coming in garbage time of a 31-13 loss in Athens. On the plus side: He didn’t throw an interception, snapping a 7-game streak vs. Power 5 opponents with at least 1 INT dating to last year. On the non-plus side: He still found a way to provoke his head coach’s wrath on the sideline, after Georgia’s defense nerfed a crucial 4th-and-1 play at midfield to open the fourth quarter. On the field, the Tigers ran an ill-fated zone read that was instantly blown up for a 4-yard loss, turning the ball over on downs and setting up a short field for the Bulldogs to punch in the clinching touchdown a few plays later.

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaFootball/status/1842690903707906068

“The call was a dive left to Jarquez (Hunter), and we didn’t execute that play,” Hugh Freeze said after the game, once again putting his quarterback in the crosshairs following a loss for the third week in a row. “Yeah, he absolutely didn’t go with what we had called.”

For his part, Thorne was cryptic about the situation, telling a local radio show “I will say I did not check any play” but declining to elaborate. Personally, I thought the play they actually ran had a chance if Thorne could have managed to get north-south inside of the crashing edge defender instead of trying to bounce it, but then, given that Auburn was almost certainly not going to make up an 11-point deficit at that point the question is academic. Anyway, seems like communication is going great.
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(Last week: 15⬌)

16. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren survived his first career start, a 35-10 loss at Texas, with his health and his confidence intact, flashing the “Horns down” following the Bulldogs’ lone touchdown in garbage time. Up next: Another daunting road trip to Georgia, where many a fledgling ego has gone to die.
–     –     –
(Last week: 16⬌)

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 7: Diego Pavia is much more than a meme appeared first on Saturday Down South.

The ‘Dores are open for business

As a rule, you don’t get many chances in this line of work to write a line like “biggest win in school history,” full stop, without setting off some kind of journalistic alarm. Certainly not when the history in question spans 121 years: There has to be a precedent in there somewhere, right? Even if barely anyone is alive who remembers it? Even if it happened so long ago that the game they were playing barely qualifies as the same sport?

Better make it something like “the biggest win since …” or the “biggest win in modern history …” just to be safe. You know, out of respect for, like, the 1955 Peach Bowl, or the undefeated champions of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1904.

But then, as a rule, you don’t get many chances to witness a result like Vanderbilt 40, Alabama 35, the kind of generational jolt to the system to which not even the most pedantic archivist would dare to add an asterisk.

There are upsets — 5 of the top 11 teams in the AP poll bit the dust in Week 6 alone, all but 1 of them at the hands of unranked opponents — and there are all-caps, breaking news UPSETS, rare, random glitches that land in the middle of a seemingly ordinary October weekend like a flying saucer and expand the scope of what is still possible on any given Saturday.

Whatever the point spread said (Alabama was a 22.5-point favorite, for the record), the entire country understood at once that the No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide walking into an ambush in Nashville qualified as the latter. Under any circumstances, Vandy over Bama is as historic an upset as you will ever witness.

Lane Kiffin was distracted last night during his postgame press conference, watching Vanderbilt upset Alabama.

This is pretty good stuff.

“How many timeouts does Alabama have?…Sorry, I mean this is a once in a lifetime thing going on” pic.twitter.com/ahIXiTRHW7

— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) October 6, 2024

If anything, “historic” is arguably underselling it. You can quantify the case, up to a point. Prior to Saturday, Vanderbilt was 2-32 in SEC play since the start of the 2020 season, including 10 straight losses; 2-36 against Alabama since 1960, including 23 straight losses; and 0-60 vs. top-5 opponents since the advent of the AP poll in 1936. (Vandy itself has appeared in the poll for a grand total of 6 weeks in the past 65 years, most recently in the final poll of 2014.)

The Commodores’ last head-to-win against the Tide was in 1984, against a Bama team that would go on to finish 5-6; in 8 meetings this century, they’d been outscored by a combined 255-51, topping out at 10 points in the process. In the previous 3 meetings, in 2011, 2017, and 2022, Vandy had managed a solitary field goal. The ‘Dores hadn’t scored 40 points against any SEC opponent since 2018.

Grim as the track record is, though, no single point spread or losing streak has ever quite captured the spirit of entrenched hopelessness Vanderbilt football represents. Er, sorry, should that be represented? Too soon? Within the dog-eat-dog context of the SEC, the idea that the Commodores’ place in the food chain might be up for reevaluation is going to take some getting used to. Even when it’s not technically occupying last place in the standings, in some larger, truer sense, Vandy lives there — the doormat, the laughingstock, the sub-basement dweller who’s been down there so long their eyes can barely adjust to light. No matter how bad it gets for anybody else, it could always be worse: You could be Vandy, right?

Even if it had occurred to anyone that the ‘Dores could be more, nothing about the trajectory of the program under Clark Lea suggested they were on the right track, or close to being on the right track, or getting close to being close. The opposite: They ended 2023 on a 10-game losing streak — classic Vandy— by increasingly wide margins as the year wore on. Near the end, Lea achieved coachspeak immortality when he defended his decision to leave a plainly overmatched quarterback in for the duration of a blowout loss by telling reporters “he gave us a chance to punt.” He embarked on Year 4 squarely on the hot seat, with no momentum and no compelling reason to imagine the best was yet to come.

Even the stadium itself became a kind of metaphor, and not the subtle kind, with home games unfolding against the backdrop of a literal construction site in the south end zone. Just before the season, Nick Saban called it “the only place you’re going to play in the SEC that’s not hard to play,” because the home crowd is often outnumbered by the visitors. (To their credit, the stadium crew somehow had the foresight to have that sound byte cued up and ready to play over the scoreboard as the crowd rushed the field, although up to that point Bama fans did indeed appear to outnumber the locals.) It is one of the last places in the country where anybody, much less Alabama, goes to be surprised.

A triumph, not a trap

In fact, for all the time the Tide spent last week vowing to be on high alert against a “trap game” coming off their epic win over Georgia in Week 5, the most surprising thing about how Saturday’s ambush unfolded in real time was just how straightforward it was. The final score didn’t hide any secrets. Beyond the collective sense of mounting, this-is-happening shock around the country, there were no traps, no gimmicks and no lucky breaks. At the end of the day, there was just Vanderbilt’s offense, led by its 5-foot-nothing, folk-hero quarterback, Diego Pavia, executing the underdog blueprint to near-perfection.

How to spring a landmark upset, in 4 not-so-easy steps:

Step 1: Play from ahead. The Commodores received the opening kickoff, embarked on a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on their opening possession, and didn’t touch the ball again on offense without the benefit of a lead. Not only did Alabama trail from start to finish, just 2 of its 9 offensive possessions began with the Tide trailing by less than a touchdown. They ended in a 3-and-out and a strip sack, respectively.

Step 2: Hog the ball. Vanderbilt put on a keep-away clinic, racking up a 24-minute advantage in time of possession while Alabama’s offense stood idly by for long stretches. The ‘Dores converted more 3rd downs (12) than any opposing offense against Alabama since at least 2016, 5 of them coming on a marathon, 17-play, 75-yard TD drive in the first half that drained nearly 10 minutes from the clock. (That march was aided by a couple of unforced, drive-extending penalties by Bama’s defense for illegal substitution and roughing the passer.) Vandy ran nearly as many plays before halftime (40) as the Tide ran the entire game (45).

Step 3: Seize your opportunities. The Commodores created their own luck, forcing 2 takeaways and cashing both in for touchdowns. The first, a tip-drill pick-6 on Alabama’s opening possession, extended Vandy’s early cushion to 13-0 midway through the first quarter; the second, a strip sack in the 4th quarter, preserved a precarious, 33-28 lead and set up the offense at midfield for what would turn out to be the clinching touchdown drive. In between, the offense also took advantage of its first and only starting field position in Crimson Tide territory, making it count on a gutsy, 4th-and-1 heave that went up as a prayer and landed as a dagger.

WHAT. A. PLAY pic.twitter.com/1OURMUFi9o

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) October 5, 2024

That was Pavia’s only completion of 20+ air yards, per Pro Football Focus, and as of Saturday the first one he’ll be remembered by. But in the flow of the game, it was the only truly risky play he was asked to make, and he delivered in a moment when he could not afford to come up empty.

Step 4: Stick the finish. Vanderbilt’s last possession began with 2:44 on the clock, Vandy nursing a five-point lead, and Alabama still in possession of all three timeouts plus the two-minute warning. A timely stop would have put the ball back in the hands of Jalen Milroe, who when not committing costly turnovers had looked like his usual, Heisman-caliber self, throwing for 310 yards on a robust 12.9 per attempt. Longtime Vandy watchers could see what was coming next: A quick stop, a quick strike, another hero’s exit for Milroe, and the latest in a long line of bitter disappointments for the ‘Dores. Instead, Milroe spent the last few minutes like he’d most of the afternoon, looking on from the sideline while his counterpart commanded the stage. Pavia and the offense came through again, moving the chains not once, not twice, but 3 times in a span of 4 plays to set up the unlikeliest kneel-down of this season or most others.

Amid the pandemonium that ensued, Clark Lea described the scene as “not a finish point, but a hell of an arrival.” We’ll see. It’s Lea’s job to say stuff like that; meanwhile, oddsmakers, whose job is to predict the future accurately enough to make a living off it, set his team as a 2-touchdown underdog for this weekend’s trip to Kentucky, arguably the most winnable of Vanderbilt’s 6 remaining SEC games. They’re betting that the Commodores are one-hit wonders, or at least that some significant share of the public is still willing to take that bet.

The algorithms that drive those decisions are unforgiving, memories of a Week 3 loss at Georgia State are still fresh, and old habits die hard. A Rudy-esque quarterback with a Manziel-ian streak doesn’t change the face that when people look at Vandy, they still see Vandy. If they really have arrived, they still have a lot of convincing left to do.

For at least one Saturday, though, the ‘Dores got to be something else: The upstart, the spoiler, the center of attention. Who knows? Maybe it marks the beginning of a new era of middle-class respectability. Maybe it will turn out to be all they get before the Lea administration unravels on the usual schedule, in an all-too-familiar obscurity. Either way, nobody can ever say again Vandy has never mattered.

Alabama: Tide over?

From the Crimson Tide’s perspective, of course, Saturday was their worst nightmare come to life: Not just a loss, which would be bad enough, but an embarrassing loss, in the kind of game that they’ve been taking for granted for so long that they can’t remember a time when they didn’t. The kind of game, in other words, that Nick Saban and his 14-year, 100-game winning streak vs. unranked opponents would never, could never lose.

We knew this day was coming. Whoever followed the GOAT was always going to have to deal with the onset of post-Saban angst to one extent or another, eventually. The problem for Kalen DeBoer, the thing that sets Bama fans on edge, is that no one bargained for his inevitable “Welcome to Alabama” moment to arrive quite so soon. He aced his first big test, after all, proving in last week’s euphoric win over Georgia that the Tide have not forfeited any of their championship mettle against the kind of team they’re actually going to be facing in the postseason with a championship on the line.

Now what? Five games in, and they’re already biting the dust against Vandy? As in Vandy Vandy? If not for the win over Georgia — if, say, the Bulldogs’ frenzied comeback in the 4th quarter of that game had held up — the situation would be a full-blown panic, with DeBoer potentially facing down the prospect of a hot seat barely halfway through his debut season. As it stands, all of the goodwill he earned against the Dawgs has already been spent down, with interest.

Given the mixed signals (not to mention a limited word count here, give me a break), I’m just as reluctant to assign any larger meaning about what a bewildering loss means for Alabama’s future as I am about what an unprecedented win means for Vanderbilt’s. We have a lot more information about what this team is capable of than its face-plant in Nashville. The big takeaway a week ago was that the Tide still have the dudes to stack up blue-chip for blue-chip with anyone in the country on a massive national stage, and quite possibly the most valuable dude in the college game in Jalen Milroe. The big takeaway this week is that they are not a week-in, week-out machine that can be trusted to never play down to the competition.

Who does that sound like? Well, just about any other high-upside, high-variance contender for a Playoff slot, which like it or not is exactly what this outfit now is until further notice. All of their goals are still in front of them, including a shot at the SEC championship and the automatic first-round bye that comes with it. But the margin for error is too slim now to come down with another team-wide case of vertigo.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia. Pavia was no secret, but he was a revelation against Alabama, delivering the most memorable individual performance by a Vandy quarterback in ages. (Ever? Under the circumstances, this seems like another situation where best ever is not too farfetched.) Although he only put the ball in the air 20 times, he made them count, averaging 12.6 yards per attempt with 13 first downs and 2 touchdowns on 16 completions. His 95.9 Total QBR rating ranked No. 2 nationally among all Week 6 starters; his 218.8 passer rating matched the best individual rating against Alabama since at least 2016; and he capped the evening in a high-energy postgame interview in which he credited his success to God and dropped a nationally-televised f-bomb in a span of about 5 seconds. Even Manziel didn’t go from divine to profane that fast.

2. Ole Miss DL Walter Nolen. The biggest fish in Ole Miss’ touted transfer class, Nolen turned in his best game as a Rebel against South Carolina, generating 7 QB pressures, 3 tackles for loss and 3 sacks in a 27-3 win — the first time Ole Miss has held an SEC opponent out of the end zone on Lane Kiffin’s watch.

#OleMiss DL Walter Nolen was in the backfield often against South Carolina yesterday. Winning one on one pass rush reps, stacking and shedding as a run defender. Picked up 2 sacks too, showing a relentless pursuit to the QB. pic.twitter.com/FNZltLj7rA

— Devin Jackson (@RealD_Jackson) October 6, 2024

Ole Miss prioritized beefing up its defensive front via the portal, with stellar results to date. For the season, the Rebels rank No. 1 nationally in run defense, yards per carry allowed, sacks and tackles for loss.

3. Texas A&M QB Conner Weigman. So much for a QB controversy in College Station. After a 3-game absence due to an injured shoulder, Weigman returned to the starting lineup against Missouri looking like a new man, finishing 18-for-22 for 276 yards and a 93.6 QBR in a 41-10 blowout. That’s the Weigman the Aggies were hoping to see prior to his Week 1 meltdown against Notre Dame, and if it’s the version they get the rest of the year they belong in the CFP conversation. Still, given that he’s yet to play more than four consecutive games in his career, that’s a very big if.

4. Texas A&M CB Will Lee III. On the defensive side, “The Blanket” lived up to his name, breaking up 2 passes while holding Mizzou receivers without a reception on 6 targets, per PFF. The only blemish on his ledger: A defensive pass interference penalty that negated a filthy 1-handed interception in the first half.

5. Arkansas WR Andrew Armstrong. Armstrong was the best player on the field in the Razorbacks’ 19-14 upset over Tennessee, accounting for 132 yards on 9 catches, 3 of them contested, per PFF. That marked his 3rd 100-yard outing in 5 games this season after hitting triple digits just once in 2023.

Honorable Mention: Texas A&M RB Le’Veon Moss, who went off for 138 yards and 3 touchdowns rushing on just 12 carries against Missouri. …Texas A&M edge rusher Nic Scourton, who had a hand in 3 TFLs on a dominant afternoon for the A&M defense. … Arkansas edge rusher Landon Jackson, who had 7 QB pressures and 1 sack in the Razorbacks’ win over Tennessee. … Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson, who went over the century mark for the 4th time in 5 games with a 140-yard, 2-touchdown effort against the Hogs. … Georgia RB Trevor Etienne, who accounted for 124 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ win over Auburn. … Auburn edge rusher Keldric Faulk, whose 7 tackles against UGA included a pair of sacks. … And Vanderbilt TE Eli Stowers, whose 6 receptions against Alabama netted 113 yards and 6 first downs.

–     –     –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the Year of the Week

@Ryanwms1

: SEC Network pic.twitter.com/Vq9ZHy92Rf

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) October 5, 2024

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (5-0). Longhorns won the bloodiest weekend of the season by sitting it out. The spoils of inactivity: The top spot in both major polls, and a target squarely on their back this week against Oklahoma.
– – –
(LW: 2)

2. Georgia (4-1). I feel like I have watched the Dawgs play the exact same game they played in their 31-13 win over Auburn so many times at this point that Kirby Smart may as well be running a simulation.
– – –
(LW: 3)

3. Alabama (411). I’m not abandoning ship over 1 loss, even one as bad as the Tide’s flop at Vandy, but the defense is a legitimate concern. Going back to the wild second half against Georgia, Bama has allowed 8 touchdowns and 2 field goals on its past 15 defensive possessions.
– – –
(LW: 1)

4. Ole Miss (5-1). Star wideout Tre Harris was “not close” to returning to the Rebels’ win over South Carolina after leaving the game with an ankle injury. His status for this weekend’s trip to LSU might be the biggest question mark in a very big game for CFP positioning.
– – –
(LW: 7)

5. Texas A&M (511). In a performance I definitely did not see coming, the Aggies dominated in all phases against Mizzou, leading by as much as 34-0 before allowing the Tigers to tack on 10 points in garbage time. Restraint is advised, but it’s not out of the question that A&M (now 3-0 in SEC play) could be favored in each of its next 5 games heading into the finale against Texas.
– – –
(LW: 8)

6. LSU (4-1). LSU-Ole Miss is not necessarily a Playoff elimination game, but with a loss apiece already, the loser is probably down to its last strike. .
– – –
(LW: 6⬌)

7. Tennessee (4-1). Although it didn’t work out on the other end, I was not opposed to Tennessee’s decision to let Arkansas score the go-ahead touchdown with a little over a minute to go to preserve time (and timeouts) for the offense to respond. But I had to laugh at Vols’ DB Jakobe Thomas (No. 9 below), who made just enough of an effort to put himself in position to make the tackle on Arkansas QB Malachi Singleton before he suddenly remembered the assignment:

NO FEAR pic.twitter.com/gBoJKTMqKy

— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) October 6, 2024

Olé! At least the defender who dove futilely at Singleton’s feet left some room for plausible deniability.
– – –
(LW: 4)

8. Oklahoma (4-1). The Sooners have won 5 of the past 6 against Texas, in all of which the Longhorns came in as a ranked team.

– – –
(LW: 9)

9. Missouri (4-1). Have the Tigers been exposed as frauds? We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out. But they have a lot of work to do to convince anybody they’re Playoff material and only a couple opportunities left against plus competition to do it.
– – –
(LW: 5)

10. Vanderbilt (3-2). Whatever comes next, “Vandy’s f***ing TURNT” is about as far as it gets from “he gave us a chance to punt.”
– – –
(LW: 13)

11. Arkansas (4-2). The Razorbacks’ 19-14 upset over Tennessee turned down the temperature significantly on coach Sam Pittman heading into an open date, but that only reinforces my read on the Hogs as the league’s true chaos team, capable of anything in any direction on any given Saturday. Three of the next 4 on the other side of the bye are against LSU, Ole Miss and Texas, all in Fayetteville.
– – –
(LW: 12)

12. Florida (3-2). The Gators opened as 15.5-point underdogs (via FanDuel Sportsbook) at Tennessee, which if it actually plays out that way would represent a major aberration in the series. For one thing, Florida has won 17 of the past 19 against the Vols; for another, Tennessee hasn’t beaten Florida by as many as 15 points since a 31-14 win in 1992.

– – –
(LW: 14)

13. South Carolina (3-2). Carolina draws the unenviable assignment of traveling to Tuscaloosa immediately following Alabama’s most embarrassing loss in years. If the Tide come out breathing fire, there’s not a whole lot the Gamecocks figure to be able to do about it.
– – –
(LW: 10)

14. Kentucky (3-2). The Wildcats are coming off an open date with a manageable stretch ahead against Vanderbilt, Florida and Auburn that will go a long way toward defining their season. They probably need to take at least 2 out of 3 to keep their 8-year bowl streak alive.
– – –
(LW: 11)

15. Auburn (2-4). I highly doubt it would have made any difference in the outcome against Georgia, but if you were wondering what was up on the botched 4th-and-1 attempt in the 4th quarter that resulted in Hugh Freeze blowing a gasket at his quarterback, Freeze told reporters after the game that Payton Thorne changed the play from a “dive left” to Jarquez Hunter to a zone read that was easily stuffed in the backfield. “Yeah, he absolutely didn’t go with what we had called,” Freeze said.
– – –
(LW: 15⬌)

16. Mississippi State (1-4). Outgunned and stuck with a true freshman quarterback, the Bulldogs are in survival mode from here on out. The last time they went winless in SEC play: 2002, under coach Jackie Sherrill.
– – –
(LW: 16⬌)

Moment of Zen of the Week

Vanderbilt students are headed to Broadway with the goalposts pic.twitter.com/xbMa8Q2vcq

— Katie Windham (@katiewindham_) October 6, 2024

https://twitter.com/ArtButSports/status/1842726105008255444

IT IS IN. THE GOALPOST MADE IT TO THE CUMBERLAND RIVER! pic.twitter.com/gYe4H8q7N8

— Grey Cotham (@gcotham21) October 6, 2024

Nashville Fire Department retrieves the goalpost from the Cumberland River and it is being turned over to Vanderbilt where it will probably be cut up for fans for a donation for the SEC fine. @VandyAD @VandyFootball @NashvilleFD #Vanderbiltgoalpost #AnchorDown pic.twitter.com/sY2UcB2h3m

— David S Ewing (@DavidSEwing) October 6, 2024

• • •

The post Monday Down South: Vanderbilt’s Saturday in the sun is Bama’s worst nightmare appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Game of the Week: Missouri at Texas A&M (-2.5)

(All betting lines via DraftKings Sportsbook.)

The stakes

The calendar says October, the month when we start to learn who’s the wheat and who’s the chaff in conference play. Mizzou and A&M are both ranked, both looking forward to favorable schedules over the second half of the season, and both plan on having some staying power in the Playoff chase. The winner in College Station takes a big step toward remaining relevant for the long haul. The loser takes a big step toward the Gator Bowl.

In Missouri’s case, describing the schedule as “favorable” is an understatement. For a team ranked No. 9 in the major polls, the product on the field is still sorting itself out. But Mizzou undeniably won the lottery under the SEC’s new, post-division scheduling format, missing Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas in the league draw; barring a significant upset, all that’s standing in the way of a second consecutive 10-win regular season is A&M on Saturday, an Oct. 26 trip to Alabama, and a Nov. 9 date against Oklahoma.

It’s a little too early to begin making assumptions about where the threshold for earning an at-large bid is going to fall in the first year of the expanded CFP, but it is safe to say that if they take care of business elsewhere, the Tigers only need to win 1 of those 3 games to ensure that at the very least they’re going to be in the mix. Win the first one, and all those vague calculations will begin to give way to an actual path.

Texas A&M has less margin for error with the shadow of its opening-night flop against Notre Dame still looming. But the Aggies are 4-0 since, including a 2-0 start in SEC play against Florida and Arkansas — technically they’re alone in first place in the conference standings — and a win over a top-10 opponent would put a real gust in their sails heading into an open date. It would also set them up for a dark-horse run over the back half of the schedule: Their 2 toughest remaining tests, LSU and Texas, are both at home. Whether that presents as an opportunity or a slog during their week off depends on what happens against Mizzou.

The stat: 7.1 yards

That’s Missouri QB Brady Cook‘s average gain per pass attempt this season, down nearly 2 full yards below his average YPA in 2023 despite a slight uptick in completion percentage. In fact, the gap is the result of an even steeper decline in Cook’s average gain per completion, from 13.6 yards in ’23 (17th nationally) to 10.6 yards in ’24 (98th).

Chalk it up to the schedule, the small sample size, or the respect opposing secondaries have for Mizzou’s next-level wideouts, but through 4 games, Cook is throwing deep less often and with less success. He’s just 3-for-14 on attempts of 20+ air yards, a column he excelled in last year, settling for more short, high-percentage throws that give his receivers a chance to make hay after the catch — not the worst idea when one of those receivers is YAC monster Luther Burden III. But although the Tigers are relatively YAC-reliant, with the majority of their total passing/receiving output coming after the catch, they’ve been relatively low-wattage as well, averaging a pedestrian 5.1 yards per YAC opportunity. That’s down from 6.7 yards in 2023.

That’s difficult to square with the presence of Burden, who has forced 13 missed tackles on 19 receptions and averaged a solid 8.1 yards per YAC opportunity, relatively unchanged from last year (8.4). But the surrounding cast has not supplied much juice on that front — Cook has yet to throw a touchdown pass to anyone other than Burden — while the downfield attack has been nonexistent. At least one of those trends needs to change.

The big question: Who is Texas A&M’s quarterback?

Yes, nominal starter Conner Weigman is back atop the official depth chart this week after a 3-game absence due to a nagging shoulder injury. Take that development with a grain of salt. For one thing, coach Mike Elko described Weigman’s status as a “game-time decision” earlier in the week, consistent with his statement last week that the call between Weigman and redshirt freshman Marcel Reed is going to be a game-time decision for the rest of the season. For another, regardless of Weigman’s health, his understudy has acquitted himself well in relief. While Weigman was on ice, Reed made himself at home as QB1, accounting for 8 total touchdowns, committing zero turnovers, and adding an extra dimension to the offense as a runner. (A dimension that his offensive coordinator, Collin Klein, can certainly appreciate given his own dual-threat background.) Between Reed’s emergence and fresh memories of Weigman’s Week 1 meltdown against Notre Dame, A&M fans have not exactly been desperate for the latter’s speedy return to the lineup.

So: Fluid situation. For his part, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz dismissed the depth chart outright, telling reporters at his weekly Monday press conference that the alleged pecking order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. “I know on their depth chart, it says the other kid (Weigman) is the starting quarterback,” Drinkwitz said. “But that’s just semantics, in my opinion. The guy (Reed) is 3-0 as the starter and whether he’s listed as questionable or whatever, I don’t see him going back. … They clearly have a different offensive identity with this guy as the quarterback and they’ve developed an offense that fits around his system. It’s a lot different than the first game of the year.”

That it is, to the Aggies’ relief. Weigman turned in a nightmare outing against the Irish, finishing 12-for-30 passing for 3.3 yards per attempt and 2 interceptions in a 23-13 loss; A&M didn’t crack the end zone until the 4th quarter, and subsequently failed to gain another first down on any of its last 3 possessions with the game still within reach. Weigman reportedly suffered the shoulder injury in that game, and his status since has been an enigma. He started the following week, a blowout win over McNeese State, and dressed but didn’t play against Florida in Week 3. He hasn’t dressed the past 2 weeks, leading to speculation that the injury might be more serious than a day-to-day nuisance. We’ll see. As it stands, the longer Weigman lingers, the easier it is to think of it as Reed’s job to lose.

The key matchup: Missouri OT Marcus Bryant vs. Texas A&M edge Nic Scourton

A&M has question marks all over the secondary, and a couple of bona fide red flags — particularly in the nickel role, where Florida transfer Jaydon Hill has struggled in the early going and faces one of the toughest assignments in college football opposite Luther Burden III in the slot. (PFF has Hill down for 14 catches, 215 yards and 2 touchdowns allowed on 18 targets, including a 75-yard TD in last week’s win over Arkansas.) But they can’t burn you if they can’t block you, and getting after the passer is the Aggies’ biggest strength. The pass rush feasted against the Razorbacks, generating 17 pressures and 3 sacks, 2 by Scourton, an aspiring first-rounder who led the Big Ten in sacks in 2023 at Purdue. His strip sack on the Hogs’ final possession was effectively the game-ender.

https://twitter.com/AggieFootball/status/1840163790366601569/

Bryant, a 5th-year transfer from SMU, has played a lot of football but is still getting up to SEC speed as Missouri’s new left tackle. He’s been cited for 6 pressures allowed in 4 games, including a sack opposite the only future pro he’s faced, Boston College’s Donovan Ezeiruaku. The edge-rushing rotation of Scourton, Shemar Stewart and Cashius Howell is as steep a test as Bryant and his well-seasoned counterpart on the right side, Armand Membou, will face all year.

The verdict …

They made this one a toss-up for a reason, folks. The narrow point spread in A&M’s favor is strictly a nod to home-field advantage, which is mitigated the by the fact that a) the Aggies have lost 3 of their past 4 at home vs. ranked opponents, and b) it’s an early kickoff at the very sober hour of 11 am Missouri has underwhelmed in its 2 games vs. real competition, beating Boston College by 6 and Vanderbilt by 3 in double overtime; meanwhile, A&M’s outings have run the gamut from ugly (Notre Dame) to promising (Florida) to just getting by (Bowling Green, Arkansas).

What’s the rule? When in doubt, defer to the quarterback you trust more and/or the best player on the field. In this one, that’s Brady Cook and Luther Burden, who have a chance to embark on a special season in their first game back on the national radar. In the meantime, there is plenty of doubt.
–     –     –
• Missouri 24 | Texas A&M 19

Auburn at Georgia (-22.5)

How will Georgia respond to last week’s epic, emotionally chaotic loss at Alabama? Chaos notwithstanding, the Dawgs still have a very viable path to the Playoff — albeit one that runs through road trips to Texas and Ole Miss and a November visit from Tennessee.

What they don’t have now is margin for error.

Ideally, the they’d love to beat their oldest rivals so thoroughly that the turnover-prone Tigers start coughing up the ball like a video game character erupting in a shower of coins when he takes a hit. A blowout would go a long way toward resetting the Dawgs as frontrunners who can afford to file away the Bama game in the “shame somebody had to lose” file and move on. If they come out looking sluggish, on the other hand, as they have so far in all 3 games vs. Power 4 competition, then it might be time to consider the other possibility: They have real flaws that risk relegating them to the bubble.
–     –     –
Georgia 31 | • Auburn 16

Ole Miss (-9.5) at South Carolina

Another team in rebound mode, Ole Miss has to get back on its feet in a hurry or risk letting last week’s deflating loss to Kentucky take the air out of its entire season. Unlike Georgia, the Rebels’ biggest flaw is plain as day: A rebuilt offensive line that’s not quite up to snuff for a Playoff contender. Not that they haven’t made the effort. Adding viable bodies in the trenches was a priority in the portal, which yielded three veteran o-linemen with starting experience at the Power 5 level.

For all their experience, though, the talent level up front still leaves a lot to be desired against NFL-ready competition. Kentucky, led by future pro Deone Walker, generated pressure on Jaxson Dart largely without sending extra rushers, with 3 of its 4 sacks coming on non-blitzing downs, per PFF. Given the opportunity to tee off, South Carolina’s edge-rushing tandem of Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart is capable of making Dart’s life just as miserable.
–     –     –
• Ole Miss 32 | South Carolina 20

Tennessee (-13.5) at Arkansas

Nico Iamaleava makes eyes wide, but Tennessee owes its 4-0 start largely to the defense, especially in its Week 4 win at Oklahoma. The Vols rank No. 1 or No. 2 nationally in total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense, 3rd-down defense, yards per play allowed, plays of 20+ yard allowed and first downs allowed. That has afforded Josh Heupel the luxury of taking it slow with his gifted young quarterback, and Iamaleava with plenty of margin for error for working out the kinks. In another context, a first-year starter who’d thrown a pick-6 and lost 2 fumbles inside his own 40-yard line in his team’s 2 biggest games to date might be considered volatile; opposite Tennessee’s D, the glitches have barely left a trace.
–     –     –
• Tennessee 34 | Arkansas 17

Alabama (-22.5) at Vanderbilt

It’s probably giving Vandy a little too much credit to classify this as a “trap game,” considering the Commodores haven’t played Bama within single digits since 2006, haven’t topped 10 points in the series since 1999, and haven’t won in the series since 1984. The Tide might not be rolling into Nashville with a full tank coming off last week’s emotionally draining win over Georgia, but the explosiveness they have on hand even a version of this team running on fumes is capable of covering a 3-touchdown spread. The last time they came out looking listless and sloppy against a heavy underdog, against South Florida in Week 2, they scored 3 late touchdowns in a span of a little over 4 minutes to win by 26.
–     –     –
• Alabama 44 | Vanderbilt 13

UCF (-2.5) at Florida

How grim is the forecast in Gainesville? Florida actually opened as a slight favorite against UCF, only for the line to immediately flip in favor of the Knights, who are coming off a 48-21 beatdown at the hands of Colorado in their own stadium. So much for The Swamp’s reputation as a hostile environment. The fact is, Florida is desperate for a win, or should be: Next week’s trip to Tennessee begins the nightmare portion of the schedule that pits the Gators against 5 currently-ranked opponents in their next 6 games, in all of which they will be considered heavy underdogs. UCF is arguably the most winnable game they have left (give or take Kentucky) until the season finale at Florida State. Billy Napier doesn’t have that long. If he still has any chance of survival — a very big if — this is one he’s gotta have.
–     –     –
• Florida 36 | UCF 31

OFF THIS WEEK: Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Texas

Scoreboard

Week 5 record: 4-2 straight-up | 4-2 vs. spread
Season record: 51-9 straight-up | 37-20 vs. spread

The post Week 6 SEC Primer: Missouri has 1 path to the Playoff, and it runs through Texas A&M appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

It’s been a year and change since Milroe was demoted just a few weeks into his tenure as Alabama’s starting quarterback, and frankly seems like longer. Looking back, though, I’m still not quite over the fact that there was ever a moment — even an episode, a glitch, however brief — when his future seemed in doubt. Did it even make sense at the time? Because the more we see of him, the more absurd it is that anyone could have ever considered him anything less than a natural-born dude. People in the not-too-distant future won’t believe it: Jalen Milroe, benched? For … who, again? Some lacrosse player? A tall tale, surely. Let’s get you to bed, old man. It’s already getting harder to believe for those of us who were around to actually witness it.

Not that there’s ever been any question about Milroe’s potential. But Bama’s heart-stopping, 41-34 win over Georgia was our first glimpse of that potential in full bloom, and the maxed-out Milroe defies hyperbole. Opposite the most respected defense in the country, on the biggest stage of the regular season, he set career highs for completion percentage (81.8%), passing yards (374), total yards (491) and Total QBR (98.5); it was his second-best performance in terms of EPA (13.5), coming in behind only last year’s breakthrough win over LSU. He became the first player in the 89-year history of the AP poll to account for 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing and 2 rushing touchdowns vs. a top-5 opponent.

Per Pro Football Focus, he was 3-for-3 on attempts of 20+ air yards, 17-for-19 when blitzed, and 5-for-6 under pressure. He was flawless early, leading the Tide to 4 touchdowns on their first 4 offensive possessions, and clutch late, connecting on a go-ahead (and ultimately game-winning) 75-yard TD strike that entered directly into the canon of plays you’ll always remember where you were when you saw them. In a collision of the 2 most high-wattage rosters in the college game, he quickly made it clear that he was the brightest star on the field.

@JalenMilroe

: ABC pic.twitter.com/evS6KVly66

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) September 29, 2024

Of course, Milroe was not perfect: He threw his first interception of the season, erasing a prime scoring opportunity inside the UGA 25-yard line in the second quarter; the spell broke on that play, after which the Tide punted on 5 of their next 6 possessions while Georgia clawed its way out of the grave. In the end, though, it was Milroe’s night, the culmination of a career arc that has carried him from scapegoat to Heisman frontrunner with a bullet. There’s a long way to go in that race, and even longer to go in his bid to be QB1 in the 2025 NFL Draft. But if he hadn’t already, he left no doubt on Saturday night that he’s going to be around for the long haul.
–     –     –
(Last week: 3)

2. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Arch Manning‘s guest-hosting stint as QB1 could have hardly gone any better, but with Ewers well-rested and Oklahoma on deck there’s no controversy about who’s going to be in the saddle against the Sooners in Week 7. It’s Ewers’ job until further notice. That said, how the Longhorns handle the murmurs every time they go two consecutive possessions without scoring will be an intriguing subplot. If Ewers slumps even a little, it’s always possible that notice could be coming a lot more quickly that anyone would have imagined a month ago.
–     –     –
(Last week: 2⬌)

3. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

After a dominant run through the nonconference slate, Dart came in for a reality check against Kentucky, which executed its rope-a-dope blueprint to perfection in a 20-17 upset. The Wildcats kept the ball out of the Rebels’ hands, amassing a nearly two-to-one edge in time of possession; they generated pressure without sending extra rushers, sacking Dart 3 times on non-blitzing downs, per PFF; and they got stops, holding Ole Miss to 1-for-10 on 3rd-down conversions. The Rebels still averaged a healthy 6.3 yards per play, but their 56 offensive snaps matched the fewest of Lane Kiffin’s tenure.
–     –     –
(Last week: 1)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

Beck’s roller-coaster of a performance at Alabama broke down into two distinct phases: Digging the hole and digging out of it.

On one hand, Beck spent most of the night in QB hell. He connected on his first throw, a 15-yard completion, and was on-target on his second throw, a beautifully placed deep ball that was dropped. From that point, the rest of Beck’s first half bordered on a full-fledged meltdown: Excluding a cluster of meaningless completions against a prevent defense to end the half, he went into the locker room 6-for-17 passing for 29 yards, 2 interceptions, and an intentional grounding penalty from his own end zone that resulted in a safety. He looked uncomfortable, rushed and rattled by the circumstances for the first time in his career; Georgia trailed, 30-7, in what anyone who’d watched up to that point could safely assume was a blowout in progress.

But then, to his credit, Beck came closer to pulling off a miracle in the second half than anyone had any right to expect. In fact, for a brief, fleeting moment, he was poised to go out as the hero: While Bama’s offense took its turn in the freezer, Beck heated up, leading 3 straight touchdown drives in the fourth quarter in increasingly explosive fashion. His 3rd TD pass, an aggressive, 67-yard strike to a wide-open Dillon Bell, put Georgia up 34-33 with 2 1/2 minutes to play; had it held, it would have been an instant entry in the rotation of the most memorable plays in school history, falling somewhere between “Run Lindsay Run” and Stetson Bennett IV’s game-winning touchdown pass to beat Ohio State in the 2022 Peach Bowl. It was right up there … for all of 13 seconds, which is how long it took for it to be eclipsed by Jalen Milroe and Ryan Williams going 75 yards the other way on the first play of the ensuing Bama possession.

It was that kind of night for Beck, who was doomed to go out as the goat after his final pass was picked off in the end zone — his 4th turnover, and the one that will linger. Altogether, Beck put the ball in the air a very un-Georgia-like 50 times, easily a career high, including 17 attempts of 20+ air yards; he finished with a career low for completion percentage (52.9%) and his worst QBR rating (70.1) since Week 2 of last season. Yet even on his worst night he managed to put the team in position to win late against some of the steepest odds he could have faced.

On its own, a hot-and-cold effort in a hostile road environment might get filed away under “any given Saturday.” But Beck, whose last outing was a mediocre turn in a 13-12 win at Kentucky in Week 3, has now had 2 of them in a row. He has not been abandoned by the mock draft circuit, which still generally regards him as a top pick next spring and a candidate to go No. 1 overall. His stock might have been slightly cooler on Sunday morning than it had been 24 hours earlier, but considering where it was as a of halftime on Saturday night, it could been a whole lot worse.
–     –     –
(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier was the volume eater of the early season, ranking in the top 5 nationally in attempts, yards and touchdowns through the first 5 weeks. Dating to last year’s bowl game, he’s topped 300 yards passing in 5 of his 6 career starts, and thrown multiple touchdown passes in all 6. Defying his statuesque reputation, he’s also been excellent at avoiding sacks, having gone down just once on 36 pressured drop-backs, per PFF; that works out to a pressure-to-sack ratio of just 2.8%, best in the Power 4.
–     –     –
(Last week: 6)>

6. Brady Cook | Missouri

It was an eerily quiet September for Cook, who ended the month ranked in the bottom half of the conference in yards per attempt (15th), efficiency (12th), QBR (9th) and overall PFF grade (10th) while presiding over a 4-0 start for a top-10 team. This week Mizzou takes the nation’s longest active winning streak on the road to Texas A&M, the first real test of the Tigers’ staying power as Playoff contenders.
–     –     –
(Last week: 5)

7. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

They don’t keep records for this sort of thing, but between the 6-6 Iamaleava and the 6-6 Taylen Green, Tennessee’s trip to Arkansas must rank among the lankiest quarterback matchups of all-time. How many games can you remember where both starting QBs look like they could have just as easily have decided to become a 3-and-D wing in the NBA?
–     –     –
(Last week: 6⬌)

8. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

It’s Bama Week for the ‘Dores. Has a Vandy quarterback ever had a successful outing against Alabama? Sure, but you have to go back a ways — way, way back. In 8 meetings since the turn of the century the Commodores haven’t topped 10 points in any of them. (If you’re wondering, only 1 of those games involved Jay Cutler, in his freshman season at Vanderbilt in 2002.) They haven’t scored 20 against Bama since 1996, in a 36-26 loss; they haven’t scored 30 since their last win in the series, a 30-21 decision in 1984. I like Pavia’s scrappy style, but there isn’t enough scrap in the entire state of Tennessee to keep it interesting against the Tide.
–     –     –
(Last week: 8⬌)

9. Conner Weigman or Marcel Reed | Texas A&M

Weigman is back atop the official depth chart this week after a 3-week absence due to a nagging shoulder injury, but given how solid Reed has looked in the meantime the jury is very much out on what the position will actually look like this weekend against Missouri. For his part, Eli Drinkwitz isn’t buying the idea that a healthy Weigman will find the job waiting for him, telling reporters at his weekly Monday press conference that the alleged pecking order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. “I know on their depth chart, it says the other kid (Weigman) is the starting quarterback,” Drinkwitz said. “But that’s just semantics, in my opinion. The guy (Reed) is 3-0 as the starter and whether he’s listed as questionable or whatever, I don’t see him going back.” We’ll all find out on Saturday together.
–     –     –
(Last week: n/a | 9⬌)

10. Taylen Green | Arkansas

On this week’s episode of Taylen Green: Chaos Agent: Green uncorked a 75-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the game, then went on to commit 3 turnovers (2 fumbles, 1 interception) in the Razorbacks’ loss to Texas A&M. Green fumbled 4 times altogether against the Aggies, bringing his total for the season to 9 fumbles, per PFF — 2 more than any other FBS player.
–     –     –
(Last week: 10⬌)

11. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Sellers is back at practice and listed atop the depth chart for this weekend’s game against Ole Miss after sitting out the Gamecocks’ Week 4 romp over Akron with a sore ankle. Shane Beamer has been cagy about whether Sellers will actually play on Saturday, but given the drop-off in arm talent from Sellers to scrambly backup Robby Ashford, there’s no controversy. It’s strictly a question of the former’s health.
–     –     –
(Last week: 11⬌)

12. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

He took a beating in the process, but Vandagriff played his best game yet as a Wildcat against Ole Miss, finishing 18-for-28 for 243 yards, 1 touchdown and no turnovers en route to the upset. Crucially, he also kept the chains (and the clock) moving with his legs, picking up 5 first downs as a runner in incremental chunks. And he delivered his best throw of the year, an improbable, 4th-and-7 heave to Barion Brown with the game on the line. The play gained 63 yards, easily Kentucky’s longest of the season, and set up the go-ahead/game-winning touchdown.

https://twitter.com/UKFootball/status/1840108045537247558/

Mark Stoops conceded after the game that he wasn’t concerned with playing the percentages in that spot, telling reporters “your analytics will tell you to punt it.” Which, no kidding. But of the 2 head coaches involved in this game, who would have bet on Stoops being the one who turned down an obvious punting situation to let it all ride on a one-one-one bomb down the sideline? It’s a heck of a call … when it works.
–     –     –
(Last week: 13)

13. Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway | Florida

The Gators’ last time out, a 45-28 win at Mississippi State in Week 4, was proof of concept for what the Mertz/Lagway rotation is supposed to look like under ideal conditions. Now comes the gauntlet. Florida initially opened as a narrow favorite this weekend against UCF, but by Tuesday the line had already flipped to favor the Knights. (Who just suffered a blowout loss at the hands of Colorado, for the record.) If that holds until kickoff, there’s a good chance Florida won’t be favored again until the season finale against Florida State, by which point both teams are on track to be in the market for a new head coach.
–     –     –
(Last week: 12)

14. Michael Hawkins Jr. | Oklahoma

Hawkins was predictably rough around the edges in a come-from-behind, 27-21 win over Auburn, but he gave OU all you can ask from a fledgling QB making his first career start on the road: He broke one big play as a runner, connected on one big play as a passer, converted both into touchdowns and didn’t commit a turnover. That’s 1-0 football. Up next: An open date, followed by another baptism by fire against Texas.
–     –     –
(Last week: 14⬌)

15. Payton Thorne | Auburn

Look, Thorne is who he is: A cromulent quarterback who gives Auburn its best chance to win on most weekends, and who cannot stop throwing killer interceptions at the worst possible moment. It’s a frustrating combination, because he has a knack for lulling you into thinking maybe he’s turned over a new leaf. In their loss to Oklahoma, the Tigers outgained OU by a whopping 191 yards, 482 to 291, with 26 first downs to the Sooners’ 11. At times, Thorne looked as good as he’s looked in an Auburn uniform vs. a real opponent, especially throwing downfield: Per PFF, he was 5-for-6 passing on attempts on 20+ air yards, including touchdowns covering 31 yards and 48 yards, respectively.

But the Tigers left points on the field in a variety of ways, and with the game on the line Thorne’s worst instincts took over.

That just happened. @KipLewis9 | #OUDNA pic.twitter.com/xmmZmYgoma

— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) September 28, 2024

Thorne defended his decision in a local radio interview, telling the hosts “quite honestly, if I had that play over 10 times, I probably would have done the same thing 10 times out of 10.” Which, to be fair, you can see where he’s coming from: The linebacker who wound up with the pick, Kip Lewis, initially attacked as if he was coming on a blitz; that was a feint, but as Lewis attempted to disengage and drop into coverage he was literally shoved backward into the throwing lane by an Auburn lineman, leaving him off-balance and stumbling awkwardly as the ball left Thorne’s hand. On its own, it might be possible to chalk it up as a random case of bad luck — not as unlucky as an on-target ball deflecting off his receiver’s hands directly into the opponents’, but the kind of thing that sometimes happens to everybody.

In Thorne’s case, though, it has happened much too often.

He’s thrown an SEC-worst 6 interceptions, which have played a role in all 3 of the Tigers’ losses. He was much better the past 2 weeks against Arkansas and Oklahoma than in the 4-INT meltdown against Cal-Berkeley in Week 2 that got him benched for the equally erratic Hank Brown, but the results were the same. Thorne really is Auburn’s best option, and Hugh Freeze has no one to blame for that but himself.
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(Last week: 15⬌)

16. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren didn’t move the needle in the Bulldogs’ 35-13 loss at Texas, but under the circumstances — true freshman making his first career start on the road against the No. 1 team in the country — the bar was set at survival. He endured 6 sacks (including a strip sack, his lone turnover), but wasn’t picked, threw the Horns Down after scoring his first career touchdown in garbage time, and made it back to Starkville in one piece ahead of an open date. Next up: A Week 7 trip to … uh, Georgia. Woof. Hang in there kid.
–     –     –
(Last week: 16⬌)

The post Week 6 SEC QB Power Rankings: From work in progress to finished product, the maxed-out Jalen Milroe is even better than advertised appeared first on Saturday Down South.

• Ryan Williams lands on his feet
• Kentucky puts Ole Miss’ CFP hopes in a sleeper hold
• Auburn has nowhere else to turn
• Players of the week, the Superlatives Standings and updated team power rankings

… and more takeaways, trends, and technicalities from Week 5 in the SEC. But first:

Don’t call it a comeback. Call it a classic

How we doing this morning, folks? Come down off the ceiling yet?

Personally, I woke up on Sunday morning still feeling a little like Nathan Felder’s character at the end of “The Curse.” Alabama’s epic, 41-34 win over Georgia on Saturday night was that kind of game: Less the acclaimed-but-familiar prestige drama we’d been led to expect than a surreal, genre-bending journey through the full gauntlet of emotions on the college football menu. You thought you knew what you were watching, right up until it turned out to be something else entirely.

Initially, the evening had all the makings of a rout, which would have been stunning enough — a Red Wedding-style ambush no one saw coming, with Jalen Milroe at the head of the attack. Watching him at his best, it’s hard to believe there was ever any doubt about Milroe’s career arc, although of course there very much was. This time last year, he was the weak link on a team in survival mode, a gifted-but-erratic young wild card who’d barely survived a demotion from QB1 and whose future at Alabama was on thin ice. The entrenched, maxed-out Milroe who led the carnage in the early going on Saturday night left no doubt whatsoever. Bama was on the board before the pregame smoke had cleared, driving 70 yards for a touchdown on the game’s opening series, and had not even begun to satisfy its taste for blood.

Not quite 18 minutes in, the Crimson Tide led 28-0, having cashed in each of their first 4 possessions and buried Georgia beneath its largest first-half deficit of Kirby Smart’s tenure. (The last time the Bulldogs trailed by as much as 28 points at any point was in a November 2017 loss at Auburn, when the margin hit 30 in the fourth quarter.) If anything, the reality was more lopsided than the score. As of the 12:30 mark of the second quarter, Bama had outgained Georgia by more than 200 yards, 238 to 27; earned 11 first downs to Georgia’s 1; and run 15 plays in UGA territory while the Dawgs had yet to run a play beyond their own 27-yard line. Individually, Milroe was 9-for-9 passing for 138 yards and a touchdown, plus 76 yards and 2 touchdowns rushing in what was shaping up to be — and would ultimately be — a legendary performance.

On a field exclusively of natural-born dudes, he was untouchable.

https://twitter.com/AlabamaFTBL/status/1840190380999876625/

Meanwhile, as Milroe was ascending the Heisman ladder, his Georgia counterpart, Carson Beck, was in hell. He connected on his first throw of the night, a 15-yard completion to Dominic Lovett, and was on-target on his second throw, a beautifully placed deep ball that was dropped by Arian Smith. From that point on, the rest of Beck’s first half bordered on a full-fledged meltdown: He went into the locker room 9-for-20 passing for 85 yards, 2 interceptions, and an intentional grounding penalty from his own end zone that resulted in a safety. He looked uncomfortable, rushed and rattled by the circumstances for the first time in his career, a far cry from the future first-rounder he’s supposed to be; Georgia trailed, 30-7, in what anyone who’d watched up to that point could safely assume was a blowout in progress.

You know what happens next. Well, eventually: In hindsight, the remarkable thing about Georgia’s second-half rally is not how sudden it was, but how plodding, at least at first. The Bulldogs’ lone touchdown drive in the third quarter was downright tedious, covering 80 yards in 15 plays, draining nearly 7 minutes off the clock, and featuring zero successful 3rd-down conversions; they had to go 3-for-3 on 4th down, by the skin of their teeth. (A 1-yard gain on 4th-and-1, a 4-yard gain on 4th-and-3, a defensive pass interference penalty on 4th-and-5.) Nothing about it suggested an impending momentum shift or an offense achieving liftoff. Alabama answered with a field goal to extend the lead to 18 points; that was immediately followed by Georgia’s third turnover, a strip sack recovered by the Tide in UGA territory at the start of the fourth. And that was the ballgame.

Ha, no. The pace didn’t really pick up until the Bulldogs got the ball back with a little under 12 minutes to go, still trailing 33-15. They responded with their most efficient drive of the night (aided, again, by a 4th-down penalty against Bama), covering 80 yards in 6 plays to cut the score to 33-21 following a missed 2-point conversion. Raised eyebrows, nervous murmurs. Another quick stop by the UGA defense; another quick-strike drive by the offense, this one covering 78 yards in just 4 plays to cut the deficit to 33-28. People who’d wandered off in the second quarter began filtering back, looking dazed. The ebb and flow now clearly favoring Georgia for the first time, the defense held for the third consecutive series, forcing another Bama punt that delivered the ball back to a suddenly red-hot Beck at his own 33 with 2:42 to play. Was this really happening?

It was — so much was happening, in fact, that the next 2 minutes unfolded like a blur, one historic moment overlapping with the next. The first play of Georgia’s ensuing drive, a 67-yard, go-ahead touchdown pass from Beck to Dillon Bell, was briefly, fleetingly, an instant entry in the rotation of the most memorable plays in school history, poised to fall somewhere between “Run Lindsay Run” and Stetson Bennett IV’s game-winning touchdown pass to beat Ohio State in the 2022 Peach Bowl. It was right up there … for all of 13 seconds, which is how long it took for it to be eclipsed by an even wilder, more indelible play: A go-ahead, 75-yard strike from Milroe to precocious freshman Ryan Williams that entered Crimson Tide canon in roughly the time it took for Williams to stick the landing.

Where Legends are made. #RollTide pic.twitter.com/OpC3xTHk8h

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) September 29, 2024

That one will stand, a perfect candidate for enshrinement on calendars, coffee cups, and wall prints sold in outlet malls across the state of Alabama for years to come. Beck, less than 2 minutes after walking off the field as the would-be hero, instead ended his night as the goat, serving up his 3rd interception in the opposite end zone to bring the Bulldogs’ last-gasp drive to an end. He threw for more yards in the fourth quarter alone on Saturday (259) than he did in last the entirety of last year’s 27-24 loss to Bama in the SEC Championship Game (243), his only other loss as a starter. Against all odds — and turnovers notwithstanding — the 28-point hole in the second quarter was not too deep. The other guys just had one more play in them.

Ryan Williams does not come in peace

While we’re on the subject of that play, the play, what else is there to say about Ryan Williams except to let your jaw hang open. The kid is a borderline extraterrestrial athlete who’s just getting started.

Ryan Williams sporting the "Kill Everybody" Eye-Black pic.twitter.com/pG5EtxhwA0

— Kevin Borba (@Kevin__Borba) September 29, 2024

Forget the numbers: Impressive as it was, Williams’ stat line on Saturday night (6 catches, 177 yards, 1 touchdown) didn’t begin to capture the visceral thrill of his talent, already in full bloom less than a month into his college career. His body control, balance and light-as-a-feather footwork are special, innate, even in the context of a game loaded with blue-chip specimen who have played significantly more football than he has. Every time he appeared on screen, he seemed to be doing something that vey few if any other players at the campus level can do, whether it was stringing together an absurd combination of moves that left a 5-star defender grasping at air …

There’s a couple of 17 year olds in college football that would be 1st round picks. Ryan Williams is RIDICULOUS pic.twitter.com/lFVlY3Clwp

— Daniel Harms (@InHarmsWay19) September 29, 2024

… or coming down with a juggling, body-contorting reception at the expense of the best safety in America, keeping his feet in the process (how?), and reversing his momentum on a dime (how?!) to add a little insult to injury after the catch …

https://twitter.com/FDSportsbook/status/1840216610352570661/

… or the coup de grâce, a leaping, pirouetting dagger of a play with the game on the line that can only be understood by breaking it down frame-by-frame like a Simone Biles double pike or, more appropriately for Georgia fans, the Zapruder film:

One of the wildest plays ive ever seen in college sports and the kid is 17 years old.

Ryan Williams. pic.twitter.com/3Wws2oVvVr

— Kyle (@ImKyleMangum) September 29, 2024

The catch itself was impressive enough, requiring Williams to gear down, shed the defender, and haul in a moon ball in mid-air. But the thing he did next, the hop/spin away from the sideline in one fluid move simultaneously with his feet hitting the ground, this move is not in the repertoire of human beings as a species, at least as far as I previously understood the limitations of human joints and tendons in relation to the laws of physics. It’s the kind of thing you might expect from a 110-pound professional gymnast working under ideal conditions on a spring floor; for a 175-pound football player in full pads on grass turf with a ball in his hands and much bigger opponents bearing down on him, it is preposterous.

I encourage you to watch the clip above in as slow a motion as possible, with an eye on the time: Williams initially begins to leave his feet just as the clock ticks from 0:00 to 0:01; at 0:02 on the dot, he has possession of the ball with both feet on the hashmarks and his entire body facing the sideline; in the first frame after it ticks to 0:03, he has already taken 4 full strides upfield with his body and his momentum completely oriented toward the end zone. How is this possible in less than 2 seconds?

That’s not even getting into the second half of the play, in which Williams abruptly throws on the brakes and spins out of the grasp of two UGA defenders who nearly collide as a result, then casually outraces both down the sideline. Not against Western Kentucky or Wisconsin: Against Georgia, with the entire country watching and 100,000 people on hand in the throes of mass hysteria.

His reputation is fully cemented just 4 games into a career that, it cannot be stressed enough, started a year ahead of schedule when Williams reclassified from the class of 2025, just because he could. Clearly, he made the right decision, even if it winds up inspiring a generation of twitchy high school phenoms coming up behind him to make the wrong one. If there’s anybody else out there like this kid, the future is incandescent.

My Old Kentucky Grind

On a completely opposite note! Although I certainly did not predict Kentucky’s 20-17 upset over Ole Miss, I did make a point in my weekly preview of emphasizing Kentucky’s penchant for hogging the ball: Through Week 4, the Wildcats had faced fewer plays per game on defense than any other FBS team and amassed a net 22-minute advantage in time of possession. On Saturday, they were even stingier that usual, holding the ball for just under 40 minutes (39:43, to be exact) and limiting Ole Miss’ fast-paced offense to a relatively pedestrian 10 full possessions. The Rebels’ 56 offensive plays matched their fewest under Lane Kiffin, who did all he could as the clock melted away to resist turning into The Joker.

Flop of the Year nominee pic.twitter.com/LMCOqrpgrs

— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) September 28, 2024

Regardless of the specifics, the loss was brutal for Ole Miss, which outscored its 4 nonconference opponents by a combined 198 points and faced an extremely favorable schedule outside of LSU (in Baton Rouge), Georgia and Oklahoma. No Alabama, no Texas, no Tennessee, no Missouri. If they took care of business elsewhere, the Rebels likely only needed to win 1 of those 3 games — with Oklahoma, especially, looking very gettable — to remain in the thick of the Playoff chase. Now their margin for error drops to zero with the entire conference slate ahead of them. A path still exists, but as a rule when your best-case scenario hinges largely on who you don’t have to play, it’s not an encouraging sign.

Auburn: Can’t stop, won’t stop (throwing killer interceptions)

I joined the pile-on last week after Auburn’s latest QB meltdown in a Week 4 loss to Arkansas, so there’s not much new to say after this week’s 27-21 loss against an Oklahoma team with a true freshman quarterback making his first career start and a badly depleted receiving corpse. That’s the problem: Letting winnable games slip from their grasp is just who the Tigers are.

The really frustrating part is that the offense has had its moments. Auburn outgained Arkansas by 97 yards overall and 3 full yards per play … and lost by double digits. On Saturday, they outgained Oklahoma by a whopping 191 yards, 482 to 291, with 26 first downs to the Sooners’ 11. At times, beleaguered QB Payton Thorne looked as good as he’s looked in an Auburn uniform vs. a real opponent, especially throwing downfield: Per PFF, Thorne was 6-of-7 passing on attempts on 20+ air yards, including touchdowns covering 31 yards and 48 yards, respectively.

Again, though, the Tigers left points all over the field. They were stuffed in the first quarter on 4th-and-goal from the OU 1-yard line. They missed 2 field goals, one of them a chip shot just before the half that true freshman Towns McGough actually missed twice due to a penalty. (He shanked the original kick and the mulligan.) And no matter how competent he looks for certain periods of time, at the end of the day, Thorne simply cannot stop throwing the ball to the other team.

KIP. LEWIS. PICK-SIX.

OU 24, Auburn 21 #VamosSooners #BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/OXjdUziOPS

— Los Sooners (@LosSooners) September 28, 2024

Thorne is not a project: He’s a 6th-year senior with 41 career starts at the Power 4 level. He’s thrown an SEC-worst 6 interceptions in 4 appearances, contributing the lion’s share to Auburn’s FBS-worst –11 turnover margin. Still, when Auburn benched Thorne for his understudy, redshirt freshman Hank Brown, the result was a disaster that got Brown demoted back to clipboard duty at halftime of the loss against Arkansas. For better or worse, the Tigers are stuck with Thorne. With trips to Georgia and Missouri on deck, it’s almost certainly going to worse before it has a chance to get better.

Kentucky goes for broke

A few weeks back, I defended Mark Stoops’ decision to punt late in Kentucky’s Week 3 loss at Georgia, a game in which he had every reason to trust his defense to get the ball back in manageable field position more than he trusted his offense to convert on 4th-and-10 at midfield. (He also had all 3 timeouts.) I stand by that defense, despite the fact that the Wildcats didn’t touch the ball again with a meaningful chance to win. But there were plenty of critics of that call at the time, and they declared victory Saturday when Stoops, facing a similar situation at Ole Miss, elected to keep the offense on the field and reaped the reward when his quarterback connected on an improbable, 4th-and-7 heave with the game on the line. The play gained 63 yards, easily Kentucky’s longest of the season, and set up the go-ahead/game-winning touchdown.

.@BrockVandagriff @BarionBrown ON FOURTH DOWN pic.twitter.com/FzdqqNKRuL

— Kentucky Football (@UKFootball) September 28, 2024

The circumstances weren’t exactly the same — the Wildcats had slightly more time and significantly worse field position on Saturday than they’d had when they opted to punt against Georgia, not to mention 1 less timeout — and Stoops confirmed after the game that he wasn’t concerned with playing the percentages, telling reporters “your analytics will tell you to punt it.” Which, yeah: 4th-and-7 from your own 19-yard line with 4 minutes and 2 timeouts left in a 4-point game is not exactly a prime go-for-it scenario, mathematically, and a 40-yard bomb is hardly the optimal call. It was strictly an intuitive decision to trust his dudes and let it rip:

“I felt like they were going to be very aggressive. We would get a 1-on-1 and Barion (Brown) made a great play. I felt like, at that moment where they were at, the way we were playing (defensively) in the red zone, we had been playing pretty good. If they get it there, there was really not going to be much time off the clock, and we could try to hold them to 3. And one of the reasons, I felt like we could get a 1-on-1, so we went for it.”

Anyway, the math doesn’t matter if it works, which it did, in which case it goes down as a strategic masterstroke and one more nail in the coffin of punting as a concept. Until the next time a game hinges on the question to go or not to go, when the battle for the soul of the sport will rage on anew.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Alabama QB Jalen Milroe. What’s left to say? Between an electric first half, the game-winning bomb in the second, and a career-high 98.5 QBR, Milroe’s performance against Georgia was one for the books even while it was still in progress. In the AP poll era (since 1936), he’s the first player ever — ever as in ever, in 88 years — to put up 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing and 2 rushing touchdowns against a top-5 opponent. How he was ever considered a downgrade from Bryce Young is a mystery people in the not-too-distant future are going to find impossible to fathom.

2. Alabama WR Ryan Williams. The really terrifying thing is we haven’t seen this kid at anywhere near his eventual ceiling.

3. Texas A&M edge Nic Scourton. A late-blooming recruit, Scourton (formerly Nic Caraway) grew up within shouting distance of Texas A&M’s campus but didn’t generate much interest from the Aggies or any other big-time program despite being rated as a consensus 4-star prospect and invited to play in the Army All-America Bowl. (Locally, at least, it didn’t help that he happened to be coming out in 2022, the same year that A&M signed the most loaded d-line class on record.) Instead, he accepted his only Power 5 offer, to Purdue, and made the most of it, finishing with a Big Ten-best 10 sacks and 42 QB pressures as a sophomore. That got their attention back home, where the new coaching staff was in the market for more pass-rushing juice. After a relatively quiet September, Scourton’s production Saturday in a 21-17 win over Arkansas was exactly what they had in mind: 4 tackles for loss, 2 sacks and a forced fumble in crunch time that put an ugly but hard-fought win on ice.

Big time sack & recovery

ESPN#Gigem | #BTHOarkansas pic.twitter.com/HnmaqW4pF6

— Texas A&M Football (@AggieFootball) September 28, 2024

A strip sack was a fitting end to a game that started fast then descended into the muck. Of the five combined touchdowns between both teams, two of them came via explosive plays in the first five minutes of the game, and another came as a result of a short field following an Arkansas giveaway in the first half.

4. Georgia WRs Dillon Bell and Arian Smith. Wide receiver was a major question mark for Georgia at the start of the night, and arguably its biggest strength at the end. Bell and Smith were indispensable to the Dawgs’ surge, finishing with a combined 232 yards and 2 touchdowns on 11 catches, including the long, go-ahead TD by Bell that momentarily completed a miracle comeback. Bell also ran for a score, marking his first career game with both rushing and receiving touchdowns.

5. Texas QB Arch Manning. For a guy who’s likely returning to clipboard duty for the foreseeable future, Manning’s presence here already feels routine. He looked like a season vet taking target practice on Saturday against Mississippi State, finishing 26-for-31 for 324 yards, 2 touchdowns, a third touchdown as a runner and zero turnovers in a 35-13 win.

OH MY @ArchManning @DeandreMooreJr pic.twitter.com/Suem9u2HkX

— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) September 28, 2024

His completion percentage would have been even higher, but he also had 2 passes dropped, including a perfectly placed bomb in the first half that almost certainly would have gone for a touchdown. Per PFF, that was his only incompletion on 4 attempts of 20+ air yards.

Fat Guy of the Week

Kentucky DL Deone Walker. Walker is much too athletic to qualify as a proper Fat Guy, but at 6-6, 345 pounds, he certainly has the mass, and he was a reliably disruptive presence in Kentucky’s upset win at Ole Miss. He generated a team-best 4 QB pressures with 2 sacks, per PFF, allowing the Wildcats to turn up the heat on Jaxson Dart without sending extra rushers. Kentucky blitzed on just 6 of Dart’s 36 drop-backs, while 3 of the Cats’ 4 sacks came on a standard 3- or 4-man rush.

Honorable Mention: Kentucky WR Dane Key, who hauled in 8 catches for 106 yards and a touchdown in Oxford and looked impressive doing it. … Ole Miss WR Tre Harris III, who continued his early season tear with 176 yards and a touchdown on 11 catches in a losing effort. … Ole Miss edge rushers Princely Umanmielen and Suntarine Perkins, who combined for 7 QB pressures and 4 sacks. … Oklahoma edge rusher R Mason Thomas, who had 5 QB pressures and back-to-back sacks to end the game in the Sooners’ come-from-behind win at Auburn. … Texas edge rusher Collin Simmons, whose 6 total tackles against Mississippi State included 3 TFLs, 2 sacks and a forced fumble. … LSU RB Caden Durham, who accounted for 217 scrimmage yards and 2 touchdowns on just 10 touches in the Tigers’ blowout win over South Alabama. … Texas A&M RB Le’Veon Moss, who churned out 117 yards on 9.0 per carry in the Aggies’ 21-17 win over Arkansas. … Arkansas WR Isaac TeSlaa, who had a career-high 120 yards on 5 receptions against A&M, most of them coming on a 75-yard touchdown on the opening series. … And Texas A&M punter Tyler White, who dropped 7 of his 9 punts against Arkansas inside the Razorbacks’ 20-yard line.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, 2 for Fat Guy of the Week, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the Year of the Week (Non-Ryan Williams Division)

https://twitter.com/AuburnFootball/status/1840155009289465967/

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Alabama (4-0). Besides being a wildly entertaining classic of a game, Bama/Georgia was also a rebuke to the notion that the expanded Playoff diminishes the importance of the regular season. Did anything about the scene in Tuscaloosa look diminished? Beating Georgia strictly for the sake of beating Georgia still counts for something around here.
– – –
(LW: 3)

2. Texas (5-0). A 35-13 win over a depleted version of Mississippi State is nothing to write home about, especially considering the offense spent the better part of 3 quarters shooting itself in the foot before finally pulling away in the fourth. In addition to 2 fumbles and multiple drops, at one point in the second half, Steve Sarkisian elected to accept a penalty against MSU that took a field goal off the board that would have extended Texas’ still-tenuous lead to 17-6, only for the offense to fail to convert the ensuing fourth down. But the Longhorns went on to score touchdowns on their next 3 possessions from that point on, so whatever fleeting angst the home crowd might have felt in real time was forgotten by the final gun. (For what it’s worth, per ESPN’s Win Probability metric the Bulldogs’ chances peaked at 10.3% in the second quarter.) Up next: An open date, followed by Quinn Ewers’ presumptive return to the lineup against Oklahoma.
– – –
(LW: 1)

3. Georgia (3-1). I was significantly less worried about the Bulldogs at the end than I was at halftime. But nothing is assured against a schedule that still includes Texas (in Austin), Ole Miss (in Oxford) and Tennessee.
– – –
(LW: 2)

4. Tennessee (4-0). They have to take care of business against Arkansas and Florida first, but the Vols’ Oct. 19 date against Alabama in Knoxville looms as the next major test for both teams.
– – –
(LW: 4)

5. Missouri (4-0). As ever, there are few more sure-fire ways to move up in the pecking order than taking a weekend off. The nation’s longest active winning streak (8) is back on the line this week at Texas A&M.
– – –
(LW: 6)

6. LSU (4-1). True freshman RB Caden Durham earned his first career start Saturday against South Alabama. On LSU’s first play, he took a swing pass 71 yards for a touchdown. On LSU’s second play, he broke free on an 86-yard run to the 1-yard line, setting up a short TD plunge. On LSU’s next turn, he accounted for 39 yards on a 77-yard touchdown drive, capped by an 8-yard TD run. Altogether, Durham finished with 217 scrimmage yards on just 10 touches in a 42-1 0 win that could have been much worse if not for a negotiated surrender by the Jaguars in the second half. LSU has yet to settle on a true RB1 at any point in Brian Kelly’s tenure, or shown much interest in it, but pending the diagnosis of a foot injury that sidelined Durham for the second half, I think it’s a safe assumption that that is about to change.
– – –
(LW: 7)

7. OLE MISS (4-1). The Rebels are improved as advertised on the defensive line, but the o-line remains behind the curve. Plenty of experience, not enough talent to handle the likes of Deone Walker.
– – –
(LW: 5)

8. Texas A&M (4-1). He earned a hat tip earlier in the Superlatives section, but for those of you who skim the “Honorable Mention” part, arguably no one played a bigger role in A&M’s win over Arkansas than punter Tyler White. Seven of White’s 9 punts pinned the Razorbacks inside their own 20-yard line, including 5 that came to rest inside the 10. (None of them were returned.) That left Arkansas’ offense facing consistently long field position, a huge factor in a second half that saw the Razorbacks mount 4 extended drives of 30+ yards that resulted in a grand total of 3 points.
– – –
(LW: 8⬌)

9. Oklahoma (411). True freshman QB Michael Hawkins Jr. was rough around the edges in the Sooners’ win over Auburn, but he gave OU all you can ask from a fledgling QB making his first career start on the road: He broke one long run, connected on one long pass, converted both into touchdowns, and didn’t commit a turnover. That’s 1-0 football.
– – –
(LW: 9⬌)

10. South Carolina (3-1). In retrospect, the Gamecocks taking Kentucky to the woodshed at Kentucky in Week 2 already looks like one of the season’s major outliers. But the day college football starts making a lick of sense from one week to the next, it will really be in trouble.
– – –
(LW: 10⬌)

11. Kentucky (3-2). When the defense shows up and the breaks go their way, the Wildcats’ version of rope-a-dope is formidable. But that’s a lot of ifs to get them above .500.
– – –
(LW: 12)

12. Arkansas (3-2). On this week’s episode of Taylen Green: Chaos Agent, Green uncorked a 75-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the game, then went on to fumble 4 times (losing 2 of them) and serve up his 5th interception of the month in the Razorbacks’ loss to Texas A&M. This weekend’s date against Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava in Fayetteville will be possibly the lankiest QB duel on record.
– – –
(LW: 11)

13. Vanderbilt (2-2). It’s Bama Week for the Commodores, who have been counting on catching the Crimson Tide with a hangover for the better part of a century. Outside of a brief period following World War II, no such luck: Vandy is 2-36 in the series since 1960, with only 6 of those losses coming by single digits. Vandy’s most recent win, in 1984, was in Tuscaloosa; the last win in Nashville — recently singled out by Nick Saban as “the only place in the SEC that’s not hard to play” — came all the way back in 1969.
– – –
(LW: 13⬌)

14. Florida (2-2). The Gators opened as narrow favorites for this weekend’s game against UCF, an opportunity they can’t afford to miss: After UCF, there’s a good chance they won’t be favored again until the season finale against a zombie version of Florida State, by which point both teams are on track to be in the market for new head coaches.
(LW: 14⬌)

15. Auburn (2-3). The most hilarious moment in Auburn’s loss to Oklahoma came when the ABC broadcasting crew parroted Hugh Freeze’s claim that he doesn’t read criticism on the Internet because he’s so technologically inept “he can’t turn on his computer half the time.” First of all, Freeze is not an old man; he’s 55. Second of all, do they remember why he was forced to resign from Ole Miss?
– – –
(LW: 15⬌)

16. Mississippi State (1-4). Considering the circumstances — struggling, outmanned squad led by a true freshman quarterback … making his first career start … on the road … against the No. 1 team in the country — a 35-13 loss at Texas almost qualified as a moral victory. (The Longhorns were favored by 38.5 points.) Fledgling QB Michael Van Buren Jr. didn’t melt down, and the defense kept the game competitive for three quarters. Next up: An open date ahead of a … uh, trip to Georgia.
– – –
(LW: 16⬌)

Moment of Zen of the Week

one of our cheerleaders just absolutely demolished an oklahoma with some wild crouching tiger hidden dragon move pic.twitter.com/bTlRCFAIXx

— Brice (@dBriceJ) September 28, 2024

The post Monday Down South: College football has issues. Games like Alabama-Georgia keep transcending them all appeared first on Saturday Down South.

There are people out there who are convinced, and who will try to convince you, that in the era of Playoff expansion, games like this one don’t mean quite as much as they used to — that the CFP looms too large over the regular season; that the only games really matter now are the ones in December and January, eclipsing everything else; that the sport is somehow diminished by the fact that a single loss is no longer enough to automatically put a national contender’s championship ambitions in the freezer. They’re out there. Some of them are probably reading this.

They might even have a point, as far as it goes, about just how relentlessly and inescapably the Playoff is hyped as the season wears on, seeping into every crevice all the way down to random Wednesday night games in the Sun Belt with zero CFP ramifications whatsoever.

Where UGA/Bama is concerned, though, come Saturday night I would just ask the skeptics this: When they’re counting down to the kickoff, in real time, does the scene feel smaller than it used to? The stakes lower, somehow? When 1 of the 2 Heisman-caliber quarterbacks in this game trots out with the game on the line and one last drive to win it in the fourth quarter, are you thinking about the implications for December and January? When one of them is choking up in the post-game interview, a winner in one of the hardest-fought games of his life, while the other is limping off with a towel draped over his head to obscure his face, does it mean less?

In fact, the final score in Tuscaloosa does have long-term Playoff implications, big ones. No, the loser is not eliminated on the spot, any more than Georgia was when it lost to Alabama en route to winning the national title in 2022, or Bama was in any of the years (2011, 2012, 2015, 2017) when it rebounded from a regular-season loss to win it all under the banner of the CFP and the BCS.

But both teams do face tough schedules ahead, and the margin for error for the loser shrinks dramatically. Alabama still faces road trips to Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma, plus Missouri at home; Georgia still has to play at Texas and Ole Miss, and hosts the Vols in the most booby-trapped slate of Kirby Smart‘s tenure, by far.

Beyond merely making the cut, there’s also the matter of seeding, a novel concern: Only the eventual conference champion is eligible for a first-round bye in the 12-team format, and the winner on Saturday night moves to the inside lane in that race. Win or lose, there is no chance of either team coming out on the other side feeling like it can afford to shift into cruise control until after the weather turns, which has certainly not always been the case in the past.

But the skeptics are right: The Playoff is not everything, and there’s so much we miss if we allow it to define the scope of our vision. In a game like this, the past looms every bit as large as the future. Alabama and Georgia have been playing football for more than 120 years, and building up the kind of cross-border blood feud that can only exist between neighbors from Day 1. In all that time, this weekend marks just the 5th time they’ve met in the regular season with both teams ranked in the AP top 10. (It’s happened 6 times in the postseason, all since 2012.)

Georgia has won 42 straight regular-season games, and 16 straight true road games since an October 2020 loss… at Alabama. The Dawgs’ most recent loss came at the hands of the Crimson Tide, in a 27-24 upset last December that knocked Georgia out of the CFP and ushered Bama in, as did the one before that, in the 2021 SEC Championship Game. Altogether, the Tide have accounted for 5 of UGA’s 7 losses over the past 7 years, beginning with Tua Tagovailoa coming off the bench to lead a miraculous comeback in January 2018. The fact that Georgia snapped its four-decade championship drought by returning the favor 4 years later only made the triumph that much sweeter.

All of that comes to bear on Saturday night, in front of 100,000 people of questionable sanity and sobriety, in a collision of the two most talented rosters in the college game. In any context, Dawgs/Tide represents the pinnacle of the sport in its current era. That won’t be the case forever. But as long as it is, every chapter deserves to be savored on its own terms.

The stat: 32.5 yards

That’s the average distance of Alabama’s 19 touchdowns this season with Jalen Milroe in the lineup, 14 of which Milroe has accounted for himself (8 passing, 6 rushing). Including garbage time, Bama is the only team in the SEC that has scored the majority of its total touchdowns from outside of the red zone.

The connection between Alabama QB Jalen Milroe and WR Ryan Williams has been legit to start the season. Great deep ball from Milroe on this play pic.twitter.com/GwKF74sXxC

— Russell Brown (@RussNFLDraft) September 18, 2024

Big plays were the one aspect missing from last year’s upset win over Georgia in the SEC title game. Alabama’s touchdown drives in that game were methodical: 92 yards in 10 plays; 69 yards in 9 plays; 75 yards in 9 plays. The Tide’s longest gain of the game, a 30-yard run by Milroe, came on their final possession as they attempted (successfully) to run out the clock. His longest completion came courtesy of a wheel route the RB Jamarion Miller took 28 yards for Bama’s first touchdown. Milroe was just 2-for-6 on attempts of 20+ air yards, the strongest area of his game over the course of the season, and into this season as well.

Last year’s resident deep threats, Jermaine Burton and Isaiah Bond, departed for the NFL Draft and the Texas Longhorns, respectively. In their place, the Tide have plugged in precocious speedster Ryan Williams, a 17-year-old true freshman who clearly made the right call in skipping his senior year of high school to get a head start on campus. Four of Williams’ 10 receptions and 3 of his 4 touchdowns in the early going have come on receptions of 20+ air yards, yielding an average of 54.3 yards per catch on downfield grabs.

Of course, taking the lid off against Georgia is an entirely different challenge than going long against Western Kentucky or Wisconsin, especially with the best deep safety in the country, Malaki Starks, patrolling the back end. As a team, UGA has allowed just 1 completion of 20+ yards and has yet to give up a touchdown from any distance. If there’s any combination in America more capable of striking lightning than Milroe and Williams, though, I’m not sure who it is.

The big question: Is Georgia’s offense OK?

The Dawgs legitimately struggled in the their Week 3 win at Kentucky, finishing with 262 yards on 4.9 per play and failing to score a touchdown until the fourth quarter. (They also lost arguably their best offensive player, senior OL Tate Ratledge, to an ankle injury that will sideline him until at least midseason.) Combined with their sluggish first half against Clemson in the opener, they’ve been held out of the end zone in 5 of 8 quarters vs. Power 4 opponents.

Saturday night is a big game for Carson Beck, who depending on who you ask is either a legitimate first-round prospect or merely a product of ideal circumstances. If last year’s game elevated Milroe, it had the opposite effect for Beck, relegating him to “can he win the big one?” purgatory until, well, he wins a big one. Beck was 21-for-29 for 243 yards against the Tide, but didn’t throw for a touchdown, didn’t make much of a dent downfield (1-for-5 on attempts of 20+ air yards), and generally looked nondescript until mustering up a couple of late, futile TD drives in the fourth quarter.

His most memorable play of the day was the game’s only turnover, a botched exchange with a would-be ball carrier late in the third, which put Bama in the driver’s seat; a chip-shot field goal extended the Tide’s lead to 10 points, and eventually proved to be the winning margin. Just as Beck seemed to be ascending to the Heisman tier, he looked like just a guy. Winning in Tuscaloosa — where the only opposing QBs to win in the past 15 years are Cam Newton (2010), Johnny Manziel (2012), Joe Burrow (2019), and Quinn Ewers (2023) — and any lingering doubts about Beck’s big-game prowess will be memory holed in short order.

One silver lining in the win at Kentucky was the emergence of a couple of skill players, RB Trevor Etienne (90 total yards on 20 touches) and WR Dominic Lovett (6 catches for 89 yards), as the go-to back and receiver, respectively, which Georgia has not really had over the past few seasons due to its preference to spread the ball around as liberally as possible. Depending on your perspective, that can be read as an endorsement of Etienne and Lovett or an indictment of the rest of the surrounding cast, which came up bone-dry. There’s an abundance of options, but the Bulldogs are still trying to identify the real week-in, week-out dudes.

The key matchup: Alabama RT Elijah Pritchett vs. Georgia Edge Jalon Walker

Walker was a beast in the last matchup against Bama, finishing as Georgia’s most productive defender despite logging just 12 snaps on defense, per Pro Football Focus. On those handful of plays, he registered 5 QB pressures and 2 sacks, turning up the heat both as an edge rusher and as a spy to prevent Milroe from escaping the pocket. I love this play, in particular, which begins with Walker (No. 11) aggressively signaling for the wide receiver at the top of the formation to go in motion before Milroe does, and ends with Walker hawking down Milroe in the open field for the first of his 2 sacks.

https://twitter.com/JeffreyThumser/status/1762865802363953329/

Walker has been Georgia’s most disruptive presence in the early going, if only due to the absence of aspiring first-rounder Mykel Williams, who is listed as questionable to play Saturday due to an ankle injury that sidelined him for the previous 2 games. (“Mykel is gonna be close,” Kirby Smart told reporters.) The pass rush was arguably Georgia’s biggest question mark coming into the season, and still ranks at or near the top of the list.

On the other side, though, pass protection has been the biggest red flag for Alabama, which is still having nightmares about its Week 2 meltdown against South Florida. As a unit, Bama’s o-line was flagged for 8 penalties and allowed 3 sacks in a game that was much closer than the 42-13 final implied. The front looked vastly better in Week 3 against Wisconsin, largely due to return of both starting tackles, Pritchett on the right and Kadyn Proctor on the left, after missing all or most of the USF game with minor injuries; Milroe faced pressure on just 4 of his 18 drop-backs and the Tide weren’t flagged on a pass-blocking down. Georgia cannot allow them to finish with another clean sheet.

The verdict: Alabama 29, Georgia 23

Time will tell if the Kirby/Saban dynamic that has defined this rivalry goes in the books as the main theme, or merely as one chapter in a longer-running story. There is no personal history between Smart and Kalen DeBoer, whom SEC fans are still just getting to know. One thing that is already clear, though, is that expectations have not changed: The notion that the Crimson Tide might regress into some kind of post-Saban malaise went out the window when they won their first game of the DeBoer era 63-0. There is no setting in Tuscaloosa other than championship-or-bust. So far, this team and its bellcow of a quarterback look up to it. One way or the other, we’re about to find out.

The post Alabama vs. Georgia: The Ultimate Preview (and prediction) appeared first on Saturday Down South.

(All betting lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Game of the Week: Georgia (-2.5) at Alabama

The stakes

There are people out there who are convinced, and who will try to convince you, that in the era of Playoff expansion, games like this one don’t mean quite as much as they used to — that the CFP looms too large over the regular season; that the only games really matter now are the ones in December and January, eclipsing everything else; that the sport is somehow diminished by the fact that a single loss is no longer enough to automatically put a national contender’s championship ambitions in the freezer. They’re out there. Some of them are probably reading this.

They might even have a point, as far as it goes, about just how relentlessly and inescapably the Playoff is hyped as the season wears on, seeping into every crevice all the way down to random Wednesday night games in the Sun Belt with zero CFP ramifications whatsoever.

Where UGA/Bama is concerned, though, come Saturday night I would just ask the skeptics this: When they’re counting down to the kickoff, in real time, does the scene feel smaller than it used to? The stakes lower, somehow? When 1 of the 2 Heisman-caliber quarterbacks in this game trots out with the game on the line and one last drive to win it in the fourth quarter, are you thinking about the implications for December and January? When one of them is choking up in the post-game interview, a winner in one of the hardest-fought games of his life, while the other is limping off with a towel draped over his head to obscure his face, does it mean less?

In fact, the final score in Tuscaloosa does have long-term Playoff implications, big ones. No, the loser is not eliminated on the spot, any more than Georgia was when it lost to Alabama en route to winning the national title in 2022, or Bama was in any of the years (2011, 2012, 2015, 2017) when it rebounded from a regular-season loss to win it all under the banner of the CFP and the BCS.

But both teams do face tough schedules ahead, and the margin for error for the loser shrinks dramatically. Alabama still faces road trips to Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma, plus Missouri at home; Georgia still has to play at Texas and Ole Miss, and hosts the Vols in the most booby-trapped slate of Kirby Smart‘s tenure, by far.

Beyond merely making the cut, there’s also the matter of seeding, a novel concern: Only the eventual conference champion is eligible for a first-round bye in the 12-team format, and the winner on Saturday night moves to the inside lane in that race. Win or lose, there is no chance of either team coming out on the other side feeling like it can afford to shift into cruise control until after the weather turns, which has certainly not always been the case in the past.

But the skeptics are right: The Playoff is not everything, and there’s so much we miss if we allow it to define the scope of our vision. In a game like this, the past looms every bit as large as the future. Alabama and Georgia have been playing football for more than 120 years, and building up the kind of cross-border blood feud that can only exist between neighbors from Day 1. In all that time, this weekend marks just the 5th time they’ve met in the regular season with both teams ranked in the AP top 10. (It’s happened 6 times in the postseason, all since 2012.)

Georgia has won 42 straight regular-season games, and 16 straight true road games since an October 2020 loss… at Alabama. The Dawgs’ most recent loss came at the hands of the Crimson Tide, in a 27-24 upset last December that knocked Georgia out of the CFP and ushered Bama in, as did the one before that, in the 2021 SEC Championship Game. Altogether, the Tide have accounted for 5 of UGA’s 7 losses over the past 7 years, beginning with Tua Tagovailoa coming off the bench to lead a miraculous comeback in January 2018. The fact that Georgia snapped its four-decade championship drought by returning the favor 4 years later only made the triumph that much sweeter.

All of that comes to bear on Saturday night, in front of 100,000 people of questionable sanity and sobriety, in a collision of the two most talented rosters in the college game. In any context, Dawgs/Tide represents the pinnacle of the sport in its current era. That won’t be the case forever. But as long as it is, every chapter deserves to be savored on its own terms.

The stat: 32.5 yards

That’s the average distance of Alabama’s 19 touchdowns this season with Jalen Milroe in the lineup, 14 of which Milroe has accounted for himself (8 passing, 6 rushing). Including garbage time, Bama is the only team in the SEC that has scored the majority of its total touchdowns from outside of the red zone.

The connection between Alabama QB Jalen Milroe and WR Ryan Williams has been legit to start the season. Great deep ball from Milroe on this play pic.twitter.com/GwKF74sXxC

— Russell Brown (@RussNFLDraft) September 18, 2024

Big plays were the one aspect missing from last year’s upset win over Georgia in the SEC title game. Alabama’s touchdown drives in that game were methodical: 92 yards in 10 plays; 69 yards in 9 plays; 75 yards in 9 plays. The Tide’s longest gain of the game, a 30-yard run by Milroe, came on their final possession as they attempted (successfully) to run out the clock. His longest completion came courtesy of a wheel route the RB Jamarion Miller took 28 yards for Bama’s first touchdown. Milroe was just 2-for-6 on attempts of 20+ air yards, the strongest area of his game over the course of the season, and into this season as well.

Last year’s resident deep threats, Jermaine Burton and Isaiah Bond, departed for the NFL Draft and the Texas Longhorns, respectively. In their place, the Tide have plugged in precocious speedster Ryan Williams, a 17-year-old true freshman who clearly made the right call in skipping his senior year of high school to get a head start on campus. Four of Williams’ 10 receptions and 3 of his 4 touchdowns in the early going have come on receptions of 20+ air yards, yielding an average of 54.3 yards per catch on downfield grabs.

Of course, taking the lid off against Georgia is an entirely different challenge than going long against Western Kentucky or Wisconsin, especially with the best deep safety in the country, Malaki Starks, patrolling the back end. As a team, UGA has allowed just 1 completion of 20+ yards and has yet to give up a touchdown from any distance. If there’s any combination in America more capable of striking lightning than Milroe and Williams, though, I’m not sure who it is.

The big question: Is Georgia’s offense OK?

The Dawgs legitimately struggled in the their Week 3 win at Kentucky, finishing with 262 yards on 4.9 per play and failing to score a touchdown until the fourth quarter. (They also lost arguably their best offensive player, senior OL Tate Ratledge, to an ankle injury that will sideline him until at least midseason.) Combined with their sluggish first half against Clemson in the opener, they’ve been held out of the end zone in 5 of 8 quarters vs. Power 4 opponents.

Saturday night is a big game for Carson Beck, who depending on who you ask is either a legitimate first-round prospect or merely a product of ideal circumstances. If last year’s game elevated Milroe, it had the opposite effect for Beck, relegating him to “can he win the big one?” purgatory until, well, he wins a big one. Beck was 21-for-29 for 243 yards against the Tide, but didn’t throw for a touchdown, didn’t make much of a dent downfield (1-for-5 on attempts of 20+ air yards), and generally looked nondescript until mustering up a couple of late, futile TD drives in the fourth quarter.

His most memorable play of the day was the game’s only turnover, a botched exchange with a would-be ball carrier late in the third, which put Bama in the driver’s seat; a chip-shot field goal extended the Tide’s lead to 10 points, and eventually proved to be the winning margin. Just as Beck seemed to be ascending to the Heisman tier, he looked like just a guy. Winning in Tuscaloosa — where the only opposing QBs to win in the past 15 years are Cam Newton (2010), Johnny Manziel (2012), Joe Burrow (2019), and Quinn Ewers (2023) — and any lingering doubts about Beck’s big-game prowess will be memory holed in short order.

One silver lining in the win at Kentucky was the emergence of a couple of skill players, RB Trevor Etienne (90 total yards on 20 touches) and WR Dominic Lovett (6 catches for 89 yards), as the go-to back and receiver, respectively, which Georgia has not really had over the past few seasons due to its preference to spread the ball around as liberally as possible. Depending on your perspective, that can be read as an endorsement of Etienne and Lovett or an indictment of the rest of the surrounding cast, which came up bone-dry. There’s an abundance of options, but the Bulldogs are still trying to identify the real week-in, week-out dudes.

The key matchup: Alabama RT Elijah Pritchett vs. Georgia Edge Jalon Walker

Walker was a beast in the last matchup against Bama, finishing as Georgia’s most productive defender despite logging just 12 snaps on defense, per Pro Football Focus. On those handful of plays, he registered 5 QB pressures and 2 sacks, turning up the heat both as an edge rusher and as a spy to prevent Milroe from escaping the pocket. I love this play, in particular, which begins with Walker (No. 11) aggressively signaling for the wide receiver at the top of the formation to go in motion before Milroe does, and ends with Walker hawking down Milroe in the open field for the first of his 2 sacks.

https://twitter.com/JeffreyThumser/status/1762865802363953329/

Walker has been Georgia’s most disruptive presence in the early going, if only due to the absence of aspiring first-rounder Mykel Williams, who is listed as questionable to play Saturday due to an ankle injury that sidelined him for the previous 2 games. (“Mykel is gonna be close,” Kirby Smart told reporters.) The pass rush was arguably Georgia’s biggest question mark coming into the season, and still ranks at or near the top of the list.

On the other side, though, pass protection has been the biggest red flag for Alabama, which is still having nightmares about its Week 2 meltdown against South Florida. As a unit, Bama’s o-line was flagged for 8 penalties and allowed 3 sacks in a game that was much closer than the 42-13 final implied. The front looked vastly better in Week 3 against Wisconsin, largely due to return of both starting tackles, Pritchett on the right and Kadyn Proctor on the left, after missing all or most of the USF game with minor injuries; Milroe faced pressure on just 4 of his 18 drop-backs and the Tide weren’t flagged on a pass-blocking down. Georgia cannot allow them to finish with another clean sheet.

The verdict …

Time will tell if the Kirby/Saban dynamic that has defined this rivalry goes in the books as the main theme, or merely as one chapter in a longer-running story. There is no personal history between Smart and Kalen DeBoer, whom SEC fans are still just getting to know. One thing that is already clear, though, is that expectations have not changed: The notion that the Crimson Tide might regress into some kind of post-Saban malaise went out the window when they won their first game of the DeBoer era 63-0. There is no setting in Tuscaloosa other than championship-or-bust. So far, this team and its bellcow of a quarterback look up to it. One way or the other, we’re about to find out.
–     –      –
• Alabama 29 | Georgia 23

Kentucky at Ole Miss (-17.5)

Yeah, the Rebels ain’t played nobody, but you have to admit they’ve looked pretty dang good in the process. Through 4 games they lead the nation in total offense, yards per play and scoring offense; meanwhile, they’re also tied for first in scoring defense, which is not something I ever expected to writing about a Lane Kiffin outfit at any point. They’ve outscored their opponents to date 220 to 22, the widest margin in the country. Individually, QB Jaxson Dart leads all FBS quarterbacks in total offense, total touchdowns, yards per pass, pass efficiency and overall PFF grade. (Not to mention truck stick touchdown runs.) His leading receiver, Tre Harris, has a dozen more catches than any other SEC wideout and, assuming good health, is on pace for a 2,000-yard season.

THERE GOES THAT MAN @_treharris13 | #HottyToddy pic.twitter.com/QTNtw028to

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 22, 2024

We’ll see how that pace holds up against Kentucky, which as always under Mark Stoops will be determined to slow the proceedings to a crawl. The Wildcats’ first 4 opponents have averaged an FBS-low 46.5 snaps per game; even excluding the aborted season opener against Southern Miss, which was called due to lightning in the third quarter, the past 3 opponents have averaged just 51.7 plays, still the fewest in the nation, while UK has amassed a net 22-minute advantage in time of possession in those games. Ole Miss doesn’t necessarily need to have the ball a lot to score a lot — again, the Rebels are No. 1 in scoring while ranking 103rd in time of possession — but keep an eye on the clock when Kentucky has the ball. The more seconds are melting away while nothing in particular is going on, the bigger the impact 1 or 2 big swing plays in the Cats’ favor will stand to make, and the better the odds of a game that’s still within reach in the fourth quarter. (Even if it’s a snoozefest until then.)
–     –      –
Ole Miss 31 | • Kentucky 16

Arkansas at Texas A&M (-4.5)

Texas A&M has weirdly dominated this series, winning 11 of the past 12 against Arkansas since joining the SEC in 2012. (The Razorbacks’ lone victory in that span: A 20-10 upset in 2021.) I say “weirdly,” because the games themselves have been consistently competitive: 6 of those 11 losses have been decided by a touchdown or less, including 3 games that went to overtime and another (last year) that Arkansas led in the fourth quarter. Only two, a 45-24 decision in 2016 and a 58-10 blowout in 2012 — the breakout game for a then-unknown Johnny Manziel — have been decided by more than 12 points. The Aggies have been just a little bit better for a long time.

This year? Well, a good rule of thumb is that anytime one of these entries leads with historical trends, the history is more interesting than the teams at hand, both of which in this case remain fairly nondescript at this early point in the season. I am intrigued by Arkansas QB Taylen Green, a loping, 6-6 specimen with open-field speed, all the arm strength he needs, and a penchant for chaos in all directions. (See last week’s 24-14 win at Auburn, where he was 12-for-28 passing with 2 interceptions but also contributed 106 yards rushing, executed a flying karate kick in the open field, and uncorked a freelance touchdown pass that traveled nearly 60 yards in the air.) Green is the kind of player who terrifies everyone with a vested interest in the outcome either way and keeps it interesting for those of us who don’t. What else do you want from a battle for the inside track to the Music City Bowl?
–     –      –
Texas A&M 24 | • Arkansas 22

Mississippi State at Texas (-38.5)

While all are eyes on Texas’ star-studded QB room, spare a thought for Mississippi State’s new quarterback, true freshman Michael Van Buren Jr., whose first career start comes under some of the steepest circumstances imaginable: On the road, against the No. 1 team in the country, opposite a defense allowing 5.5 points per game, backed by a defense on his side that’s allowed 38.7 ppg vs. FBS opponents. Even the crowd at Darrell K. Royal Stadium, which has never had much of a reputation for volume, will be amped for the best Texas team in ages making its long-awaited debut in SEC play. This is probably the most lopsided point spread you’ll see in an SEC game this season, deservedly so. Getting Van Buren out in one piece with some kernel of his ego intact will count as a moral victory.
–     –      –
• Texas 51 | Mississippi State 10

Oklahoma (-1.5) at Auburn

Both offenses are in crisis mode behind center: Oklahoma, fresh off its Week 4 flop against Tennessee, is set trot out a true freshman, Michael Hawkins Jr., for his first career start in place of the freshly benched Jackson Arnold; Auburn, which conspicuously declined to pursue a transfer QB over the offseason, is stuck deciding between a pair of jobbers, Payton Thorne and Hank Brown, who have combined to throw 8 interceptions in 2 games vs. Power 4 opponents. For the Sooners, though, hitching their wagon to a fledgling quarterback on a notoriously tough road trip is only the beginning of the their woes.

Elsewhere, an injury bug has wiped out nearly the entire two-deep at wide receiver, with 5 members of the WR rotation appearing on the pregame injury report. Three familiar names are listed as “out” (Nic Anderson, Jalil Farooq and Jayden Gibson), and leading receiver Deion Burks is “questionable” with a soft-tissue injury. In the backfield, 4-star RB Taylor Tatum is “doubtful,” leaving an underwhelming ground game without arguably its best option. At least Auburn’s struggling QBs can always hand the ball off to Jarquez Hunter. If Burks is a scratch, Hawkins will be sinking or swimming with a crew only slightly less green than himself.
–     –      –
• Auburn 20 | Oklahoma 17

South Alabama at LSU (-21.5)

South Alabama’s offense has taken off the past 2 weeks in large part due to the emergence of true freshman RB Da’Marion “Fluff” Bothwell, a first-team All-Name pick who has run for 259 yards and 4 touchdowns on an outrageous 12.3 yards per carry in wins over Northwestern State (87-10) and Appalachian State (48-14). LSU’s defense has allowed multiple breakaway TD runs this season against Nicholls State and South Carolina; otherwise, the Tigers have held up fine against the run. I just refuse to pass up my only opportunity this season to type the name “Fluff Bothwell.”
–     –      –
• LSU 45 | South Alabama 18

OFF THIS WEEK: Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

Scoreboard

Week 4 record: 9-1 straight-up | 5-5 vs. spread
Season record: 47-7 straight-up | 33-18 vs. spread

The post Week 5 SEC Primer: Whenever, wherever, Alabama-Georgia remains as big as it gets appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

Can we get this man some real competition please? Over 4 nonconference games Dart has been lights out on a weekly basis, most recently in a 52-13 massacre over Georgia Southern that officially dropped the curtain on non-con play. As a team, the Rebels lead the nation in total offense, scoring offense and yards per play, having outscored their first 4 opponents by a combined 220 to 22. Individually, Dart leads the nation in total offense, total touchdowns, yards per pass, pass efficiency and overall PFF grade; he ranks No. 2 in completion percentage, No. 4 in raw QBR (unadjusted for schedule), No. 6 in Total QBR (adjusted for schedule) and 7th in EPA. His leading receiver, Tre Harris, has a dozen more catches than any other SEC wideout to date and 280 more yards.

https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1837661406545523155/

The Heisman campaign begins in earnest this weekend against Kentucky, which ranks 6th nationally in total defense and has already dislodged one quarterback from the top of the rankings this season in a Week 3 slugfest against Georgia. The Wildcats only allowed 1 touchdown in that game; Ole Miss has scored at least 1 touchdown in 14 of 16 quarters this season.
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(Last week: 2)

2. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Ewers is “questionable” to play in this weekend’s SEC opener against Mississippi State, per Steve Sarkisian, very likely leaving the ball in the hands of Arch Manning for at least 1 more Saturday while Ewers recuperates from a strained oblique. Manning ran hot and cold last week in his first career start, a 51-3 blowout over UL-Monroe, finishing 15-for-29 for 258 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, and a couple of highlight-reel throws amid a barrage of missed connections. (He was 3-for-10 on attempts of 20+ air yards, per PFF.) The question is academic for the trip to Starkville, which is followed by an open date in Week 6. That leaves plenty of time for Ewers to get right for Oklahoma on Oct. 12, by which time he should be well-rested and ready to put any lingering suspicion that his status as QB1 is in doubt to bed.
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(Last week: 1)

3. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

It’s Georgia week for the Crimson Tide, which arrives with all the usual implications for the conference standings, the Playoff pecking order, and, for Milroe, his nascent Heisman campaign. Last year’s 27-24 upset over the Dawgs in the SEC Championship Game was a career-defining performance at this level. It was his unquestionably his biggest win to date as a starter; it was also the moment he graduated from the “talented but erratic” phase of his career to the “proven commodity” phase, where Heisman buzz comes with the territory regardless of the numbers. Milroe’s stat line in that game was just OK (13-for-23, 192 yards, 2 TDs, 75.8 QBR), but in context he was ice-cold: 11 of his 13 completions went for first downs; he was a perfect 4-for-4 on a crucial 75-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter; and he sealed the deal with a pair of first-down runs on Bama’s final possession. Above all, he avoided the big mistake, putting to bed his reputation as a turnover machine. Non-Playoff wins don’t get much bigger.

This time, Milroe is the established part of an offense with a new coordinator and a largely new surrounding cast at the skill positions. The Tide’s leading rusher, leading receiver, and best o-lineman from last year’s win all moved on. Through 3 games, he’s looked the part, averaging 11.3 yards per attempt with 12 total touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a sky-high 213.4 efficiency rating. Now comes the real test, especially after last year’s semifinal loss to Michigan took some of the wind out of Milroe’s sails entering the offseason.

If a sustained Heisman run is in the cards, this is the week it gets off the ground.
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(Last week: 3⬌)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

Meanwhile, losing to Bama last December had the opposite effect on Beck’s reputation, relegating him to “can he win the big one?” purgatory until further notice. Beck was 21-for-29 for 243 yards against the Tide, but didn’t throw for a touchdown, didn’t make much of a dent downfield (1-for-5 on attempts of 20+ air yards), and generally looked nondescript until mustering up a couple of late, futile TD drives in the fourth quarter. His most memorable play of the day was the game’s only turnover, a botched exchange with a would-be ball carrier late in the third, which put Bama in the driver’s seat; a chip-shot field goal extended the Tide’s lead to 10 points, and eventually proved to be the winning margin. Just as Beck seemed to be ascending to the Heisman tier, he looked like just a guy.

Beck isn’t going to generate viral highlights or big numbers in the raw counting categories; his case begins and ends with whether he lives up to his team’s championship-or-bust mandate. He just barely cleared that bar his last time out, in a come-from-behind 13-12 win at Kentucky in Week 3 that no one was quite sure how to process. Deliver win in Tuscaloosa — where the only opposing QBs to win in the past 15 years are Cam Newton (2010), Johnny Manziel (2012), Joe Burrow (2019) and Quinn Ewers (2023) — and any lingering doubts about Beck’s big-game prowess will be memory holed in short order. (Or at least, you know, until the next one.) Otherwise, the empty line on his résumé where the big wins go risks looking a little bit emptier.
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(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Brady Cook | Missouri

Mizzou is off this week, so in Cook’s place I’m going to stray a little bit to talk about a quarterback well outside the SEC footprint: UNLV’s Matthew Sluka. (UNLV’s head coach is former Missouri coach Barry Odom, if you’re looking for a Mizzou connection.) Sluka, a 5th-year senior, was one of the more intriguing options in the portal last winter coming off an obscure but highly decorated career at Holy Cross, where he was a 2-time finalist for the Walter Payton Award, the FCS equivalent of the Heisman. He was off to a great start at UNLV, overseeing a 3-0 record and a pair of upsets over Big 12 opponents Houston and Kansas. The Runnin’ Rebels are the top-ranked G5 team in the updated Coaches’ poll, No. 2 in the AP poll, and very plausible contenders for the automatic Playoff slot reserved for the highest-ranked G5 conference champion. UNLV! Playoff contender! What a country!

Late Tuesday night, he threw the entire sport a curveball when he announced his intention to redshirt the rest of the season “based on certain representations that were made … which were not upheld.”

pic.twitter.com/oK5BDRpoxK

— Matthew Sluka (@MatthewSluka) September 25, 2024

You don’t have to read too hard between the lines there to draw the obvious conclusion: UNLV promised Sluka an undisclosed sum in NIL loot, Sluka feels like that promise hasn’t been and won’t be kept, and he has no intention of playing for chump change. Welcome to college football in 2024.

It stinks, to be clear. I hate writing about this stuff. Obviously, everyone in the sport is making it up on the fly as their ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly. They have no other choice, because the people in charge of the sport at every level refused to adapt when they had the chance, and have largely gone right on refusing even as the ground continues to shift beneath their feet. Rather than acknowledge reality — that there is simply too much money coursing through big-time college sports to continue to insist that athletes are “amateurs” who aren’t entitled to their fair share — they doubled down, attempted to defend the status quo in the courts, and got their hats handed to them at every turn.

Instead of something like a gradual, orderly transition to the NIL/free transfer era, suddenly they found themselves exposed without so much as a fig leaf of a plan as every big decision got made for them. Amateurism died a slow, inevitable death, and the NCAA is no closer to getting a grip on the ensuing chaos than it was when the process began. They’re still pleading with Congress — the currently existing Congress of the United States — to save them from ever having to utter the words “employee” or “union.”

So, here we are in the meantime, processing the fact that a rising star has abruptly bowed out in the middle of a promising season because the deal he agreed to apparently vanished into thin air. That this is just a thing that can happen now, and will go on happening indefinitely until there is some kind of process to ensure these contracts are tethered to reality. That means legal recognition for schools to pay players directly, rather than through an opaque and completely unregulated system of middlemen under the guise of “NIL.” And that means collective bargaining through the equivalent of a players union, which is the reason you never see this kind of janky free-for-all over contracts in the pros.

Which, let’s face it, is exactly what big-time college athletes are now in every meaningful respect: Pros. The sooner the people who run the sport concede to treating them like it, the sooner they can restore some semblance of sanity, and the sooner the rest of us can go back to never having to think about contracts and labor laws ever again.
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(Last week: 5⬌)

6. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier delivered his best game as a starter Saturday against UCLA, finishing 32-for-44 for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 34-17 win in Baton Rouge. He wasn’t picked, wasn’t sacked and uncorked a couple of beauties that are going straight on the draft reel.

https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1837591644461273224/

Nussmeier’s best work against the Bruins came after halftime, on a couple of long, time-consuming touchdown drives covering 96 and 92 yards, respectively, as LSU pulled away in a game that was tied 17-17 at the half. Nussmeier accounted for 140 of those yards on 10-of-15 passing, capped by his third TD pass (a short dump-off that freshman RB Caden Durham took the distance) to seal the deal. Playing against type, the Tigers dominated time of possession in the second half, converting 7-of-9 third downs, holding the ball for nearly 20 minutes, and limiting UCLA’s offense to just 22 snaps.
– – –
(Last week: 7)>

7. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

Iamaleava is a huge talent, clearly, but his life as QB1 has been made vastly easier by the fact that Tennessee has yet to really need him to be. In his 5 career starts, the Vols have averaged nearly 300 yards rushing, forced 10 takeaways on defense, and allowed a grand total of 28 points. Half of that total came in Saturday’s 25-15 win at Oklahoma, when the Sooners tacked on a couple of late, futile touchdowns in the fourth quarter; prior to that, Tennessee’s defense hadn’t allowed a TD in 19 consecutive quarters dating to last year. In that context, the glimpses of Iamaleava’s potential have tended to count for a lot more than the growing pains.

This 25 yard laser beam from 2026 NFL Draft prospect & Tennessee Vols RS Fr. QB Nico Iamaleava >

Would like to see Head Coach Josh Heupel & Nico rip it more. pic.twitter.com/YKPwB89PCC

— Clint Goss (@NFLDraftDome) September 22, 2024

Oh, we’d all love to see him rip it more, even as the ripping remains a work in progress. Excluding his lone touchdown against OU, Iamaleava was just 2-for-9 on attempts of 10+ air yards, on 20 attempts total. For a 20-year-old sophomore making his first career road start opposite a Brent Venables defense, that’s just fine. (Two lost fumbles in his own territory, not so much, although again the defense immediately bailed him out on both occasions.) The kid has the juice. We’ll find out just how much when his team actually needs it.
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(Last week: 6)

8. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

All 3 of Vandy’s games against FBS opponents this season have been decided on essentially the last play, either in the dying seconds of regulation or in overtime. Whether  that means anything in the Commodores’ ongoing quest for an SEC win, I have no idea, but as long as Pavia is in the fold, the journey is going to be a lot more interesting than usual. He’s currently accounting for 70.6% of the team’s total offense.
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(Last week: 11)

9. Marcel Reed | Texas A&M

Last week, Mike Elko said the name at the top of the depth chart is “probably going to be a game-time decision for the rest of the season” between Reed and Conner Weigman, because “that’s just how we handle things.” Make of that what you will. This week, at least, the distinction belongs to Reed, who went the distance Saturday in a 26-20 win over Bowling Green — fine, hardly a gavel-banger. A&M’s output against BGSU was slightly less alarming when you adjust for consistently bad field position, with Reed personally accounting for 264 total yards and two touchdowns passing without a turnover. Whether that continues to inspire confidence as the Aggies resume SEC play, we’ll just have to find out.
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(Last week: 8)

10. Taylen Green | Arkansas

Green was a basket case Saturday in a 24-14 win at Auburn, finishing 12-for-27 with 2 interceptions and a fumble. Still, he was spared the hair shirt for 3 reasons: 1) The Razorbacks managed to win a game they had to have to keep their heads above water in conference play; 2) Green’s Auburn counterparts were worse, combing to throw 4 picks on the day; and 3) He continued to show flashes of his enormous upside.

WHAT A BEAUTY pic.twitter.com/rQPht6GcUa

— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) September 21, 2024

At his best, Green is a freakish specimen who looks and moves like prime Colin Kaepernick. The rest of the time, he looks like he’s in a movie where the plot is that he forgets everything when he goes to bed and has to relearn the game from scratch every time out.
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(Last week: 9)

11. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

There is no controversy in Carolina, where backup Robby Ashford just accounted for 376 total yards and 3 touchdowns in a 50-7 romp over Akron while Sellers nursed a sore ankle. If you need a reminder as to why, go back and watch the second half of the Gamecocks’ 36-33 loss to LSU in Week 3; they led that one at the the half, 24-16, but effectively abandoned the concept of the forward pass after Ashford replaced a gimpy Sellers at halftime. That was consistent with Ashford’s one-dimensional track record at Auburn, where he was relegated to a “change of pace” role behind Payton Thorne. A veteran insurance policy is nice to have in a pinch — or when it’s time to run wild against the dregs of the MAC — but there’s little doubt when SEC play resumes against Ole Miss in Week 6 that Sellers’ arm is the one that gives them a chance.
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(Last week: 12)

12. Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway | Florida

This space (like most spaces) has been tough on Mertz, calling on multiple occasions for him to be benched outright in favor of Lagway. So credit where it’s due: Mertz was in full command at Mississippi State, finishing 19-for-21 for 201 yards and throwing 3 TDs to 3 different receivers in a badly needed, 45-28 win in Starkville that snapped a seven-game losing streak vs. FBS opponents dating back to last year. His 218.0 passer rating and 95.1 QBR both represented his best numbers as a Gator.

Granted, that probably says a lot more about the state of state of Mississippi State’s defense than it does about Mertz, who is who he is after 46 career starts. Lagway, rotating in every third series, was 7-for-7 passing for 76 yards off the bench and oversaw a couple of extended touchdown drives covering 91 and 93 yards, respectively; the Bulldogs are quite bad. We’ll see how long the rotation holds up against a brutal schedule on the other side of an open date. In the meantime, the Gators are due for a momentary reprieve from the angst.
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(Last week: 15)

13. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Vandagriff turned in a routine stat line (17-for-24, 237 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs) in a routine, 41-6 win over Ohio, both reassuring signs after Kentucky failed to crack the end zone in either of its previous 2 games against South Carolina and Georgia. Encouragingly, he did most of his damage against the Bobcats downfield, going 8-for-12 for 177 yards on attempts of 10+ yards; his average depth of target, 12.1 yards, tied for the highest in the SEC in Week 4. Against Carolina and UGA, he was a combined 4-for-11 on attempts of 10+ air yards with an ADOT of 9.7 yards and a pick-6.

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(Last week: 16)

14. Michael Hawkins Jr. | Oklahoma

If you had Week 4 in the “How long will it take Jackson Arnold to play his way out of a job?” office pool, come on down: Arnold is officially out this week following a debacle of a performance against Tennessee; Hawkins, a true freshman who came off the bench in the first half against the Vols and finished the game, is in. His his first career start comes this weekend at Auburn.

Given how much Oklahoma has invested in Arnold as the rising face of the program, his failure to make it out of the first half of his first SEC start was shocking in an abstract sort of way. In real time, it was hardly a choice at all. It was a no-brainer: By halftime, Arnold had thrown a ghastly interception, lost 2 fumbles and managed to put just 3 points on the board. The second quarter, in particular, was a nightmare: OU’s 5 possessions yielded 2 fumbles, 2 3-and-outs and a safety, all in 3 plays or less. The Sooners ran a grand total of 9 plays in the quarter for minus-22 yards, by the end of which Arnold had given way to Hawkins and the home crowd had given up any hope of mustering enough offense in the second half to rally from a 19-3 deficit. His 1.3 QBR rating (out of a possible 100) is the worst by an SEC quarterback in the QBR database since 2005, coming in a tick below Brock Vandagriff’s 1.4 against South Carolina in Week 2.

Enter the freshman. As a recruit, Hawkins was a borderline 3/4-star who enrolled in January with the expectation he’d be sitting for at least 2 years before getting his shot, pending Arnold’s health. An outright benching was not on the timeline, but here he is.

Hawkins did lead a couple of late, ultimately meaningless touchdown drives against Tennessee in the fourth quarter, covering 68 and 76 yards, to make the final score look halfway respectable. And he surely won over some segment of the fan base on the second one, going airborne to set up a score that put Oklahoma within a 2-point conversion of being within an onside kick of making things interesting in the closing minute. (Both the subsequent 2-point conversion and onside kick failed.)

OU Michael Hawkins Jr. SOMERSAULT pic.twitter.com/iBXeHbWMMg

— Real Friends & Football (@rff_football) September 22, 2024

The official policy of the Rankings re: lipstick-on-a-pig drives in garbage time is to tread lightly. Hawkins outplayed Arnold, but only after the game was effectively out of reach; he was cromulent when kept clean, but defaulted to scramble mode ASAP when he wasn’t, which was most of the time. Standard freshman stuff. We’ll see how it goes. As of this writing, I assume OU boosters are resigning themselves to cutting a very large check in a few months to the best available option in the portal.
– – –
(Last week: n/a)

15. Payton Thorne or Hank Brown | Auburn

Ah, speaking of the portal. Hugh Freeze infamously declined to pursue a big-ticket transfer last winter to replace Thorne, even admitting in an interview earlier this year that he “couldn’t bring myself” to making the seven-figure commitment required these days to land a starting-caliber quarterback. Instead, he’s paying on the field and in the media as the season threatens to unravel.

The incumbent, Thorne, got the hook earlier this month after throwing 4 interceptions in a 21-14 loss to Cal-Berkeley in Week 2. The understudy, Brown, made a good first impression, throwing 4 TDs in a tune-up win over New Mexico in Week 3, but melted down in Saturday’s SEC opener against Arkansas, serving up 3 INTs in the first half. (All 3 of them coming from a clean pocket.)

Brown joined Jackson Arnold in the single-digit QBR Club, turning in a 9.5 in a little less than 2 quarters’ worth of work. Thorne finished the game against the Razorbacks, throwing 2 touchdown passes in the second half — as well as another INT that was not his fault — but never touched the ball with a chance to take the lead, and at no point made the home crowd forget why he’d been benched in the first place.

Freeze said this week (among other things) that “it’s going to be a battle” to determine QB1 against Oklahoma, apparently leaving open the possibility that Brown might return to the top line despite suffering the more recent crack-up. True freshman Walker “Don’t Call Me Walter” White is also available for “building toward the future” duty, before people start wondering why the QB of the future remains buried behind the visibly struggling QBs of the present. With the Sooners up and road trips to Georgia and Missouri on deck, Freeze needs as many options at his disposal as he can get.
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(Last week: n/a, 13)

16. Michael Van Buren Jr. | Mississippi State

Van Buren mopped up against Florida in place of Blake Shapen, who announced Sunday that he’s out for the season with a shoulder injury. With respect to Shapen’s health, that’s not exactly devastating news for the rest of the season: Mississippi State is certain to be a decided underdog in every conference game regardless of who’s taking the snaps, and Van Buren, a 4-star prospect from Baltimore, has a chance to settle into the job for the foreseeable future. At the rate the Bulldogs’ season is going, letting him take his lumps in a classic Year Zero situation would have made sense even if Shapen was still available.
– – –
(Last week: n/a)

• • •

The post Week 5 SEC QB Power Rankings: Jalen Milroe vs. Carson Beck, Round 2 appeared first on Saturday Down South.

• Jackson Arnold flames out
• LSU faces life without Harold Perkins Jr.
• Players of the week, the Superlatives Standings, and updated power rankings

… and more takeaways, trends, and technicalities from Week 4 in the SEC. But first:

Pay up front or pay for it later

How much is a starting quarterback worth?

Historically, that kind of question was strictly the domain of backrooms and bagmen. In the NIL era, something like an actual market is beginning to emerge. Based on a rough estimate by the New York Times earlier this year, the average FBS quarterbacks is “worth” $820,000 in NIL transactions; for an SEC-caliber starter, that number is notably higher. Per On3.com, 8 SEC quarterbacks have valuations north of $1 million, led by Arch Manning at $3.1 million. (Nationally, only Shedeur Sanders is valued higher, at $5.1 million.) For a plausible Heisman candidate — Quinn Ewers, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart, Carson Beck, Nico Iamaleava — the valuation is in the $2 million range, give or take $100k. For a 5-star prospect in the development phase who isn’t named Manning (your Jackson Arnolds and DJ Lagways), the number is around $1 million. Again, give or take.

These are estimates, not hard-and-fast figures based on actual contracts. Like it or not, though, if you expect to compete in the SEC now or at any point in the near future, that’s the baseline of what your NIL operation should expect to spend on a QB who gives you a chance.

Hugh Freeze, a seasoned veteran of the recruiting wars, understands the new dynamic as well as anyone. So he also understood that, when he admitted earlier this year that the reason Auburn had failed to land a big-ticket transfer to replace its pedestrian incumbent, Payton Thorne (On3 valuation: $360k), was that Freeze “couldn’t bring himself” to make that kind of commitment, he was making a very public bet on his existing options. “I believe in our quarterback room,” he said at the time, emphasizing that he felt Auburn’s limited resources were better spent on upgrading the surrounding cast. “I believe that if you have the right pieces around Payton that we can have success.”

Less than a month into the season, even Freeze can’t bring himself to pretend he’s still a believer, or that his bet has any realistic chance of paying off. “I have no idea sitting here right now,” he told reporters following Saturday’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas, referring to the immediate outlook for the most important position on the field with Oklahoma, Georgia, and Missouri on deck over the next three games. “We’ve got to find a guy that won’t throw it to the other team.”

Alas, the time for that in 2024 has long passed. The guys Freeze believed in back when the portal window was open can’t stop throwing it to the other team. Through 4 games, Thorne has been derided, benched, and buried — only to be improbably exhumed Saturday when his lightly recruited understudy, redshirt freshman Hank Brown (no valuation), was reduced to a puddle upon his first exposure to SEC competition. Two weeks after watching Thorne play his way out of a job in a 4-interception meltdown against Cal, the crowd in Jordan-Hare Stadium watched in disbelief as Brown served up 3 picks in the first half against the Razorbacks, in what was supposed to be 1 of the 2 or 3 most winnable games on the conference schedule. Brown lasted just 2 quarters; Thorne came off the bench at halftime, threw a couple of touchdown passes as well as a 4th INT that caromed off his receiver’s hands, and never touched the ball with a chance to take the lead. If anyone on hand was willing to be persuaded that that represented the beginning of a comeback from the Cal debacle, Freeze wasn’t one of them.

“I know that there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football,” Freeze said, immediately after calling 39 passes for his struggling QBs vs. 22 runs. “The scheme is what most everybody in the country is running, some sort of. But you’ve got to have a good quarterback in whatever system you’re going to choose.”

On that, Freeze and his critics can agree. That’s the reason, after all, that all of them and their mothers assumed Auburn would be aggressive on the transfer market last winter, long after it had become clear in the course of a 6-7 campaign in Freeze’s first season that Thorne was never going to be a threat to reliably complete passes against the top half of the schedule. That’s where teams without the luxury of a good quarterback on the roster go to find one, if they’re willing to pay the going rate. Teams that aren’t can always browse the bargain bin, where Auburn picked up Thorne from Michigan State in the spring of 2023 out of necessity, or swear by the old-fashioned developmental model and hope for the best.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the portal is going to deliver bang for the buck. (Ask Florida State.) But it is a choice, and for Auburn, which pays Freeze $6.5 million per year to field a competitor and his staff nearly as much, it is very much a choice the Tigers can afford. With each passing week it’s becoming clearer that Freeze, in his decision to prioritize improving everywhere except behind center, chose poorly.

Boomer Bust

Our next stop on the tour of QB Purgatory is Oklahoma, where Brent Venables also made a fateful choice last winter: To let his incumbent starter, Dillon Gabriel, portal out in favor of elevating the gem of the Sooners’ 2023 recruiting class, Jackson Arnold. It says an awful lot about the power of the 5-star hype that followed Arnold to Norman that the choice was not considered especially controversial, or necessarily even that much of a choice. Arnold seemed like a natural successor; he’d bided his time, paid his dues as a freshman, and in Year 2 his time had come.

Given how much Oklahoma has invested in Arnold as the rising face of the program, his failure to make it out of the first half of his first SEC start, an eventual 25-15 loss to Tennessee in Norman, was shocking in an abstract sort of way. But then, given his actual performance in real time, it was hardly a choice at all. It was a no-brainer: By halftime, Arnold had thrown a ghastly interception, lost 2 fumbles, and managed to put just 3 points on the board. The second quarter, in particular, was a nightmare: Oklahoma’s 5 possessions in the frame yielded 2 fumbles, 2 3-and-outs and a safety, all in 3 plays or less. The Sooners ran a grand total of 9 plays in the quarter for minus-22 yards, by the end of which Arnold had given way to true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. and the home crowd had given up any hope of mustering enough offense in the second half to rally from a 19-3 deficit.

Hawkins did lead a couple of late, ultimately meaningless touchdown drives in the fourth covering 68 and 76 yards to make the final score look halfway respectable, but those were purely cosmetic scores in the lipstick-on-a-pig sense. Even including the late drives, OU’s final output (222 yards on 3.3 per play) represented one of its worst outings of the past decade. To put up that kind of line at home, in the program’s SEC debut, was depressing enough. To do it on the same weekend that fellow SEC newcomer Texas solidified its grasp on the No. 1 spot in the polls was worse. And looking ahead at a schedule that still includes Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU is downright alarming. Barring a miracle, the Sooners are in trouble.

Venables said following the game that he plans to “evaluate” the quarterback situation ahead of this weekend’s trip to Auburn, a collision of pure desperation. For what it’s worth, Hawkins outplayed Arnold on Saturday and surely won over some segment of the fan base by going airborne on a late touchdown drive that put Oklahoma within a 2-point conversion of being within an onside kick of making things interesting in the closing minute. (Both the subsequent 2-point conversion and onside kick failed.)

OU Michael Hawkins Jr. SOMERSAULT pic.twitter.com/iBXeHbWMMg

— Real Friends & Football (@rff_football) September 22, 2024

Just how much it’s worth in Venables’ estimation is TBD. It would be one thing is Arnold had been playing well prior to Saturday night, in which case it would be easier to chalk up Saturday night to bad breaks for a young QB and wipe the slate clean. But Arnold also looked mediocre in his previous 2 games against Houston and Tulane, and his performance on Saturday wasn’t just bad: It was a debacle, resulting in a 1.3 Total QBR score; that’s the worst single-game number for an SEC quarterback in the QBR database since 2005, coming in just below the abysmal 1.4 score posted a couple weeks back by Kentucky’s Brock Vandagriff in the Wildcats’ Week 2 loss to South Carolina. When you consider the standard set for Oklahoma quarterbacks over the past decade, that’s the kind of night there may be no coming back from.

Harold Perkins: Past his peak?

Grim news on the injury front out of Baton Rouge: LSU linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., one of the most gifted and enigmatic players in America, is out for the year due to a torn ACL suffered in the Tigers’ 34-17 win over UCLA. Whether the end of his season means the end of his college career remains TBD. Because the injury occurred (barely) within the 4-game redshirt window, Perkins will be eligible for a medical redshirt that preserves 2 years of eligibility, if he wants them; he’ll also be eligible for the 2025 Draft, where he’s seemed destined to be a high first-round pick from his early days on campus. That will be his decision to make over the coming months. Either way, the memory of the supremely talented, multi-purpose phenom who burst onto the scene as a freshman continues to recede further into the distance.

The sample size of Perkins at his best ultimately amounts to just a few weeks over the second half of his freshman campaign in 2022, in particular a couple of indelible performances on consecutive Saturdays against Alabama and Arkansas. In the former, he terrorized reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young in a season-defining upset; in the latter, he memorably stole the show against the Razorbacks in a win that clinched the SEC West crown for LSU and cemented Perkins’ reputation as a rising star. Nearly 2 years later, that game is still the indelible image when it comes to waxing rhapsodic about his potential, despite the fact that his production and his sizzle reel have steadily diminished as his role in LSU’s defense has evolved into something more like the conventional linebacker he’s projected to be in the NFL.

https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1591490720866750465/

The Tigers didn’t really seem to know what to do with his unique skill set in 2023, even though he remained clearly the best player on a suddenly bereft unit. While the rest of the defense collapsed around him, Perkins held up his end of the bargain, leading the team in solo tackles, tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures and forced fumbles en route to a second-team All-SEC nod from league coaches. He was still LSU’s best pass rusher, by far, and arguably their best player on the back end, too, posting a team-high 81.1 PFF coverage grade. (His lone interception on the year was a clutch one, initiating a comeback from a double-digit deficit to beat Missouri.) As advertised, there was nothing they could ask him to do that he couldn’t handle in a pinch.

Still, for all the hype, he was never the kind of difference-maker he’d been in ’22. Where was the pass-rushing juice that set him apart? The absurd range and closing speed in the open field? Perkins dropped into coverage almost twice as often as he rushed the passer; he generated fewer sacks and significantly fewer QB pressures despite playing significantly more snaps overall. Before his injury Saturday, he’d generated just 4 pressures in 4 games this year, and had yet to record a sack. On the decisive drive in the Tigers’ opening-night loss to USC, he was left loitering in short zone coverage while USC’s Miller Moss had all the time he needed to march the Trojans 75 yards for the winning touchdown.

All of which is to say that if the best we ever see of Perkins at this level was a fleeting glimpse of his freakish peak for a few weeks as an 18-year-old, it will go down as a disappointment and a severely missed opportunity. Some comparisons come to mind, among them Marcus Lattimore, the former South Carolina running back who peaked in an instant-classic freshman campaign in 2010 before major knee injuries derailed his career. Of course, Perkins’ career is not necessarily derailed; a torn ACL is serious, especially for an athlete whose primary asset is an explosive first step, but not the end of the world. He could be back at LSU next year, rehabbed and ready to fulfill the prophecies. Regardless, as long as he can pass a physical he will get his shot at the next level whenever he decides to take it. But it will not be the straight shot his gifts once promised, and the moment when he was considered “can’t miss” is beginning to seem like a long time ago.

Drive of the Week

Hogs run to win. Arkansas led Auburn, 17-14, early in the fourth quarter of a game defined by turnovers and erratic quarterback play on both sides. Auburn, desperate for a spark on offense, had just narrowed a 10-point deficit to 3 points on a 4th-down gamble that paid off in a 67-yard touchdown pass on the previous possession. The Razorbacks, their grip on the game slipping, opened the ensuing possession with 3 straight incomplete passes by Taylen Green — the last of which, however, drew a pass interference penalty to extend the drive. The flag fell at the 9:28 mark, after which Green would not put the ball in the air again.

Instead, it suddenly dawned on play-caller Bobby Petrino that he had a backfield featuring Green (listed at 230 pounds), Braylen Russell (253) and Ja’Quinden Jackson (233), and he embraced the grind.

From that point on, Arkansas kept it on the ground on 16 consecutive plays to close the game, including a game-clinching, 10-play, 60-yard march to the end zone that drained 6 minutes off the clock and extended the lead to 24-14 with too little time left for the Tigers to respond. “We just basically talked about it before we went out there like, ‘Hey, we have to score on this drive’ and we did it,” said Jackson, who scored the door-slamming TD from a yard out. “It was a huge drive. We brought it up in the locker room. We dropped 75 yards [when] we needed it the most.”

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Arkansas DB TJ Metcalf. A true sophomore making his first career start in SEC play, Metcalf was everywhere against Auburn, playing a role in 4 of the Razorbacks’ 5 takeaways while posting a clean sheet in coverage. On top of picking off 2 passes — the result of an overthrow and a deflection off the intended receiver’s hands, respectively — Metcalf also had a hand (literally) in a 3rd pick, a tipped pass that was collected by teammate Doneiko Slaughter; a little later, he was responsible for a huge swing play when he stripped Auburn RB Damari Alston in the open field to prevent an apparent touchdown shortly before the half.

pic.twitter.com/mhGhiWt3WN

— sup (@TalkingHooops) September 21, 2024

The Tigers didn’t complete a pass at Metcalf’s expense, per PFF, going 0-for-3 in his direction; his 88.3 coverage grade was the best among all SEC defenders in Week 4 with at least 20 coverage snaps. Remember the name, because he’s going to be around for a while.

2. LSU edge Bradyn Swinson. LSU’s pass rush underachieved in 2023, and identifying someone other than Harold Perkins Jr. capable of turning up the heat was a top priority in ’24. Swinson, a late-blooming transfer from Oregon, is rising to the occasion. Coming off a breakout game at South Carolina in Week 3, he was a full-blown terror against UCLA, generating 6 QB pressures, 2 sacks and a forced fumble in a 34-17 win in Baton Rouge.

https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1837598029769064850/

That’s 2 consecutive games with multiple sacks and a forced fumble (both recovered by LSU), matching his output in both categories for all of last season. With Perkins on the shelf, the Tigers are banking on more of the same from Swinson on a weekly basis.

3. LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier. UCLA’s struggling secondary was ripe for the picking and Nussmeier took advantage, finishing 32-for-44 for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Bruins in his best game yet as a starter. He wasn’t picked, wasn’t sacked and uncorked a couple of beauties that are going straight on the draft reel.

https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1837591644461273224/

His best work came after halftime, on a couple of long, time-consuming touchdown drives covering 96 and 92 yards, respectively, as LSU pulled away in a game that was tied 17-17 at the half. Nussmeier accounted for 140 of those yards on 10-for-15 passing, capped by his 3rd TD pass (a short dump-off that freshman RB Caden Durham took the distance) to seal the deal. Playing against type, the Tigers dominated time of possession in the second half, converting 7-of-9 3rd downs, holding the ball for nearly 20 minutes, and limiting UCLA’s offense to just 22 snaps.

4. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart and WR Tre Harris. Can we get these guys some real competition, please? The Rebels laid absolute waste to the nonconference slate, closing out the target practice portion of the schedule Saturday with a 52-13 massacre of Georgia Southern. Despite the margin, Dart went nearly wire to wire, finishing with a typically fat stat line (22-for-31, 382 yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT) before calling it on a night on Ole Miss’ final possession. As usual, the lion’s share of that output came courtesy of his prolific connection with Harris, whose 11 catches went for a career-high 225 yards and 2 touchdowns, the first of which covered a career-long 70 yards.

https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1837661406545523155/

It’s been that kind of month. The Rebels outscored their 4 nonconference opponents by a combined 220-22, the widest scoring margin in the country.

5. Florida QB Graham Mertz. This space has been tough on Mertz, calling on multiple occasions for him to be benched outright in favor of blue-chip freshman DJ Lagway. (At least I can say I wasn’t alone on that one.) So credit where it’s due: Mertz was in full command at Mississippi State, finishing 19-for-21 for 201 yards and throwing 3 TDs to 3 different receivers in a badly needed, 45-28 win in Starkville that snapped a 7-game losing streak vs. FBS opponents dating to last year. His 218.0 passer rating and 95.1 QBR both represented his best numbers as a Gator.

Granted, that probably says a lot more about the state of state of Mississippi State’s defense than it does about Mertz, who’s not exactly a candidate to turn over a new leaf in his 46th career start. Lagway, rotating in every third series, was 7-for-7 passing for 76 yards off the bench and oversaw a couple of extended touchdown drives covering 91 and 93 yards, respectively; the Bulldogs are quite bad. We’ll see how long the dynamic holds up against a brutal schedule on the other side of an open date in Week 5. In the meantime, the Gators are due for an extended reprieve from the angst.

Fat Guy of the Week

LSU OL Will Campbell. Coming off a subpar Week 3 performance (by his standards) against South Carolina, Campbell was his usual rock-solid self on the blindside against UCLA, shutting out opposing pass rushers on 47 pass-blocking snaps, per PFF. Altogether, he posted the weekend’s top grades among SEC lineman as both a pass blocker (90.1) and a run blocker (83.5), just one more step on his way to going out as LSU’s most decorated offensive lineman since the turn of the century.

Honorable Mention: Texas RB Jaydon Blue, who ran for a career-high 124 yards with 3 touchdowns and added another TD as a receiver in a 51-3 romp over UL-Monroe. … Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr., who had an interception and a sack on a dominant night for the Texas defense. … Tennessee DL Joshua Josephs, who forced 2 fumbles along with a TFL and 3 QB pressures in the Vols’ defensively-driven win at Oklahoma. … Tennessee DB Jermod McCoy, who picked off a pass against OU, broke up another and didn’t allow a reception on 4 targets. … Arkansas DB Doneiko Slaughter, who had a team-high 7 tackles and an interception against Auburn. … Auburn DB Champ Anthony, who broke up all 3 passes targeted in his direction against the Razorbacks. … Kentucky WR Dane Key, who had 7 catches for a career-high 145 yards and fully hurdled a dude in a 41-6 win over Ohio. … Missouri WR Luther Burden III, who accounted for 116 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns in a double-overtime win over Vanderbilt, including the game-tying TD in the first overtime. … Missouri RB Nate Noel, who ran for 199 yards on 8.3 per carry. … Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, who accounted for 252 total yards and threw 2 TD passes in a losing effort. … Texas A&M edge rushers Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner, who combined for 6 QB pressures and 2 sacks in the Aggies’ win over Bowling Green. … And Ole Miss LB Chris Paul Jr., who record 10 tackles, 7 QB pressures and 2 sacks in the Rebels’ blowout win over Georgia Southern.

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The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, 2 for Fat Guy of the Week, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the Year of the Week

WHAT A BEAUTY pic.twitter.com/rQPht6GcUa

— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) September 21, 2024

Obscure Stat of the Week

Kickers Blake Craig (Missouri) and Brock Taylor (Vanderbilt) combined to miss 5 field-goal attempts in Mizzou’s double-overtime win over the ‘Dores, with 4 of the errant kicks coming in the 4th quarter and overtime. Craig, who finished 3-for-6 on the day, is the only FBS kicker to miss 3 field goals in a game this season, and the first SEC kicker with 3 misses since October 2021, when Vandy’s Joseph Bulovas went 0-for-3 in a 42-0 loss at Florida.

On the other side of the ledger, though, both kickers also came up big from long-range, with Taylor nailing a 57-yarder just before halftime and Craig connecting on a 54-yarder in the 3rd quarter. Craig also came through from 37 yards out in the 2nd overtime, which turned out to be the game-winner when Taylor subsequently hooked a 31-yard attempt to tie. With that, Mizzou improved to 6-0 in 1-score games over the past 2 seasons.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (4-0). All anybody cared about in the Longhorns’ blowout win over UL-Monroe was Arch Manning’s first career start, but the night belonged to the UT defense. While Manning ran hot and cold, the D was a rock, holding the Warhawks and starting QB General Booty to 2.2 yards per play, 7 first downs and a single possession that crossed the 50-yard line. ULM’s longest gain of the night covered 23 yards, setting up its only points via field goal; otherwise, it didn’t run a play that gained more than 8.
–     –     –
(LW: 1⬌)

2. Georgia (3-0). It’s Bama-Georgia week! UGA has made just 4 previous trips to Tuscaloosa since the conference’s 1992 expansion, most recently in the 2020 pandemic campaign. Prior to that you have to go all the way back to 2007, in a game that marked a) Nick Saban’s first loss as Bama’s head coach, and b) Georgia’s last regular-season win over the Tide to this day.
–     –     –
(LW: 2⬌)

3. Alabama (3-0). Per 247Sports’ Composite Rating, there are 143 active players on FBS rosters who began their careers as 5-star recruits; 31 of them play for Alabama or Georgia, or 21.7% of the total. Excluding the SEC, that’s more than any other conference, including the Big Ten, which has 29 former 5-stars across the entire league.
–     –     –
(LW: 3⬌)

4. Tennessee (4-0). Vols played it safe with Nico Iamaleava in his first true road start, wisely. He was just 3-for-10 on attempts of 10+ air yards, and his 2 fumbles in the first half could have changed the course of the game if the defense hadn’t bailed him out on both counts. But on those glimpses when it all comes together it’s easy to see why he generates so much excitement. The finished product is going to be special; the question is how much longer we have to wait.
–     –     –
(LW: 5)

5. Ole Miss (4-0). Rebels ain’t played nobody but have looked like you’d expect a contender to look against a string of sub-nobodies. Real competition begins this week against Kentucky.
–     –     –
(LW: 4)

6. Missouri (4-0). For a top-10 team, Mizzou remains pretty nondescript — unbeaten headed into an open date, as expected, but only by a whisker after a close shave against Vandy. The schedule ramps up on the other side of an open date with a Week 6 trip to Texas A&M, the first real test of whether the Tigers belong in the Playoff race for the long haul.
–     –     –
(LW: 6⬌)

7. LSU (3-1). The defense was dicey enough with Harold Perkins Jr. at full speed. Now the Tigers have 2 weeks to figure out what it looks like without him against Ole Miss.
–     –     –
(LW: 8)

8. Texas A&M (3-1). The Aggies moved the ball more effectively against Bowling Green than the 26-20 final score indicated, but they had a long way to go: 9 of their 10 full offensive possessions began at or inside their own 25-yard line. On the other end, they also struggled to finish drives, settling for 4 field goals inside the BGSU 25 — 3 of them on drives that took at least 9 plays and 4-plus minutes off the clock.
– – –
(LW: 9)

9. Oklahoma (3-1). Hey, at least Brent Venables has achieved his mission of improving the defense. But the result is no less one-dimensional than it was under Lincoln Riley and a whole lot less fun to watch.
–     –     –
(LW: 7)

10. South Carolina (3-1). Not to read too much into a 50-7 trashing of Akron, which is, you know, Akron, but reserve QB Robby Ashford looked great in his first significant action as a Gamecock, accounting for 377 total yards and 3 touchdowns in place of an injured LaNorris Sellers. Sellers still has size, youth and a much bigger arm on his side, not to mention an open date to fully heal from a sprained ankle. As veteran insurance policies go, though, Ashford’s presence is a timely reminder of why it pays to have one.
–     –     –
(LW: 10⬌)

11. Arkansas (3-1). Hogs won a tough road game they badly needed to keep their heads above water, so QB Taylen Green is spared the hair shirt this week despite going 12-for-27 with 2 interceptions in the process. Green looks and moves like prime Colin Kaepernick, and plays like he’s relearning the game from scratch every time out.
–     –     –
(LW: 11⬌)

12. Kentucky (2-2). The Wildcats went 3 weeks and 9 consecutive quarters between touchdowns, finally snapping the streak Saturday in the second quarter of a 41-6 win over Ohio. But then, considering the UK defense outscored Ohio’s offense all by itself courtesy of a pick-6 by Maxwell Hairston, the offense’s contributions were largely academic. The next step: Actually putting it in the end zone in a game when the defense can use the help.
–     –     –
(LW: 13)

13. Vanderbilt (2-2). All 3 of Vandy’s games to date vs. FBS opponents have been decided essentially on the last play, either in the dying seconds of regulation or in overtime. I have no idea what that means for their fate in SEC play, except that as long as Diego Pavia is involved, it’s going to be a lot more interesting than usual.
–     –     –
(LW: 14)

14. Florida (2-2). Tackling in the Gators’ win at Mississippi State was atrocious on both sides: Per PFF, the defenses combined for 42 missed tackles and 331 rushing yards allowed after contact. Florida WR Aidan Mizell alone was credited with an incredible 10 missed tackles forced on 5 receptions, and that was only the ones that counted.
–     –     –
(LW: 15)

15. Auburn (2-2). Does Auburn regret firing Gus Malzahn yet? After 8 straight winning seasons on Gus’ watch, the Tigers are well on their way to their 4th consecutive losing record since giving him the boot.
–     –     –
(LW: 12)

16. Mississippi State (1-3). Whatever slim chance the Bulldogs had of stealing a conference W this season got a little slimmer Saturday night with news that starting QB Blake Shapen is done for the year with a shoulder injury. His understudy, true freshman Michael Van Buren Jr., is a relatively highly regarded prospect capable of banking some points in the “building for the future” column, but the outlook in the win column remains grim.
–     –     –
(LW: 16⬌)

Moment of Zen of the Week

https://twitter.com/RazorbackFB/status/1837662068956103038/

•     •     •

The post Monday Down South: Auburn’s QB collapse is a crisis of Hugh Freeze’s own making appeared first on Saturday Down South.

All lines via FanDuel Sportsbook.

Game of the Week: Tennessee (-7.5) at Oklahoma

The stakes

Welcome to the show, Oklahoma. Hope you’re ready to hit the ground running.

It might be true in the era of the 12-team Playoff that there is no such thing anymore as a “must-win” game in September, but good luck telling the difference on Saturday night. Vols-Sooners has all the makings of a scene. College GameDay is in town to set the tone for a primetime kick. The home crowd will be amped for Oklahoma’s first game in SEC play, more than 3 years in the making. (Yes, it really has been that long.)

On the sideline, there’s the personal history between former Oklahoma quarterback slash current Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel and his alma mater, where he won a national title as a player — his OU counterpart, Brent Venables, was an assistant coach on that team — and later flamed out as the Sooners’ offensive coordinator.

On the field, there’s the inevitable comparison between a couple of gifted young quarterbacks, Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold and Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava, both of whom are still introducing themselves to rest of the country after arriving with 5-star hype in 2023. And, yes, for a couple teams projected to be on the Playoff bubble, the first checkpoint on the conference slate is still a crucial one for keeping a viable path to the CFP open.

That’s especially true for Oklahoma, which already faces the steepest climb of any of the league’s plausible contenders. The Sooners drew the short straw in Year 1, schedule-wise, with 5 of their 8 conference games coming against teams currently ranked in the top 10, plus road trips to Auburn and LSU. The only break they caught was missing Georgia; otherwise, they’re in for the full gauntlet. Already, the path to 3-0 has been rockier than expected, with relatively close calls the past 2 weeks against Houston (16-12) and Tulane (34-19). As little margin for error as the Sooners figure to have over the rest of the year, starting out behind the 8-ball in the SEC is one scenario they cannot afford.

The stat: 84.8%

That’s the percentage of all available yards that Tennessee’s offense has accounted for through its first three games, best in the nation per efficiency guru Brian Fremeau. His “available yards” metric measures exactly what it says: Total yards gained as a share of the total yards available to be gained based on field position. (Including penalties, excluding garbage time.) For example, a touchdown drive covers 100% of available yards; a drive that begins on the offense’s own 20-yard line and ends at the opposing 40-yard line covers 50%, etc. Historically, 84.8% is an astounding number, reflecting the Volunteers’ thorough dominance to date.

The caveat, obviously, is that 2 of those games were against a couple of willing lambs to the slaughter, Chattanooga and Kent State. Against Chattanooga, the offense scored on its first 7 possessions, putting up 45 points and 490 yards of total offense before halftime; against Kent State, the Vols scored touchdowns on their first 9 possessions — aided, ruthlessly, by a surprise onside kick with a 30-0 lead — generating 65 points on 541 yards … again, before halftime. But they were also efficient against their one real opponent, NC State, scoring on 8 of their 12 full possessions en route to a 51-10 blowout over the Wolfpack.

The defense played a role in that courtesy of a pick-6 and a couple of 4th-down stops that set up short-field touchdown drives in the second half, but even 3 of the 4 Tennessee possessions that didn’t result in points ended in State territory. Punter Jackson Ross has made just 2 appearances on the season.

Speaking of the defense: Tennessee also ranks No. 1 nationally in available yards allowed, having held opposing offenses to just 13.8% of their potential output and out of the end zone entirely. The next adversity this team faces on either side of the ball will be the first.

The big question: Is Jackson Arnold ready for primetime?

Arnold, on the other hand, has faced a little too much adversity in the early going. The Heisman-or-bust curve for Oklahoma quarterbacks set during the Lincoln Riley years departed with Riley, but by just about any standard Arnold’s first few weeks as the face of the program have been underwhelming. Out of 16 SEC starters with at least 50 drop-backs, he ranks 14th in yards per attempt, 12th in efficiency, and 11th in Total QBR, and that’s against the welterweight phase of the schedule. He’s just 2-for-13 on throws of 20+ air yards (the lowest downfield completion percentage in the conference, per Pro Football Focus); he’s taken nine sacks; and he’s fueled lingering concerns about his ball security by serving up interceptions under duress each of the past 2 weeks, including a pick-6 that gave Tulane life in the fourth quarter of a game the defense had well in hand in Week 3.

TYLER GRUBBS SAID I'LL TAKE THAT!!!! #AmericanWay x @GreenWaveFB pic.twitter.com/yvBgxF8WSL

— The American (@American_Conf) September 14, 2024

Let’s not lose perspective: Recruiting hype notwithstanding, we’re talking a true sophomore signal-caller less than a month into his tenure as a starter. Besides his youth, the silver lining against Tulane was Arnold’s mobility: He finished with a team-high 104 yards (excluding sacks) and 2 touchdowns rushing, and set up another TD on a 47-yard run in the first half. PFF credited him with 6 missed tackles forced and 55 yards after contact in the process. For an attack that hasn’t gotten much so far from its running backs, an athletic QB who doubles as a viable runner is an asset.

More good news: The return of WR Nic Anderson, who is set to make his first appearance of the season after missing the first 3 games with a nagging injury. In 2023, Anderson’s 38 catches on the year yielded 33 first downs, 10 touchdowns and an average gain of 21.0 yards, 4th-best nationally among wideouts with 30+ receptions. Even at Oklahoma, 6-4, 220-pound specimens with that kind of big-play pop don’t grow on trees, and with fellow starter Jalil Farooq still on the shelf the Sooners need all of the juice from Anderson and Purdue transfer Deion Burks they can get.

The key matchup: Nico Iamaleava vs. Brent Venables’ Blitz Packages

Iamaleava’s star has risen so quickly that it’s easy to forget that he, too, is only a true sophomore less than a month into his tenure as a starter, and despite Tennessee’s runaway success on the scoreboard he hasn’t been immune to some youthful hiccups of his own. He threw 2 interceptions in the win over NC State, including a pick-6 on a play where his arm was hit as he released the ball, causing it to flutter. Otherwise, he’s been well-protected against defenses with far less capacity to turn up the heat than Oklahoma’s. Iamaleava’s first true road test in a hostile environment is daunting enough; the fact that it’s coming against a decorated defensive mind with a long track record of scheming up creative ways to get after quarterbacks makes it something like a graduate-level exam.

Oklahoma’s defense doesn’t compare to Venables’ best units at Clemson, by a long shot, but the Sooners do have a similar nose for the ball. They led the Big 12 and tied for 7th nationally with 26 takeaways in 2023 — including 20 interceptions, most in the Power 5 — and they’re tied for the national lead this year with 10 takeaways in 3 games. That number’s skewed a bit by 4 fumble recoveries in the opener against Temple, but it’s consistent with the broader trend: OU has forced multiple turnovers in 11 of 16 games over the past 2 seasons, and that starts with speeding up the quarterback’s process. Iamaleava is almost certainly going to see some things Saturday night he hasn’t before, and probably going to hear some things he’s never heard before from what promises to be a feral crowd. How he handles it will tell us a lot about how far along the growth curve he really is.

The verdict …

The point spread in Tennessee’s favor largely comes down to the perception gap between the quarterbacks. Both the eye test and the stat sheet clearly favor Iamaleava. Is it possible that the level of competition has made that gap look larger than it really is? Sure. Is it possible that exposure to a legit defense and hostile surroundings will take some of the wind out of Iamaleava’s soaring stock? There’s always a chance. Is it possible the Vols landed the real supernova talent of the ’23 quarterback class? We’ll see.

But based on what we’ve seen so far, my money says that Saturday night will be the last time the answer to that last question is TBD.
–     –     –
• Tennessee 31 | Oklahoma 20

UCLA at LSU (-24.5)

LSU has its own problems, but as the point spread here suggests early indications are that UCLA under first-year coach DeShaun Foster might be straight-up bad. Big Ten media types suspected as much, picking the Bruins to finish 15th out of 18 teams in their preseason poll, and so far they’ve lived down to the expectations. Their first game under Foster, a Week Zero trip to Hawai’i, was a come-from-behind, 16-13 win decided on a last-minute field goal against one of the scrubbier outfits in the FBS. Their second game, against Indiana, was a 42-13 thumping in the Rose Bowl at the hands of 1 of the 3 teams picked to finish below UCLA in the conference. IU quarterback Kurtis Rourke threw for 4 touchdowns and finished with a sky-high 95.5 QBR at the Bruins’ expense. This is a chance for Garrett Nussmeier to look really good on national TV against a recognizable opponent, which frankly he could stand to take advantage of before returning to the thick of SEC play.
–     –     –
• LSU 44 | UCLA 17

Arkansas at Auburn (-2.5)

Have Auburn fans seen the last of Payton Thorne? Never say never, but there is cautious optimism following redshirt freshman Hank Brown‘s 4-touchdown debut against New Mexico that the Tigers have found a keeper — emphasis on cautious. The degree of difficulty goes way up against Arkansas, an outfit whose role in the conference pecking order this season is to generate chaos behind its own gifted-but-volatile QB, Taylen Green. Both sides in this game remain blank slates after dropping their biggest non-conference tests against Cal and Oklahoma State, respectively, in disappointing fashion. Pending a revelation, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make a really confident prediction involving either one of them the rest of the year.
–     –     –
• Auburn 31 | Arkansas 27

Florida (-6.5) at Mississippi State

With 4 losses between them already, the Gators and Bulldogs are desperate for a win, but there is desperate and there is desperate. On one side, first-year Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby is staring down the very real possibility of a winless season in SEC play, and the moribund Gators present arguably his best chance to avoid that fate. But he is not in danger of waking up on Sunday morning to the news he’s been fired if the Bulldogs lose on Saturday.

Billy Napier, by all appearances a dead man walking in Gainesville, cannot say the same.

He can delay the inevitable at least another week by reassuring Florida fans that their team is not literally the worst in the conference. If they can’t even say that much, the team deserves to go ahead and get it over with.
–     –     –
• Florida 33 | Mississippi State 24

Vanderbilt at Missouri (-20.5)

Vandy’s annual mission to notch an SEC win begins in earnest in Columbia, in a game that looked a lot more interesting before the Commodores’ Week 3 loss at Georgia State. If nothing else, the addition of QB Diego Pavia from New Mexico State has at least made it harder to keep the ‘Dores on the mat. In their Week 1 upset over Virginia Tech, Pavia rallied the offense from a 27-20 deficit in the fourth quarter to a game-tying touchdown at the end of regulation, then scored the go-ahead/game-winning TD in overtime himself. Trailing late against Georgia State, he led 3 4th-quarter touchdown drives, the last of which put Vanderbilt up 32-29 with a little over a minute to go; the defense subsequently gave up the decisive TD on the other end in the dying seconds. Mizzou hopes Saturday’s match is settled well before then, but the longer the ‘Dores manage to hang around the less likely it is they’re going down without a fight.
—     —     —
Missouri 34  | • Vanderbilt 19

UL-Monroe at Texas (-44.5)

It’s officially Arch o’clock in Austin after Texas confirmed Arch Manning will make his first career start in place of an injured Quinn Ewers. I’m strongly resisting the temptation to play up the idea that a touted understudy filling in for an entrenched QB1 amounts to a “controversy” — make no mistake, Ewers is the starting quarterback — but when a player as hyped as Manning looks as good as he looked last week in his first meaningful action against UT-San Antonio, well, the temptation is real.

I had to stop myself from adding until further notice to the assurance that the job will be waiting for Ewers when he returns from a strained oblique, which could be as soon as next week at Mississippi State or as late as in 3 weeks against Oklahoma, on the other side of an open date. It’s hard to imagine what Manning could do between now and then against middling competition to supplant a Heisman frontrunner whose last full start saw him shred the defending national champs in their building. But then, based on what little we’ve seen of Arch so far, we have to leave open the possibility that he’s the kind of talent capable of expanding the imagination. Let’s watch what happens next, and reassess the gap on the depth chart (or lack thereof) when the time comes.
—     —     —
Texas 48  | • UL-Monroe 9

Georgia Southern at Ole Miss (-35.5)

Here’s a question I never expected to be asking during the Lane Kiffin administration: Can the Rebels complete the nonconference slate without giving up a touchdown? Ole Miss’ defense is 1 of 4 nationally that has yet to allow an opposing offense to reach the end zone, along with Georgia, Ohio State and Tennessee. (The lone touchdown scored against the Vols came via pick-6.) For its part, Georgia Southern has been perfectly cromulent on offense, including a 45-point effort in the season opener, a shootout loss at Boise State. But adjusting for the talent gap, the way Ole Miss is playing, merely cracking double digits in Oxford seems ambitious.
—     —     —
• Ole Miss 52  |  Georgia Southern 10

Bowling Green at Texas A&M (-22.5)

QB intrigue in the state of Texas is not limited to Austin. Mike Elko has kept his cards close to his vest this week concerning Texas A&M’s quarterback situation, declining to name a starter for Saturday and suggesting he’s not in any hurry to tip his hand. (On Thursday he told reporters the starter will “likely be a game-time decision for the rest of the season.”) The dark horse in the race, redshirt freshman Marcel Reed, made his move in Week 3, accounting for 261 yards and 3 touchdowns in a convincing road win at Florida while starter Conner Weigman nursed a sore shoulder. Taken with Weigman’s Week 1 meltdown against Notre Dame, it’s a real race that no one saw coming prior to the season, and the first big decision of Elko’s tenure — whenever he gets around to making it.
—     —     —
• Texas A&M 41  |  Bowling Green 16

Akron at South Carolina (-27.5)

Poor Akron. Since the start of the 2019 season the Zips are a depressing 4-50 against FBS opponents, the worst winning percentage in the country in that span. At least they’ve been (slightly) more competitive under former Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead, with 10 of their 22 losses in Moorhead’s tenure coming by single digits, including a 4-overtime heartbreaker at Indiana in 2023. Those Hoosiers, not coincidentally, went on to finish in last place in the Big Ten and fired their coach. Meanwhile, in Akron’s first 2 FBS games this year it was outscored by a combined 78 points by Ohio State and Rutgers. If Saturday’s tilt is still competitive after halftime, something has gone badly wrong for the Gamecocks.
—     —     —
• South Carolina 45  |  Akron 10

Ohio at Kentucky (-19.5)

MAC Week comes at exactly the right time for Kentucky, which failed to reach the end zone in either of its back-to-back home losses against South Carolina and Georgia. However much of the blame for that falls on QB Brock Vandagriff, the UK offensive line owns at least an equal share. Vandagriff faced pressure on 27 of his 51 drop-backs the past 2 weeks, per PFF, including 6 sacks. Ohio U. doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of athletes along the front line as the dudes who gave Kentucky so much trouble against Carolina and Georgia, but the Bobcats do boast a productive threat off the edge in senior Bradley Weaver, who’s generated an FBS-best 18 QB pressures through 3 weeks. If the tackles continue to struggle against a third-team All-MAC type, it’s red-alert time.
—     —     —
Kentucky 30  | • Ohio 13

Scoreboard

Week 3 record: 11-2 straight-up | 8-5 vs. spread
Season record: 38-6 straight-up | 28-13 vs. spread

The post Week 4 SEC Primer: Oklahoma’s SEC debut is here. Tennessee is bringing the reality check appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Quinn Ewers | Texas

Before we start, let’s all take a long sip of water. OK? OK. There’s a lot going on here: Between Ewers’ early exit against UT-San Antonio and Arch Manning‘s electric performance in relief, the forecast for the rest of the season is coming up static, and it might be a few weeks at the earliest before there’s any clarity. So, for the present, let’s stick with what we know: Ewers remains Texas’ starting quarterback until further notice. If and when that changes, the rankings will adjust accordingly.

If I had to guess, I’d say that any hint of a controversy will be prove to be short-lived. On the injury front, Ewers is “questionable” for this weekend’s game against UL-Monroe due a strained oblique, which is not as severe as initially feared when he was standing on the sideline on Saturday night in street clothes, looking somber. There’s certainly no hurry to rush him back against ULM, or for next week’s conference opener against Mississippi State; from there, the Longhorns are off in Week 6 ahead of their annual collision with Oklahoma on Oct. 12. That leaves nearly a full month for Ewers to get right for the Sooners while Manning holds down the fort.

The variable in that equation, of course, is that Manning is not some unsung understudy happy just to be filling in. As a recruit, he was one of the most coveted quarterback prospects of his generation, and he lived up to both the hype and the name on the back of his jersey against UTSA in the first meaningful action of his career. He threw a touchdown pass on his first play, broke a long touchdown run on his third play, and threw back-to-back TD passes on his first 2 possessions after halftime. His final line: 9-for-12 passing, 223 yards, 18.6 yards per attempt, 4 touchdowns, zero interceptions, astronomical ratings in terms of efficiency (341.1) and Total QBR (99.9), green lights as far as the eye can see.

Like most 1-game samples, it came with a few asterisks: UTSA was a 5-touchdown underdog, and the game was already well in hand when Manning came off the bench; 1 of his 4 TD passes was a glorified toss sweep that his receiver took the distance; another was a layup to a wide-open target whom the defense simply neglected to cover. No one is handing the kid the Heisman. Caveats notwithstanding, though, he looked like you want your highly touted heir apparent to look — unfazed, on target, and on schedule.

If his emergence is a “problem,” it’s the best kind: Two quarterbacks with both the upside and the chops to sustain a serious Playoff run through at least the regular season, which few if any other aspiring contenders can claim. (Maybe Alabama, although backup Ty Simpson remains a wild card.) A healthy Ewers is not going anywhere. But Manning’s time is clearly coming, sooner or later, and his presence raises the floor for a team whose margin for error will only continue to shrink as the season wears on. He’s got the stuff. If all he amounts to in the long run is an unusually decorated insurance policy, it’s one that every other team in America wishes it had.
– – –
(Last week: 1⬌)

2. Jaxson Dart | Ole Miss

After a couple of near-flawless outings to open the season, Ole Miss’ 40-6 win at Wake Forest was almost as notable for the blemishes as for the final score: The Rebels committed their first turnover (an errant snap), the starting offense was forced to punt for the first time, and Dart threw his first interception. It wasn’t a perfect night — just a routine 34-point blowout over a Power 4 conference opponent on the road, ho hum. Dart finished 26-of-34 passing against the Demon Deacons for 377 yards, 2 touchdowns, and a 90.7 QBR, adding a 13-yard touchdown run for emphasis. Emphasis on emphasis.

https://twitter.com/OleMissSports/status/1835126996067660268/

Look, is it strictly advisable in the year 2024 for a Heisman-contending quarterback who’s more valuable as a passer than a runner to take on an opposing linebacker shoulder-first in the third quarter of a random non-conference game his team is already leading by 17 points? It is not. (Dart’s predecessor as QB1, Matt Corral, can advise on this subject.) Do we still love to see it? Hell yeah we do. Up a spot for laying it all on the line on The CW, never do it again.
– – –
(Last week: 3)

3. Jalen Milroe | Alabama

The execution hasn’t always been pretty, but the Tide’s explosiveness on offense is real. In their 42-10 win at Wisconsin, Milroe threw for 196 yards and 3 touchdowns on just 17 attempts, adding another 75 yards and 2 touchdowns rushing. Four of Alabama’s 6 touchdown drives against the Badgers took less than 2 minutes off the clock, an emerging theme. Through 3 games, Bama’s 19 touchdowns with Milroe in the lineup have covered an average of 32.5 yards, with 15 of them coming on “drives” of 5 plays or fewer. Up next: A weekend off, followed by a reality check against Georgia that will set the tone for the rest of the season.
– – –
(Last week: 4)

4. Carson Beck | Georgia

Georgia cut it a little too close for comfort in a 13-12 win at Kentucky, a game that was every bit as close as the score implied and every bit as grueling. The Dawgs had the ball for just 9 offensive possessions, punted on 6 of them, and didn’t take the lead until the fourth quarter. Both Beck and Kirby Smart shrugged it off afterward as just a typical road test in the SEC; Georgia fans watching with an eye toward their next road trip, at Alabama in Week 5, presumably thought otherwise. The Dawgs finished with their fewest points, yards (262), and yards per play (4.9) in any game since the 2021 season opener, a 10-3 win over Clemson that memorably featured zero offensive touchdowns.

The biggest piece of that puzzle, and the most surprising, was a steady diet of pressure from the Kentucky pass rush. Beck, arguably the best-protected quarterback in America in 2023, has rarely had to operate under duress. In last year’s blowout win over Kentucky in Athens, he faced pressure on just 2 of his 36 drop-backs (per Pro Football Focus) in what still ranks as the best performance of his career by most metrics. On Saturday, the Wildcats generated pressure on 9 of Beck’s 27 drop-backs, a fairly standard rate for most quarterbacks but the highest rate that Beck has faced in any of his 17 career starts. With All-America guard Tate Ratledge on the shelf for the foreseeable future, the front line suddenly qualifies as a concern.
– – –
(Last week: 2)

5. Brady Cook | Missouri

Cook flies under the radar compared to the other guys in the top half of the rankings, but he reliably does the two things Mizzou needs him to do: Distribute the ball efficiently to his playmakers — most notably, but not limited to, Luther Burden III — and pose a credible threat as a runner. Through 3 games, 63.2% of his output as a passer has come via yards after catch while he leads the team with 4 rushing touchdowns.
– – –
(Last week: 5⬌)

6. Nico Iamaleava | Tennessee

Iamaleava only made it midway through the second quarter against Kent State before getting the hook in a 71-0 slaughter that might have been even more lopsided than the score implied. Altogether, the Vols piled up 541 yards and scored touchdowns on 9 consecutive possessions to open the game … before halftime. Springing a surprise onside kick with a 30-point lead against a 50-point underdog was one of the most ruthless moves I’ve ever seen on a field; the fact that they did it with more than 3 minutes left in in the first quarter only drives home the absurdity.
– – –
(Last week: 6⬌)

7. Garrett Nussmeier | LSU

Nussmeier rallied LSU from a 17-0 deficit to win at South Carolina, 36-33, a huge feather in his cap in the first true road start of his career. He also needed every one of a long list of breaks to go his way to pull it off, including 2 pick-6 INTs wiped out by penalties, the second of which would have effectively ended the game midway through the fourth quarter.

SOUTH CAROLINA HAS A SECOND PICK SIX NULLIFIED BY PENALTY pic.twitter.com/yw2FB8Ssa4

— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) September 14, 2024

That’s Nussmeier flat on his back at the 20-yard line during the return, the result of a blindside block that negated the touchdown and kept LSU within one score. (South Carolina fans were up in arms over that call, but I’m not going to quibble over a hit that immediately drew flags from 3 officials.) He bounced back to lead a 55-yard, go-ahead touchdown drive on the Tigers’ next (and ultimately last) possession, highlighted by a crucial offsides penalty against Carolina on 4th-and-3 that extended the drive. Nussmeier has the arm to make a handful of “wow” throws per game, but consistency and decision-making are still works in progress, as is the ground game. (To which Nussmeier adds nothing.) If the Tigers have to count on him to keep pace while allowing 30+ points on a regular basis a la Jayden Daniels this season is going to be a wild ride.
– – –
(Last week: 7⬌)>

8. Conner Weigman or Marcel Reed | Texas A&M

With Weigman nursing an injured shoulder, Reed was a revelation in the Aggies’ 33-20 win at Florida, accounting for 261 total yards and 3 touchdowns. For his effort, he was named SEC Co-Freshman of the Week, sharing the distinction with Arch Manning. To which it must always be said, where such recognition is concerned: Redshirt freshmen are NOT freshmen.

What is the point of singling out freshmen for recognition? In spirit, it’s to acknowledge the contribution of, essentially, rookies — newcomers making an immediate, notable contribution in their first year on campus, with the implicit promise of much more and better to come. A worthy goal. But redshirt freshmen, obviously, are not rookies or newcomers: By definition, they’re guys who have been around. They’ve had time to adjust to campus life, to be part of the team; they’ve already put in at least a full year’s work in the weight room, taken their lumps in practice, experienced the atmosphere of game days, endured long hours on road trips, and generally been immersed in the daily rhythms and routines of a college athlete. With the relaxed redshirting rules, most of them these days have already played in actual games, some of them significantly. Both Manning and Reed saw the field in 2023 as literal freshmen, with Reed earning his first career start last December vs. Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl. He’s not a rookie! Dubbing him “Freshman of the Week” goes against the spirit! The emphasis in the term redshirt freshman is supposed to be on the first word, not the second, thank you very much. [/end rant]

Anyway, Reed’s performance in Gainesville combined with Weigman’s Week 1 meltdown against Notre Dame has turned this into a bona fide controversy. Coach Mike Elko didn’t offer much clarity at his weekly Monday press conference, describing Weigman’s availability as “day to day and week to week.” (Aren’t we all.) The Aggies are in tune-up mode this week against Bowling Green before resuming SEC play against Arkansas. If Reed gets the nod again, he might have a chance to make it permanent.
– – –
(Last week: 9)

9. Taylen Green | Arkansas

I cite PFF’s work often here, and there’s a lot of value in their wealth of comprehensive, in-depth data. But the grading system itself can be frankly mystifying. Take Green’s performance in a competitive, 37-27 win over UAB, a rough one by any standard. As a passer, he completed fewer than half of his passes (11-for-26) for a pedestrian 6.2 yards per attempt; recorded an interception, a fumble and 4 sacks, but no touchdowns; and posted red-flag ratings in terms of efficiency (86.6) and QBR (50.8). On the plus side, he was highly productive as a runner, rushing for 112 yards (excluding sacks) with 2 TDs, 5 runs of 10+ yards and 7 missed tackles forced. Statistically, I would describe that outing as “turbulent.”

His PFF grade? A robust 90.3, tops among all SEC quarterbacks for the week, including Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe, and Arch Manning. (Not to mention Nico Iamaleava, who somehow earned the weekend’s worst grade in a game in which his team set the school scoring record.) Aside from his output on the ground, other points in Green’s favor included 3 “big-time throws” — a subjective category defined as “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown further down the field and/or into a tighter window” — and 2 drops that raised his “adjusted completion percentage” above the Mendoza line, neither of which was exceptional. No doubt the film eaters can show their work according to a rigorous, standardized process, and bless them for it. Just always keep in mind that this stuff is one tool among many, not the gospel. Take it with a grain of salt.
– – –
(Last week: 10)

10. Diego Pavia | Vanderbilt

Vandy’s 2-0 start turned into a pumpkin in a wild, 36-32 loss at Georgia State, although not without a valiant effort from Pavia, who led 3 fourth-quarter touchdown drives in a losing effort. Altogether, both teams combined for 5 touchdowns in the fourth quarter and 2 lead changes in the final 2 minutes. Dropping a heartbreaker to a double-digit underdog from the Sun Belt is a very “Vandy being Vandy” type of loss, which is exactly what the ‘Dores did not want to have hanging around their neck heading into the SEC opener at Missouri.

– – –
(Last week: 8)

11. Jackson Arnold | Oklahoma

Arnold did more damage with his legs than his arm against Tulane, running for a team-high 97 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 34-19 win. His mobility is an asset, but combined with a dismal effort against Houston in Week 2, his struggles as a passer against the welterweight segment of the schedule are alarming.

TYLER GRUBBS SAID I'LL TAKE THAT!!!! #AmericanWay x @GreenWaveFB pic.twitter.com/yvBgxF8WSL

— The American (@American_Conf) September 14, 2024

Over the past 2 weeks Arnold has averaged a middling 5.6 yards per attempt with 2 INTs and only 1 completion of 20+ air yards. He’ll benefit from getting WR Nic Anderson back this weekend against Tennessee, but if you want to know why the Vols are favored by a touchdown in Norman, the answer begins and ends with the gap between Arnold and his 5-star counterpart, Nico Iamaleava. An upset bid on a national stage would turn that narrative around in a hurry, but it will require Arnold to be significantly better than what we’ve seen from him so far.
– – –
(Last week: 11⬌)

12. LaNorris Sellers | South Carolina

Carolina fans reserved most of their frustration for the refs, but the game really turned when Sellers called it a day at halftime due to a sore ankle. At that point, he’d accounted for 201 total yards and 2 touchdowns as a runner, including an eye-opening, 75-yard run on which he clocked in at nearly 21 miles per hour.

LaNorris Sellers is a DUDE. What a frickin run!#Gamecocks

pic.twitter.com/mnY4vEg5Gs

— Jaime Eisner (@JaimeEisner) September 14, 2024

His exit marked the end of the Gamecocks’ capacity to put the ball in the air: Backup Robby Ashford‘s 10 drop-backs in the second half yielded 3 sacks, 3 scrambles, 4 actual pass attempts and just 1 completion for a first down, on the final last-gasp drive of the game. Sellers will be “ready to roll” this week against Akron, per Shane Beamer; no word on the status of his eyewear.
– – –
(Last week: 14)

13. Hank Brown | Auburn

It flew under the radar compared to the more high-profile breakouts of Arch Manning and Marcel Reed, but Brown had a fine debut in Week 3, throwing 4 touchdown passes to 4 different receivers in a 45-19 win over New Mexico. Brown was also an impressive 5-for-6 on attempts of 10+ air yards. There’s no telling how well that translates to conference play — check back after this weekend’s SEC opener against Arkansas — but suffice to say Auburn fans have probably seen the last of the beleaguered Payton Thorne for a while. Possibly for good.
– – –
(Last week: n/a)

14. Blake Shapen | Mississippi State

The final score of Mississippi State’s 41-17 loss to Toledo was bad enough, and the reality was worse: At one point the Rockets led 35-3 before allowing a couple of late, purely cosmetic touchdown drives to soften the humiliation. That came a week after the Bulldogs tacked on a couple of late scores against Arizona State in a game they trailed 30-3. Across both games, all 4 of Shapen’s touchdown passes the past 2 weeks have come with his team trailing by at least 14 points.
– – –
(Last week: 13)

15. Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway | Florida

Whatever the merits of the plan to alternate Mertz and Lagway by possession against Texas A&M, in practice the rotation was dead on arrival. Thank the defense for that, with a hat tip to Mother Nature. On the former front, the Gators simply couldn’t get A&M’s offense off the field: The Aggies so thoroughly dominated time of possession in the first half that Florida’s offense barely got a snap in edgewise, and every time it did the hole on the scoreboard was a little deeper. In the meantime, a lengthy lightning delay only added to the gloom.

Lagway’s afternoon in particular was cursed before it even began. After a week of anticipation, his first series of the game came with A&M already leading 10-0, and was immediately interrupted by the weather delay following his first snap; he returned roughly 45 minutes later to complete the last 2 plays of a 3-and-out. By the time he got on the field again, the Gators trailed 20-0 with less than a minute to play in the first half, having run a grand total of 12 plays to that point to the Aggies’ 47.

In that context, Lagway’s dismal stat line (6-for-13, 54 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs, 15.2 QBR) was misleading, especially given that the 2 picks came on a Hail Mary at the end of the first half and on Florida’s final play of the game in garbage time, respectively. Neither made any difference in the outcome, unlike Mertz’s pick-6 in the third quarter that officially ended the competitive portion of the proceedings. But the circumstances didn’t make the result any less deflating.

If the point of handing the keys to the freshman was to generate some semblance of a spark — regardless of the outcome — the experiment could have hardly gone worse. The crowd was thinned out and the vibes were morose before Lagway had even loosened up.

Billy Napier stuck to his guns at his weekly Monday press conference, telling reporters that “we’re committed to playing both players” and describing the situation as “open-ended.” If either guy gets the hot hand this weekend at Mississippi State, Napier seems prepared to ride it. If not, there’s a very real possibility that that press conference could be his last.
– – –
(Last week: 12)

16. Brock Vandagriff | Kentucky

Kentucky has failed to crack the end zone in back-to-back home losses and Vandagriff, inevitably, has taken his fair share of the blame. In his defense, his offensive line has barely given him a chance. Per PFF, Vandagriff has faced pressured on 30 of 51 drop-backs the past 2 weeks, easily the highest rate (58.8%) of any FBS quarterback in that span with at least 20 drop-backs. Those plays have yielded as many sacks (6) as completions (6), for a net loss in total yards. The jury is still out on his viability as a full-time starter, but at the very least he deserves an opportunity to operate in something other than “duck and cover” mode before returning a verdict.
– – –
(Last week: 16⬌)

The post SEC QB Rankings, Week 4: Georgia’s o-line has kept Carson Beck cool and comfortable. Can he take a little heat? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

• The bell tolls for Billy Napier
• U-G-L-Y, UGA’s got no alibi
  
• Penalties poison South Carolina’s upset bid against LSU
• Players of the week, Superlatives Standings, and updated power rankings

… and more takeaways, trends and technicalities from Week 3 in the SEC. But first:

Manning Up

Would it do any good to attempt to pump the brakes on the Arch Manning bandwagon? To point out that, say, 1 of his 4 touchdown passes on Saturday night was a glorified toss sweep that his receiver took the distance, or that his longest completion was a layup to a wide-open target whom the defense simply neglected to cover? Or, I dunno, that the defense in question belonged to UT-San Antonio? No? Just shut up and play the hits? OK then.

CAN'T TOUCH HIM @ArchManning pic.twitter.com/65nR57qIR5

— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) September 15, 2024

Look, as these things go, Manning’s first taste of meaningful action was always going to be a spectacle, regardless of the specific circumstances that surrounded it. As it happened, those circumstances were not ideal: Quinn Ewers, fresh off a money-making performance in the Longhorns’ Week 2 win at Michigan, left the game in the second quarter with a strained oblique, leaving it to his understudy to mop up a game Texas already had well in hand. The buzz in the stadium that greets the arrival of the Next Big Thing was offset by the sudden uncertainty surrounding the Current Big Thing, who quickly reemerged on the sideline in street clothes, looking somber. It was just as easy to imagine Arch being instructed to stay between the lines as it was to imagine him picking up the canvas where Ewers left off. But even the truest believers in the infallibility of the Manning genetic code and/or online recruiting rankings could not have scripted a debut that managed to exceed the hype.

That part was up to the 19-year-old Manning, who made the weight of his famous last name and the expectations that come with it look light as a feather. He threw a touchdown pass on his first play, broke a long touchdown run (above) on his third play, and threw back-to-back TD passes on his first two possessions after halftime. His final line: 9-for-12 passing, 223 yards, 18.6 yards per attempt, 4 touchdowns, zero interceptions, astronomical ratings in terms of efficiency (341.1) and Total QBR (99.9), green lights as far as the eye can see.

If his emergence is a “problem,” it’s the best kind an aspiring contender can have: Two quarterbacks with both the upside and the chops to sustain a serious Playoff run through at least the regular season, which few if any other teams can claim. (Maybe Alabama, although backup Ty Simpson remains a wild card.)

As far as making decisions about how to manage reps, they’re probably at least a week or two away. There’s no hurry, for now. Ewers’ injury isn’t as severe as initially feared, but he isn’t likely to play this weekend in the Longhorns’ final nonconference tune-up against UL-Monroe, leaving Manning to make his first career start. On deck: The SEC opener against Mississippi State (in Austin), followed by an open date ahead of the next real test, Oklahoma. That gives them 3 weeks to figure out how they want to handle the situation against the Sooners, and to give Manning a chance to play his way into — or out of — a substantial share of the reps even when Ewers returns. Mobility notwithstanding, Manning is no Tim Tebow, but the change-of-pace role Tebow played behind starter Chris Leak during Florida’s 2006 BCS title run remains a model for how to execute a modern two-quarterback system with a clear division of labor.

Make no mistake: Ewers is a bona fide Heisman frontrunner and aspiring first-rounder whose career trajectory suggests his best is still in front of him. Texas is as heavily invested in him as it is in Manning; he’s not being sized up for the transfer portal based on one game by his understudy, or two, or whatever the case may be over the next few weeks. Ultimately, it’s Ewers’ team until further notice. But Manning’s time is clearly coming, sooner or later, and the reassurance that he is on schedule significantly raises the floor for a team whose margin for error will only continue to shrink as the season wears on. He’s got the stuff. If all he amounts to in the long run is an unusually decorated insurance policy, it’s one that every other team in America wishes it had.

Swamp rot

There was a time, and I swear this is true, when a road trip to Florida was considered one of the most intimidating missions in college football. Remember that? If you were an active player, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t. It’s been awhile.

These days, Welcome to The Swamp is starting to sound downright friendly. Saturday’s waterlogged, 33-20 loss to Texas A&M — a game that was not nearly as close as the score implied, against a team that came in riding a 10-game road losing streak — was Florida’s 6th loss under Billy Napier in a dozen home games vs. power-conference competition, the 4th by double digits, and the 3rd against an unranked opponent. That’s more home Ls than Dan Mullen took on the job in 4 full seasons, or, before him, Jim McElwain in the same number of games; it’s more than Steve Spurrier lost in Gainesville in a dozen years.

Along with the Gators’ 41-17 flop against Miami in Week 1, the loss to A&M marked the 3rd consecutive season Florida has suffered multiple losses at home, the longest streak since 1978-80. And there are still 4 more to go this year, in all of which Florida projects as a likely underdog.

How many of those will Napier still be around to coach? By all indications, not many, if any.

As of this writing, Napier is still employed, despite the best efforts of whoever started the rumor on Sunday morning about an emergency meeting of the Florida Board of Trustees to potentially change that. (No such meeting took place.) It’s getting to be about that time.

The embarrassment of getting rinsed by a nondescript bunch of Aggies starting a backup quarterback was grim enough: A&M rolled up 310 yards rushing and a 15-and-a-half-minute advantage in time of possession, and led by as much as 33-7 before allowing a couple of garbage-time touchdowns in the fourth quarter. A lightning delay between the first and second quarters only prolonged the misery, and a literal cloud hung over the rest of the game.

PICK 6 IN THE SWAMP.#GigEm | @BryceAnderson_1 pic.twitter.com/roAvOQKl8r

— Texas A&M Football (@AggieFootball) September 14, 2024

But the most depressing part of the scene was just how familiar it was.

It’s one thing for a team with not-very-high expectations to drop 2 of its first 3 games against good competition; a pair of ritual humiliations that cease to be competitive by halftime is something else. By all appearances, the Gators have regressed from stagnant to actively getting worse. The one faint glimmer of hope coming out of the Miami game, which should have marked the definitive end of Graham Mertz’s viability as the starting quarterback, was the presence of hyped freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, on whom it was possible to project a vision of progress. But Napier stuck with Mertz as QB1 on Saturday, alternating his recently concussed incumbent and his heir apparent to little effect.

Lagway’s first series, on Florida’s second offensive possession, came with Texas A&M already leading 10-0 and was immediately interrupted by the weather delay following his first snap; he returned roughly 45 minutes later to complete the last 2 plays a 3-and-out. By the time he got on the field again, the Gators trailed 20-0 with less than a minute to play in the first half, having run a grand total of 12 plays to that point. The defense, reenacting its Week 1 performance against Miami in soggier conditions, couldn’t get the Aggies off the field.

Lagway’s dismal stat line (6-for-13, 54 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs) is slightly misleading, given that the 2 picks came on a Hail Mary at the end of the first half and on Florida’s final play of the game in garbage time, respectively; neither mattered, unlike Mertz’s pick-6 in the third quarter that officially ended the competitive portion of the proceedings. But if the point of handing the keys to the freshman was to generate some semblance of a spark regardless of the outcome, the experiment was a dud. The outcome was decided and whatever crowd remained was resigned to defeat before Lagway even had a chance.

The first round of obituaries for Napier’s tenure have already been written in response to the loss to Miami. This time, the prevailing attitude is that’s a question of if Napier is on his way out, but when. This weekend’s trip to Mississippi State is arguably Florida’s best remaining chance for a win against its well-documented nightmare of a schedule, at least until the finale against foundering Florida State, by which point both Napier and his FSU counterpart Mike Novell could both be long gone.

A loss in Starkville, where the Bulldogs just got waxed 41-17 by Toledo, would mark the definitive end; Napier couldn’t show his face in Gainesville on Monday morning. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of his bosses rustling up the buyout funds and deciding when enough is enough.

UGA wins ugly

How worried were you Saturday night about Georgia? It never struck me in real time during the Bulldogs’ 13-12 win at Kentucky that they were in serious danger of taking an L, despite the fact that the Wildcats led at the end of the first (3-0), second (6-3) and third quarters (9-6). For what it’s worth, ESPN’s “win probability” graph backs that up with whatever math is behind those things: Georgia’s chances of winning never dipped below 50%, although there were a couple of moments in the second half when it came close. The Dawgs have survived their share of slugfests under Kirby Smart, and the survival itself has tended to be more telling than the details.

That said, if the performance on the offense is a sign of things to come, there is trouble brewing. The Dawgs loitered aimlessly throughout the first half, failing to cross midfield and scoring just 3 points courtesy of a takeaway by the defense that set up a field goal. The second half was more encouraging, with extended scoring drives covering 63 plays for a field goal and 68 yards for the game’s only touchdown by either team; the sluggish pace limited them to just 2 possessions after that, one of them a methodical clock killer that effectively ended the game.

Recall that Georgia also got off to a slow start in the opener against Clemson, managing just 6 points in the first half before ripping off 28 points in the second. But the pace only accounts for so much. The usually sturdy o-line struggled to protect Carson Beck, whose best number was the zero in the interception column. Altogether Georgia finished with its fewest points, yards (262), and yards per play (4.85) in any game since the 2021 opener against Clemson that ended 10-3 with the only touchdown coming via pick-6.

One silver lining going forward is that two players, RB Trevor Etienne (90 total yards on 20 touches) and WR Dominic Lovett (6 catches for 89 yards), clearly emerged in crunch time as the go-to back and receiver, respectively, which Georgia has not really had over the past few seasons due to its preference to spread the ball around. Depending on your perspective, that can be read as an endorsement of Etienne and Lovett or an indictment of the rest of the surrounding cast; time will tell. The bad news: The Bulldogs’ best offensive lineman, guard Tate Ratledge, left the game with knee and ankle injuries and is expected to miss at least 6 weeks, putting him on the self for UGA’s Week 5 trip to Alabama on the other side of an open date. In the meantime there’s a lot to get straightened out.

South Carolina gets flagged down

South Carolina edge Kyle Kennard made his presence felt against LSU, disrupting the proceedings in ways that registered in the box score (2 sacks, 3 tackles for loss) and ways that didn’t (penetrating into the backfield to force an errant pass on 4th-and-goal). Unfortunately for the Gamecocks, his biggest impact was in the penalty column: In the course of wrecking shop, Kennard was flagged 3 times, all of which turned out to be significant swing plays in a down-to-the-wire, 36-33 Carolina loss.

Flag No. 1 came midway through the first quarter, with South Carolina leading 7-0 at the start of LSU’s second offensive possession. Kennard, left 1-on-1 against a tight end, made quick work of the block, forced LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier to step up in the pocket, and managed to get a paw on Nussmeier’s jersey to prevent his escape; corralled, Nussmeier heaved up a duck under duress, which was easily picked off and returned for an apparent Carolina touchdown. For about 10 seconds, the residual College GameDay energy in Williams-Brice Stadium was visible from orbit — until the crowd spotted the flag, which wiped out the play due to a horse-collar tackle.

For the 2nd time today, South Carolina had a Pick 6 nullified due to a penalty #CollegeFootball pic.twitter.com/xzmJJbZemM

— Locker (@PlayLockerLive) September 14, 2024

In previous seasons, that would not have been a penalty: The horse collar rule did not apply to quarterbacks in the pocket. This year, it does for the first time, to the Gamecocks’ chagrin.

Flag No. 2 was more consequential, and more controversial. LSU trailed midway through the 4th quarter, 33-29, but had the ball in scoring position following a strip sack by the its defense that set up the offense at the South Carolina 12-yard line. Facing 3rd-and-11, Nussmeier served up his worst throw of the day, an ill-fated attempt at a back-shoulder fade that fell woefully short of its target in the end zone and into the waiting arms of South Carolina DB Nick Emmanwori. Seizing the opportunity to put his team up by double digits, Emmanwori coasted down the sideline for his second game-clinching pick-6 in as many weeks …

SOUTH CAROLINA HAS A SECOND PICK SIX NULLIFIED BY PENALTY pic.twitter.com/yw2FB8Ssa4

— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) September 14, 2024

… and hold your horses, folks, is that? It is: Another touchdown-negating flag on Kennard, this time for unnecessary roughness due to a blindside block on Nussmeier as he started to give chase.

You be the judge…this hit on the pick-6 was flagged for unnecessary roughness. If it’s not called, South Carolina goes on to beat LSU because the pick-6 would have put the Gamecocks up 11. pic.twitter.com/SbVnEBz8eD

— WACHoopsNation (@WACHoopsNation) September 14, 2024

South Carolina fans heatedly objected to this call, obviously, as is their inalienable right under Homer Law. They’re right when they point out Nussmeier hammed up the severity of the hit, for whatever it’s worth. As a rule, though, when 3 flags immediately fly into the screen from different directions, the homers are prosecuting a losing case.

The “blindside block” rule is well established, and although Nussmeier was making a token effort he had no realistic chance of chasing Emmanwori down on the sideline from the hashmarks. Laying him out was the definition of unnecessary. Still, the Gamecocks had temporarily preserved the lead with the takeaway.

Flag No. 3 didn’t lend itself to post-game outrage, but was just as crucial. LSU, still trailing 33-29 and still needing a touchdown to win, faced 4th-and-3 at the South Carolina 38-yard line on its next possession, which with the clock ticking under 2 minutes was likely its last. Desperate for a decisive stop, instead Kennard drew his third flag — this time for lining up offsides, extending LSU’s march for the go-ahead touchdown without the pressure of converting the crucial 4th down. One play later, the Tigers were inside the Carolina 5-yard line courtesy of a brilliant sideline catch by Kyren Lacy (initially ruled incomplete, correctly overturned on review); 3 plays after that, they were in the end zone for what turned out to be the winning score on a 2-yard run by RB Josh Williams.

A rash of high-leverage penalties does not account for South Carolina blowing a 17-0 first-half lead, or failing to gain a first down on its first six series after halftime with backup QB Robby Ashford filling in for gimpy starter LaNorris Sellers, or settling for a 49-yard field goal attempt to tie as time expired by an inexperienced kicker with a career long of 46. (He missed.) All of the above had to go wrong for the Gamecocks to lose a game that was theirs to win right up till the end. But when they look back on the course of this season, whatever direction it takes, that 21-point swing with a chance to start 3-0 is going to linger.

• • •

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart. After a couple of near-flawless outings to open the season, Ole Miss’ 40-6 win at Wake Forest was almost as notable for the blemishes as for the final score: The Rebels committed their first turnover (an errant snap), the starting offense was forced to punt for the first time, and Dart threw his first interception. It wasn’t a perfect night — just a routine 34-point blowout over a Power 4 conference opponent on the road, ho hum. Dart finished 26-for-34 passing against the Demon Deacons for 377 yards, 2 touchdowns and a conference-best 90.7 QBR, adding a 13-yard touchdown run for emphasis. Emphasis on emphasis.

https://twitter.com/OleMissSports/status/1835126996067660268/

Look, is it strictly advisable in the year 2024 for a Heisman-contending quarterback who’s more valuable as a passer than a runner to take on an opposing linebacker shoulder-first in the third quarter of a random nonconference game his team is already leading by 17 points? It is not. (Dart’s predecessor as QB1, Matt Corral, can advise on this subject.) Do we still love to see it? Hell yeah we do. Full points for laying it all on the line on The CW, never do it again.

2. Missouri WR Luther Burden III. The LB3 wing of the Human Joystick Hall of Fame is already under construction, and he added a couple more entries to the exhibit Saturday in Mizzou’s 27-21 win over Boston College. Statistically, Burden turned in the 7th 100-yard game of his career with 117 yards on 6 receptions. Aesthetically, he was even better, forcing 6 missed tackles and generating 72 of those yards after the catch, per PFF.

Luther Burden III = Competitive YAC pic.twitter.com/gW7MNlNzrx

— Jordan Reid (@Jordan_Reid) September 14, 2024

Luther Burden is back to his brilliant best. Now on 106 yards and a TD off 5 receptions. pic.twitter.com/6sweFNo5SU

— Fantasy Wildcard Devy (@WildcardDevy) September 14, 2024

Beyond the sizzle reel, Burden also came through in the clutch, hauling in a game-clinching, 11-yard reception on a 3rd-and-7 pass from Brady Cook that allowed the Tigers to run out the clock on their final possession. If a sustained Playoff run is in the cards, that’s the version of their superstar they need to see on a weekly basis — as opposed to the one who draws 15-yard penalties for sophomoric shenanigans. You’re not a sophomore anymore, Luther!

3. LSU edge Bradyn Swinson. LSU has been desperate to generate more pressure from its front four on defense, a sore spot throughout 2023 as well as in the Tigers’ opening-night loss to USC. They got their money’s worth on Saturday courtesy of Swinson, a former Oregon transfer who turned in his most productive game as a Tiger in the come-from-behind win at South Carolina.

Per PFF, he generated career highs in both QB pressures (7) and sacks (3) against the Gamecocks, including a key forced fumble in the fourth quarter that set up a short-field opportunity for the offense. (Which failed to capitalize; see above for the second would-be pick-6 that wasn’t.) If coaches are content to let Harold Perkins Jr.’s immense potential off the edge go to waste — a subject for another day — somebody has to pick up the slack, and Swinson just took a big step in the right direction.

4. Alabama QB Jalen Milroe. The execution hasn’t always been pretty, but the Tide’s explosiveness on offense is real. In their 42-10 win at Wisconsin, Milroe threw for 196 yards and 3 touchdowns on just 17 attempts, adding another 75 yards and 2 touchdowns rushing. Four of Alabama’s 6 touchdown drives against the Badgers took less than 2 minutes; 5 of them took 5 plays or fewer. For the season, Bama’s 19 touchdowns with Milroe in the lineup have covered an average of 32.5 yards.

5. South Carolina RB Raheim “Rocket” Sanders. Sanders transferred to South Carolina last winter in search of a fresh start following an injury-plagued 2023 campaign at Arkansas. Against LSU, he was back to looking like his old, explosive self, running for 142 yards and 2 touchdowns on 7.5 yards per carry in a losing effort. The biggest chunk of that total came at the start of the fourth quarter, on a routine 3rd-and-1 run that he popped for a 66-yard sprint to the house.

RAHEIM SANDERS GOES THE DISTANCE! 66 YARDS! pic.twitter.com/geycubwPYC

— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) September 14, 2024

Through 3 games, Sanders has already topped his ’23 total for rushing yards (285), touchdowns (4), first downs (15) and missed tackles forced (20, per PFF), on fewer carries. South Carolina has only produced 1,000-yard back in the past decade (Kevin Harris in 2020), the least of any SEC team since 2014; as long as Rocket remains in one piece, he’s going to get every opportunity to add his name to the list.

Honorable Mention: Texas QB Arch Manning, earning the first of what figure to be many points in the Superlatives Standings. … Texas A&M QB Marcel Reed, who had a coming-out party of his own in the Aggies’ waterlogged win at Florida, accounting for 281 total yards and 3 touchdowns without a turnover. … Ole Miss RB Henry Parrish Jr., who went over the century mark for the second consecutive week with 148 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Rebels’ win at Wake Forest. … Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter, who ran for 152 yards and a touchdown and added a second TD as a receiver in a 45-19 win over New Mexico. … Arkansas RB Ja’Quinden Jackson, who racked up a career-high 147 yards on 9.8 per carry in a 37-27 win over UAB. … LSU RB Caden Durham, a true freshman, who supplied a much needed jolt to the Tigers’ ground game with 98 yards and 2 touchdowns on 11 carries at South Carolina. … Kentucky DB Zion Childress, who had 6 tackles, 4 stops, and allowed 3 yards on 6 targets in coverage in the Wildcats’ upset bid against Georgia. … Oklahoma Edge R Mason Thomas, who had 3 sacks and a forced fumble in a 34-19 win over Tulane. … Alabama DL Lebbeus Overton, who generated 4 QB pressures, a sack and a forced fumble on a massive hit in the Crimson Tide’s win at Wisconsin. … And Alabama punter James Burnip, who averaged 48.8 yards per punt while dropping 4 of his 5 attempts inside the Badgers 20-yard line.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, 2 for Fat Guy of the Week, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the Year of the Week

South Carolina transfer WR Juice Wells with a one-handed TD grab

(via @OleMissFB)
pic.twitter.com/Hsu0kvV3Hl

— Transfer Portal (@TransferPortal_) September 15, 2024

Obscure Stat of the Week

None of Georgia punter Brett Thorson’s career-high 6 punts at Kentucky were returned, running his streak to an astonishing 49 consecutive punts without a return dating to the 2022 SEC Championship Game against LSU. The Tigers returned Thorson’s first punt in that game for no gain; the last Thorson punt actually returned for positive yardage was a 63-yard house call by Mississippi State’s Zavion Thomas 3 weeks earlier.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (3-0). The Curse of Michael Crabtree has finally lifted: The Longhorns are No. 1 in the AP poll this week for the first time since November 2008, when they memorably lost the top spot in a last-second loss at Texas Tech. The Curse of Colt McCoy remains in effect until further notice.
– – –
(LW: 2)

2. Georgia (3-0). Yeah, a road win in the SEC is a road win in the SEC. I’m just helping Kirby out here in making sure the chip on the Dawgs’ shoulders is properly developed with Alabama on deck.
– – –
(LW: 1)

3. Alabama (3-0). The flip side of an explosive offense is a defense that has kept the fireworks to a minimum: Bama has allowed 48 first downs over 3 games but has yet to allow a play longer than 25 yards. Does that say more about Bama’s defense or the low-octane opposition the Tide have faced? We’ll find out in 2 weeks.
– – –
(LW: 4)

4. Ole Miss (3-0). The defense rarely gets a word in edgewise in a Lane Kiffin production, but let the record show that the Rebels have been equally dominant on both sides of the ball. Through 3 games, they’ve allowed just 9 points, 2nd-fewest in the nation behind Ohio State (which has only played 2 games), and join OSU and Georgia as the only teams that have yet to allow a touchdown.
– – –
(LW: 3)

5. Tennessee (3-0). The Vols dropped a Biblical flood of offense on Kent State, putting up 65 points and 541 yards in the first half before extending a belated olive branch on the second. (Final score: 71-0.) The deluge included 9 consecutive touchdown drives, 6 of them completed in under 2 minutes, and possibly the single pettiest play I have ever seen: A surprise onside kick with a 30-0 lead in the first quarter, recovered by Tennessee.

Tennessee is up 30 and Josh Heupel completes an onside kick.

Oh my gosh pic.twitter.com/12zXHewvS8

— Vol Report (@AllVolReport) September 15, 2024

Josh Heupel OK’d that kick immediately following a 1-play, 53-yard touchdown “drive” — featuring Nico Iamaleava’s only completion of 20+ air yards — that would have signaled the end of the competitive segment of the game if there was ever any pretense the game was going to be competitive in the first place. Among the school records broken at the Golden Flashes’ expense: Most points in a game, most points in a half, most yards in a game and most consecutive games over 50+ points (3). All told, Tennessee’s 178-point scoring margin over the course of its 3-0 start is the largest in any 3-game span in SEC history.
– – –
(LW: 5⬌)

6. Missouri (3-0). Mizzou is the most slept-on of the league’s Playoff contenders, but also has the most favorable schedule — no Georgia, no Texas, no Ole Miss, no LSU. (The fact that Saturday’s win over No. 24 Boston College technically qualified as a ranked win is worth keeping in mind, too, when the Tigers inevitably faced accusations that they ain’t played nobody.) Alabama and Oklahoma are looming in Weeks 9 and 11; in the meantime, how much is at stake at that point will largely depend on a Week 6 trip to Texas A&M.
– – –
(LW: 6⬌)

7. Oklahoma (3-0). The Sooners pulled away late against Tulane to cover a 13.5-point spread — barely — but didn’t inspire much confidence in the process. They opened as 7.5-point home underdogs for this weekend’s SEC inauguration against Tennessee.
– – –
(LW: 7⬌)

8. LSU (2-1). It wasn’t pretty, but the Tigers got out of South Carolina with exactly the kind of win Brian Kelly was talking about a couple weeks ago when he was pounding the table in frustration over their failure to close out winnable games in the fourth quarter. A good thing, too, because the conversation this week if the Gamecocks’ game-winning field goal attempted had stayed on course would not be one he wants to be having anytime soon.
– – –
(LW: 8⬌)

9. Texas A&M (2-1). I’ll have more on Marcel Reed’s breakout afternoon at Florida later this week, but the QB dynamic in College Station is a poor man’s version of the one in Austin: The Aggies weren’t looking for an excuse to move on from Conner Weigman, but now that his understudy has given them one, there’s a serious decision to be made.
– – –
(LW: 10)

10. South Carolina (2-1). Carolina fans reserved most of their frustration for the refs, but the game really turned when starting QB LaNorris Sellers called it a day at halftime due to a sore ankle. Thus marked the end of the Gamecocks’ capacity to put the ball in the air: Robby Ashford’s 10 drop-backs in the second half yielded 3 sacks, 3 scrambles, 4 actual pass attempts, and just 1 completion for a first down, on the final last-gasp drive of the game.
– – –
(LW: 9)

11. Arkansas (2-1). For almost any other SEC team, I’d chalk up a sloppy, 37-27 win over a UAB outfit coming off a 26-point loss to UL-Monroe as underachieving. For Arkansas, which I consider the league’s resident chaos agent, it’s all par for the course. With enormously talented but equally volatile QB Taylen Green, the Razorbacks are capable of just about anything on any given Saturday, which means playing up or down to the competition as necessary to keep things interesting.
– – –
(LW: 12)

12. Auburn (2-1). It flew under the radar compared to the more high-profile breakouts of Arch Manning and Marcel Reed, but redshirt freshman QB Hank Brown had a fine debut of his own, throwing 4 touchdown passes to 4 different receivers in a 45-19 win over New Mexico. Brown was also an impressive 5-for-6 on attempts of 10+ air yards. There’s no telling how well that translates to conference play — check back after this weekend’s SEC opener against Arkansas — but suffice to say Auburn fans have probably seen the last of Payton Thorne for a while. Possibly for good.
– – –
(LW: 14)

13. Kentucky (1-2). I was not as put off by Mark Stoops’ decision to punt from midfield with a tick over 3 minutes to go against Georgia as some of his critics after the game. Kentucky trailed by just 1 point, 13-12; still had all 3 timeouts; faced 4th-and-8 with a struggling quarterback (which became 4th-and-13 following a penalty for a false start); and justifiably trusted a defense that had played lights out all night. With timeouts, a punt followed by a stop would have given the Wildcats the ball back in reasonable field position with time to set up a shot at the winning field goal. Of course, that’s not how it played out: Georgia picked up 2 first downs on its ensuing possession, nearly draining the clock before punting the ball back to Kentucky with 9 seconds left and no chance to respond. Hindsight is 20/20, you play to win the game, etc. In real time, it was a perfectly reasonable call.
– – –
(LW: 15)

14. Vanderbilt (2-1). Vandy’s 2-0 start turned into a pumpkin in a wild, 36-32 loss at Georgia State that saw 5 touchdowns in the 4th quarter and 2 lead changes in the final 2 minutes. Dropping a heartbreaker to a double-digit underdog from the Sun Belt is a very “Vandy being Vandy” type of loss, which is exactly what the ‘Dores did not want to have hanging around their neck heading into the SEC opener at Missouri.
– – –
(LW: 11)

15. Florida (1-2). Barring a miracle, Billy Napier is going to be remembered as one of the worst big-time coaching hires of his era, which isn’t entirely fair to the wildly successful run at Louisiana from 2018-21 that got him the Florida job in the first place. But 3 consecutive losing seasons in what should be one of the sport’s premier jobs is a stunning failure. At least Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen each managed a top-10 finish or division title before their tenures unraveled.
– – –
(LW: 13)

16. Mississippi State (1-2). It was plain enough before the season that the Bulldogs were long shots to win an SEC game under first-year coach Jeff Lebby. The gauge for just how long was a couple of nonconference toss-ups against Arizona State in Week 2 and Toledo in Week 3. The verdict: They’d better invest in a good GPS, because it’s going to be a grueling road out of the wilderness. After losing 30-23 at ASU (a game Mississippi State trailed 30-3 before making a late, futile rally), Saturday’s 41-17 thumping at the hands of the Rockets (a game Mississippi State trailed 35-3) was confirmation for the home crowd that the next 2 1/2 months are going to be as dark as they feared. This weekend’s date against the equally demoralized Gators might be the most depressing matchup of the season.
– – –
(LW: 16⬌)

Moment of Zen of the Week

Luther Burden tosses a mouthguard and the ref one ups him with an absolutely epic flag toss. This thing went into orbit pic.twitter.com/nyxsArS6eg

— HuskGuys (@HuskGuys) September 14, 2024

The post Monday Down South: Arch Madness is here … and isn’t going away appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Game of the Week: Alabama (-16.5) at Wisconsin

(All lines courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.)

The stakes

How are we feeling about this team so far, Bama fans? The opener, a 63-0 romp over Western Kentucky in Kalen DeBoer‘s debut as head coach, was a vintage blowout that matched Alabama’s largest margin of victory in any game under Nick Saban. The follow-up, a 42-16 win over South Florida, was a buzzkill that left the home crowd … let’s say, unnerved for most of the proceedings. Despite the final score, the outcome against USF was in doubt well into the fourth quarter, prior to which point the Bama offense had looked sloppy, penalty-prone and out of sync.

With Georgia on deck in the SEC opener, some reassurance is in order. A road trip to Wisconsin is not quite the stress test it used to be: The Badgers are just 13-8 in Camp Randall Stadium over the past 3 years after going 61-8 at home in the decade prior to the pandemic. (That’s not including a memorable, 16-14 upset over LSU at Lambeau Field in the 2017 opener, the beginning of the end of the Les Miles era in Baton Rouge.) The 2023 team, the first under coach Luke Fickell, was a generic outfit that went 7-6 overall, 5-4 in the Big Ten, and 1-4 vs. opponents that finished with a winning record, the lone victory in the latter column coming against 7-6 Rutgers. Wisconsin hasn’t beaten a ranked opponent (as of kickoff) since an October 2021 win over Iowa; it hasn’t beaten a ranked nonconference opponent since the 2017 Orange Bowl against Miami. These are not the old run-it-down-your-throat Badgers that made a habit of contending for Rose Bowls.

They are still a competitive Big Ten outfit with a seasoned quarterback, a humongous offensive line and a sturdy defense. Their first 2 games, statistically identical wins over Western Michigan (28-14) and South Dakota (27-13), were as nondescript as the past few seasons. If there’s any hope of this group breaking out of the rut, Saturday would be a fine time to start.

The stat: 50.8%

That’s the percentage of Wisconsin’s total offensive snaps in 2023 that went in the books as passes — the first time in school history, even narrowly, that the Badgers put the ball in the air more often than they kept it on the ground. By Wisconsin standards, that qualified as a full-on conversion to the Air Raid.

Unfortunately, a willingness to put the ball in the air isn’t the same thing as actually being good at it: The Badgers ranked 119th nationally in yards per attempt, 108th in pass efficiency, and averaged their fewest points per game (23.5) since 2004. In their 4 conference losses, they failed to top 14 points in any of them.

The initial experiment flopped, but the project forges ahead. Fickell stuck by his offensive coordinator, the well-traveled Phil Longo, and his 21st-Century insistence on balance. Instead, the key variable in ’24 is a new quarterback, Miami transfer Tyler Van Dyke, a strapping pocket type who fits the NFL mold at 6-4, 225 pounds. Through 2 games against middling competition, Van Dyke has struggled to move the needle, averaging 6.4 yards per attempt (Wisconsin averaged 6.1 ypa in 2023) and going 2-for-8 on attempts of 20+ air yards. His lone touchdown, a 50-yarder to USC transfer CJ Williams against South Dakota, came on an RPO in which Van Dyke initially tucked the ball to run, only to pull up just short of the line of scrimmage to find a wide-open Williams behind busted coverage. Thus ends the highlight reel.

Otherwise, the offense has been content in the early going to play it safe and grind away behind a couple of thickly-built transfer running backs, Chez Mellusi (Clemson) and Tawee Walker (Oklahoma), who have combined to average exactly 4.0 per carry with a long gain of 11. Woof. Presumably Longo has an ace or two up his sleeve for Saturday, but in the absence of anyone who remotely resembles a big-play threat moving the ball against Bama is going to amount to keeping Van Dyke in manageable third-down situations and coming up with as many different ways as possible to scheme an open receiver a yard past the sticks.

The big question: Is Alabama’s o-line OK?

Before they pulled away late, most of the angst in the Crimson Tide’s uninspired win over USF was reserved for a reshuffled front line, which earned the scorn in the absence of starting left tackle Kadyn Proctor. With Proctor sidelined by a shoulder injury, the starting five was a wreck, allowing 11 pressures (including 3 sacks), committing 6 holding penalties and jumping offsides 3 times.

There was blame to go around, but the goat of the group was the right tackle, redshirt freshman Wilkin Formby — a hometown product from Tuscaloosa — whose second career start went about as badly as it could go; on 36 pass-blocking snaps he allowed 4 pressures and was flagged 3 times, including a holding call that negated a long completion, posting an alarming PFF pass-blocking grade of 25.0. Formby was also flagged on a long touchdown run by Jalen Milroe that would have given the Tide some breathing room in the first half. Later on, all 3 of the late Bama touchdowns in the closing minutes came after he was replaced in the lineup by banged-up veteran Elijah Pritchett.

All signs this week are that Proctor, who returned to practice and is listed as the starting LT on the updated depth chart, is on track to play; that will allow his replacement, aspiring All-American Tyler Booker, to move back to his usual position at left guard. (Booker also struggled in his first career reps on the outside, allowing two pressures and getting flagged twice.) On the right side, Formby and Pritchett are listed as co-starters at a position where the fewer people know your name, the better. Bama fans will be watching closely for reassurance they can safely forget about that station for the rest of the year.

The key matchup: Alabama WR Ryan Williams vs. Wisconsin CB Ricardo Hallman

Remember when the notion of incoming recruits skipping their last semester of high school to enroll early was a novelty? Today it’s the norm. The next trend in accelerating career timelines, brought to you by NIL: Recruits skipping their entire senior year of high school altogether. There was a minor boomlet this year of would-be seniors graduating early enough to reclassify from the 2025 class to 2024, none of them more decorated than the 17-year-old Williams, who arrived over the summer ranked as the No. 4 player at any position in the ’24 class, per 247Sports’ composite rating.

He’s wasted no time convincing Jalen Milroe, who has targeted Williams as many times over the first 2 games (8) as any other receiver, or anyone else who has watched him take 3 of his first 6 college receptions to the house from 40+ yards out.

4⃣2⃣ 6⃣@Jalenmilroe @Ryanwms1

: ESPN pic.twitter.com/nI3SmoiOm2

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) September 8, 2024

Torching USF and Western Kentucky is a good start; lining up across from Hallman, the most flame-resistant cornerback Williams will face all season, is an advanced assignment. Despite being snubbed for All-Big Ten honors in 2023, by any other measure Hallman was one of the top corners in the country: He tied for the FBS lead with 7 interceptions while allowing a single touchdown in coverage, per PFF, and turned in arguably his best game against Ohio State, where he shut out Marvin Harrison Jr. on 3 head-to-head targets. (Don’t take PFF’s word for it: Hallman’s sizzle reel backs that up.)

So far this year, he’s faced just 3 targets, allowing 1 catch for 10 yards. If Williams leaves grill marks on this dude, the kid is officially special.

The verdict …

The vibes in Tuscaloosa are not nearly as paranoid as this time last year, when an underwhelming win over USF felt like a crisis. At that point, Bama was coming off a sobering loss to Texas the previous week and wasn’t sure if it had a quarterback or a stable o-line. No such concerns this year: The Tide are 2-0, Milroe is entrenched, and anyway, at the end of the night the final score against the Bulls wasn’t that close. The 16.5-point spread in Madison is roughly the same as it would have been 2 weeks ago.

But then, “we’re going to be fine” is not the same as “we’re going all the way,” which — Saban or no Saban — is still where the bar is set for the nation’s most talented roster.

There are issues to clean up ahead of a Week 5 collision with Georgia (Bama and UGA are both off next week), especially along the o-line. The defense should give the offense plenty of margin for error again against a juiceless Wisconsin attack, but the less Milroe and Co. need it the better they’ll feel about their date with the Dawgs.
–     –      –
• Alabama 32 | Wisconsin 13

LSU (-6.5) at South Carolina

Everybody loves a freshman who comes out of nowhere looking fully formed, and South Carolina has one in edge rusher Dylan Stewart. The gem of Carolina’s recruiting class, the 6-6, 248-pound Stewart could easily pass for an aspiring first-rounder after just 2 games. In the opener, a 23-19 win over Old Dominion, PFF credited him with 6 QB pressures, 3 sacks, a pair of forced fumbles, and the highest overall grade of any full-time FBS defender in Week 1; the latter of those forced fumbles set up the Gamecocks’ go-ahead (and eventually game-winning) touchdown inside the ODU 10-yard in the fourth quarter. In front of a much larger audience for last week’s 31-6 romp over Kentucky, he leapt off the screen, flashing big-league power …

Dylan Stewart going crazy pic.twitter.com/KIe4iazeCe

— NMD Grant (@NMDgrant) September 7, 2024

… explosiveness off the snap with the bend and body control to turn the corner …

“Relentless” “these guys are breathing fire” haven’t heard a play-by-play say this about South Carolina’s defensive line in a decade. Dylan Stewart robbed of a sack here on the no-call hold. pic.twitter.com/tpI9aVwo3I

— Matt O'Brien (@mattobrien31) September 7, 2024

… and the relentless to fight through a triple-team:

Dylan Stewart continues to be a force

pic.twitter.com/VIczoqORNB

— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 7, 2024

Stewart’s highlights are littered with comments along the lines of “he’s going to be a problem,” but in his case he already very much is a problem, especially opposite another confirmed dude on the other side, Georgia Tech transfer Kyle Kennard.

Between those two on the edge and a couple of All-SEC-caliber vets on the interior, TJ Sanders and Tonka Hemingway, the entire defensive line is a problem — and frankly needs to be, if it’s going to continue to have any chance of offsetting what’s shaping up as a marginal-at-best Carolina offense.

That makes for an intriguing match-up opposite LSU’s offensive line, which boasts at least 1 future first-rounder, left tackle Will Campbell, and potentially another, depending on who you ask about right tackle Emery Jones Jr. The Tigers are also expected to have guard Garrett Dellinger, who returned to practice this week after sitting out their Week 2 win over McNeese State recovering from a concussion. Based on what we’ve seen so far from the Gamecocks’ front, QB Garrett Nussmeier needs all hands on deck.
–     –      –
• LSU 27 | South Carolina 17

Texas A&M (-3.5) at Florida

Speaking of touted freshmen: Let the DJ Lagway era in Gainesville begin.

Yes, Billy Napier insisted this week that he’s sticking by beleaguered incumbent Graham Mertz, and that Mertz and Lagway will both play against the Aggies in some kind of undefined platoon. With all due respect to Mertz, we’ll see how long that lasts before Napier concedes to the inevitable. To the rest of the world, Mertz’s tenure as QB1 plainly passed the expiration date in the opener, a 41-17 flop against Miami that left Mertz concussed and his head coach’s future in serious doubt. Meanwhile, Lagway’s first start, a 456-yard, 3-touchdown bonanza against Samford, was a breath of fresh air. After looking thoroughly lifeless in Week 1, the Gators averaged 24.5 yards per completion with 9 receptions that gained 20+ yards.

https://twitter.com/GatorsFB/status/1832588602750202030

Yeah, against Samford. Duly noted. As live auditions against FCS tomato cans go, Lagway’s was about as good as it gets — certainly good enough to give him the benefit of the doubt moving forward, growing pains and all.

Whether his potential translates into wins against Florida’s nightmare of a schedule is less important than the fact that he points the way out of the funk. Anyway, how many games do they project to win behind the savvy veteran stylings of Mertz? Everyone sees that Lagway is the future; the sooner he becomes the present, the sooner the Gators can figure out exactly where it is they’re going.
–     –      –
• Texas A&M 24 | Florida 19

Georgia (-24.5) at Kentucky

The default storyline in this one — Georgia-turned-Kentucky QB Brock Vandagriff leads an upset bid against his former team — doesn’t quite land after the Wildcats’ collapse against South Carolina, in which the once-touted Vandagriff looked less like a dark horse than a deer in the headlights. He finished 3-for-10 for 30 yards against the Gamecocks, with 3 sacks, a fumble, and a pick-6 before getting the hook at the start of the fourth quarter; his passer rating (35.2), overall PFF grade (28.8) and Total QBR (an incredible 1.2, out of a possible 100) ranked dead last nationally among Week 2 starters in all 3 categories. After that, just surviving an encounter with Georgia’s defense with QB1 status intact seems like enough of a challenge all on its own.

On that note, the Dawgs are still looking to identify an individual edge rusher who can reliably turn up the heat. The most experienced/touted member of the rotation, junior Mykel Williams, is on the shelf for the second week in a row with a sprained ankle. That leaves a couple of rank-and-file vets, Chaz Chambliss and Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, who have yet to record a QB pressure between them this season, and a couple of up-and-comers, Damon Wilson Jr. and Jalon Walker, who remain on breakout watch. After watching South Carolina take Kentucky’s battered offensive line to the woodshed, Georgia would love for Saturday to be the day the watch ends.
–     –      –
Georgia 33 | • Kentucky 10

Boston College at Missouri (-16.5)

This one got a lot more interesting after Boston College whipped Florida State, 28-13, on the Labor Day edition of Monday Night Football, in the Eagles’ first (and so far only) game under new head coach Bill O’Brien. A nationally televised win over the Noles was enough to nudge BC into the AP poll, at No. 24, making this its first game as a ranked team since November 2018. The backfield combination of Treshaun Ward, Kye Robichaux and QB Thomas Castellanos was impressive in that game, racking up a combined 235 rushing yards on 5.2 per carry behind a veteran offensive line. The going against Mizzou will be considerably tougher: Through 2 games against Murray State and Buffalo, the Tigers lead the nation in total defense and have yet to allow a point.

A footnote to keep an eye on: The status of Missouri’s star wideouts Luther Burden III and Theo Wease, both of whom bowed out of last week’s win over Buffalo early due to illness and a minor injury, respectively. Coach Eli Drinkwitz described both on Monday as “probable,” telling reporters “I’m not concerned about either one of those right now.” Both seem likely to play, but you never know.
–     –      –
Missouri 29 | • Boston College 17

Tulane at Oklahoma (-13.5)

The Sooners are looking to rebound offensively after a dismal outing against Houston in which they managed just 249 total yards and 16 points in a game they were favored to win by 4 touchdowns. The defense held up its end of the bargain, holding Houston to 12 points and forcing a crucial safety late in the fourth quarter; the special teams did, too, recovering a muffed punt that set up Oklahoma’s first touchdown at the UH 10-yard line. But the offense itself managed just one sustained, non-short field scoring drive, with the rest of its possessions yielding 10 punts, a missed field goal (immediately following a takeaway by the defense), and an interception.

Can Oklahoma run the ball? Most of the blame for last week’s issues fell on sophomore QB Jackson Arnold, who described his own performance as “just a bad night in general,” but he didn’t get much help from an injury-ravaged receiving corps or a ground game that finished with just 86 yards on 3.3 per carry (excluding sacks). Last year’s leading rusher, junior Gavin Sawchuk, has been especially disappointing, eking out 19 yards on 10 carries over the first 2 games in what was supposed to be a breakout year for him. Tulane struggled against the run last week in a down-to-the-wire, 34-27 loss to Kansas State, giving up 215 yards rushing on 6.5 per carry. Getting untracked on the ground would be a great way to help take some of the load off a struggling young QB.
–     –      –
Oklahoma 31 | • Tulane 20

Ole Miss (-22.5) at Wake Forest

Wake Forest suffered a deflating Week 2 loss to Virginia, blowing a 13-point lead and multiple scoring opportunities in the fourth quarter of a 31-30 heartbreaker at home. The Demon Deacons outgained UVA by more than 100 total yards and finished with a +1 turnover margin, and still couldn’t get the Cavaliers’ offense off the field when it counted. Against Ole Miss, which has scored on 16 of 17 possessions manned by starting QB Jaxson Dart — 14 touchdowns, 2 field goals — just getting the Rebels off the field at all in the competitive portion of the proceedings might be an achievement.
–     –      –
• Ole Miss 41 | Wake Forest 16

UT-San Antonio at Texas (-35.5)

Is the window closing on UTSA’s Jeff Traylor as an up-and-coming candidate for bigger jobs? Prior to this season Traylor boasted a 39-14 record at UTSA with a pair of Conference-USA championships to his credit in 2021-22; as late as last November, he was considered a plausible candidate to fill the vacancy at Texas A&M. But all of his FBS success to date has come with since-departed QB Frank Harris at the helm, and a 49-10 wipeout at Texas State in Week 2 was a wake-up call about what kind of year might be in store without him. That remains to be seen. As for Saturday, another short bus ride up I-35 is going to feel a lot longer on the return trip home.
–     –      –
• Texas 48 | UTSA 9

New Mexico at Auburn (-28.5)

Struggling on offense? New Mexico is the defense you want to face: The 0-2 Lobos rank 134th out of 134 teams in total defense and 132nd in scoring D. A lot of that is the fallout from being on the wrong end of a historic performance by Arizona WR Tetairoa McMillan in Week 1, which frankly if you’ve seen much of McMillan you can hardly blame them. But Auburn has some gifted young wideouts, too, and after last week’s 21-14 debacle against Cal the Tigers should be eager for a night of target practice. If Payton Thorne can’t drop a big number on this secondary with Cam Coleman and KeAndre Lambert-Smith at his disposal it’s time for a serious talk.
– –  –
Auburn 45 | • New Mexico 23

UAB at Arkansas (-23.5)

UAB fielded one of the nation’s worst defenses in 2023 under first-year coach Trent Dilfer (yes, that Trent Dilfer), and early returns are not encouraging for a turnaround in ’24 coming off a 32-6 waxing at the hands of UL-Monroe. Arkansas, meanwhile, is coming off a double overtime loss at Oklahoma State in a game the Razorbacks thoroughly dominated statistically yet let slip away. Bobby Petrino taking out his frustration on an inferior defense has the chance to get real ugly real fast.
–     –      –
• Arkansas 51 | UAB 10

Toledo at Mississippi State (-10.5)

Mississippi State was facing a grim outlook coming into the season, and it got a little grimmer last week in a 30-23 loss at Arizona State, one of the handful of games the Bulldogs had circled as a plausible win. Toledo, the top program in the MAC, is one of the others. Jeff Lebby needs this one: After Saturday, the only remaining game State is likely to be favored to win is a Nov. 2 visit from UMass.
–     –      –
• Mississippi State 37 | Toledo 24

Kent State at Tennessee (-49.5)

Kent State was very much in the running for Worst Team in America in 2023, and looks like it’s going to be again coming off a Week 2 loss to an FCS squad, St. Francis of Pennsylvania. You know it’s bad when you lose to a school that has to clarify which state it’s in.
–     –      –
• Tennessee 59 | Kent State 6

Vanderbilt (-10.5) at Georgia State

Georgia State is embarking on its first season under head coach Dell McGee, who spent the previous 8 years at Georgia after joining Kirby Smart’s original staff there in 2016. McGee, who played as a cornerback at Auburn in the mid-1990s, held various titles under Smart, including assistant head coach, running game coordinator and running backs coach, all of which translate to “recruiter.” If he can throw a scare into the suddenly surging Commodores on Saturday, his first spin in the big chair will be off to a good start.
–     –      –
• Vanderbilt 31 | Georgia State 16

Scoreboard

Week 2 record: 13-2 straight-up | 10-2 vs. spread (!)
Season record: 27-4 straight-up | 20-8 vs. spread

The post Week 3 SEC Primer: What to make of Alabama? Maybe Wisconsin will help us find out appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Quinn Ewers, Texas

Texas went into Michigan ready and willing for Ewers to let it rip against the defending national champs, and he did … for a half. That’s how long it took for the Longhorns to build a 24-3 lead, and for all of America to grasp that the only prayer the Wolverines had of making up the gap was with the gift of multiple UT turnovers. Ewers throttled down at the break, finishing with the kind of good-not-great stat line (24-for-36, 246 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs) that fails at a glance to convey just how in command he was throughout. After a glitchy start to his career, it’s starting to look like the recruitniks hit the bullseye on the 5-star.

For one thing, Ewers appears as comfortable and unhurried as you’d expect from a guy with 24 starts under his belt in the same system. For another, he looks considerably leaner and more mobile in Year 4 than he did as a freshman. (Admittedly, ditching the sloppy mullet for a more aerodynamic cut might superficially account for some of the “leaner” part.) He is not athletic in the sense that any opposing defense is ever going to worry about him tucking and running for yardage. What he lacks in the speed and agility columns, though, Ewers makes up for with a pro’s feel for some of the subtler tricks of the trade to create the space he needs to operate “out of structure” — finding escape routes, buying time, manipulating traffic in the pocket, and maintaining the footwork and body control to make consistently accurate throws on the move.

Quinn Ewers is as good on the move and off-balance as any quarterback in the country. pic.twitter.com/g0V12Y0MAH

— CJ Vogel (@CJVogel_OTF) September 10, 2024

Then, of course, there’s his casual arm strength, another a major asset when conditions are not perfect. Although he was relatively restrained on Saturday in terms of throwing downfield (just 2-for-3 on attempts of 20+ air yards, with a long gain of 33), Ewers still flashed his ability to safely deliver both a feathery deep ball and a bullet over the middle even when his footwork is less than pristine. Slow down this under-duress completion to Johntay Cook II in the fourth quarter, and you’ll see he delivered it mid-hop off one foot:

This throw by Quinn Ewers on Saturday was ridiculous pic.twitter.com/ft42HtmnRD

— Laterals (@LateralsIG) September 9, 2024

Part of the reason the box score didn’t quite match up with the eye test is that two of his best throws — the first touchdown pass in clip 1 and the 1-footer in clip 2 — were wiped from the books by penalties, leading to a missed field goal and a punt, respectively. (Coincidentally, both negated completions went to Cook, who didn’t record an official reception.) Adjusted for the competition, Ewers’ stat line was still impressive: Both his passer rating (151.6) and Total QBR (89.7) were the best anyone has put up against the Wolverines since Georgia’s Stetson Bennett IV shredded them in the CFP semifinal in 2021. And while the current version of Michigan is very different than the one that brought the confetti down in January, a convincing win in the Big House to snap a 23-game home winning streak ought to speak for itself.

Just keep all that in mind over the next, oh, month or so until the back-to-back October dates against Oklahoma and Georgia that will define Texas’ season. With the big nonconference test out of the way and UT-San Antonio, UL-Monroe and Mississippi State on deck, it might be a while before we get a chance to see Ewers break another sweat.
–     –     –
(Last week: 2)

2. Carson Beck, Georgia

Last week, Beck overtook Ewers in the top spot following a strong debut against Clemson. This week, Ewers owned the spotlight while Beck took target practice against Tennessee Tech. Am I just going to keep toggling between them based on which one just played a real opponent? Until further notice, probably, yeah. Beck has the upper hand in that department over the next 3 weeks against Kentucky, Alabama and Auburn; Georgia visits Austin on Oct. 18.
–     –     –
(Last week: 1)

3. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

Dart has opened the season on fire, with his 17 possessions to date against Furman and Middle Tennessee yielding 14 touchdowns, 2 field goals and a missed filed goal — zero punts, zero turnovers. Altogether, he’s 47-for-54 passing for an average of 14.7 yards per attempt, including an SEC-record 30 consecutive completions spanning both games. (Most of the high-percentage variety, but still.) We’ll see if an uptick in competition this week at Wake Forest has any sort of cooling effect.
–     –     –
(Last week: 4)

4. Jalen Milroe, Alabama

You wouldn’t know it from the final score, but Alabama’s 42-16 win over South Florida was a bona fide nail-biter well into the fourth quarter, despite Milroe’s best efforts. Instead, most of the blame fell on a reshuffled offensive line, which earned the scorn in the absence of starting left tackle Kadyn Proctor. With Proctor sidelined by a shoulder injury, the starting five was a wreck, allowing 11 pressures (including 3 sacks), committing 6 holding penalties and jumping offsides 3 times. Penalties wiped out a long completion and a long Milroe touchdown run in the first half that would have given the Crimson Tide some breathing room, and the extension of its struggles into the second half visibly set the home crowd on edge.

Alabama fans tonight… pic.twitter.com/RO0f2szDVV

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 8, 2024

For Milroe’s part, although he accounted for 4 of Alabama’s 6 touchdowns as a rusher or passer, it was a mostly forgettable night. He was 2-for-8 passing under pressure, finished with 2 net rushing yards after subtracting for sacks, and reopened a can of worms Bama thought it had closed when he fumbled away a rare snap from under center at the USF 2-yard line. His only contribution to the late flurry of haymakers that put the game out of reach was a short, routine throw that freshman phenom Ryan Williams took the distance to open the flood gates; the Tide’s subsequent 2 touchdowns were on handoffs. This offense has so much explosiveness, but still a lot to clean up this weekend at Wisconsin before Georgia comes to town on Sept. 28.
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(Last week: 3)

5. Brady Cook, Missouri

For a guy who dropped back 39 times in a 38-0 win, Cook had an uneventful outing against Buffalo, averaging a meh 6.3 yards per attempt without a touchdown pass or a sack. (He did thrown an interception in the second half, snapping a streak of 21 consecutive quarters without a pick going back to last year.) Instead, his most memorable moment in the pocket came on one of the few occasions that he left it, on a 31-yard scramble capped by a hurdle into the end zone. Up next: A more interesting challenge against a ranked version of Boston College.
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(Last week: 5⬌)

6. Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee

Iamaleava accounted for 276 total yards and 3 touchdowns in a 51-10 romp over NC State, which goes a long way toward putting his 2 interceptions against the Wolfpack in perspective. Yes, 1 of those picks was responsible for the Wolfpack’s only touchdown … in a game Tennessee was leading 37-3 late in the third quarter. Meanwhile, in the competitive portion of the evening he was doing things like this:

https://twitter.com/AllVolReport/status/1833139573737558305/

I’d tap the brakes on any Heisman hype until the Vols visit Oklahoma in a couple of weeks, Iamaleava’s first notable road test: That completion was 1 of only 2 of 10+ air yards on 8 attempts. But while he remains a work in progress, at this fledgling stage of his career, the progress remains highly encouraging.
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(Last week: 6⬌)

7. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU

Nussmeier’s first start in Tiger Stadium was productive, yielding 302 yards and 6 touchdowns on 27-of-37 passing in a routine, 44-21 win over Nicholls State. Up next: His first true road start, at South Carolina, where the Gamecocks’ ferocious pass rush will put him and his NFL-ready tackles to an actual test.
– – –
(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt

Vandy pulled off the rare feat of finishing with more points (55) than offensive snaps (53) in a blowout win over Alcorn State, a win so effortless that Pavia barely had to break a sweat: He finished just 10-for-13 for 83 yards, adding another 51 on the ground. At one point in the fourth quarter, the Commodores scored 3 touchdowns in a span of 5 plays from scrimmage — none of them involving Pavia — courtesy of a 56-yard TD run on offense, a punt return TD following a 3-and-out on Alcorn’s ensuing possession, and a pick-6 by the defense on the first play of the possession after that. Usually that’s the sort of sequence that goes against Vandy, so we’re all still adjusting here.
–     –     –
(Last week: 10)

9. Conner Weigman, Texas A&M

A&M remains on high alert until further notice following Weigman’s 12-of-30, 2-interception meltdown against Notre Dame in Week 1, which looks even worse following the Fighting Irish’s subsequent flop against Northern Illinois in Week 2. But the Aggies can breathe slightly easier this week after opening up a can on McNeese State: The offense scored on its first 8 offensive possessions in a 52-10 blowout, a welcome turnaround regardless of the competition. (See the Rankings’ official policy concerning big numbers vs. FCS opponents: Dropping half-a-hundred on a random patsy always beats not dropping half-a-hundred on a random patsy.) For his part, Weigman finished 11-for-14 against the Cowboys for 125 yards, 2 touchdowns and the top overall PFF grade (97.7) of any FBS quarterback over the weekend.

Next up on the reassurance/redemption tour: At Florida for the SEC opener, where he desperately needs to prove in a hostile environment that he’s still on the right track.
–     –     –
(Last week: 11)

10. Taylen Green, Arkansas

The good news: Green’s eye-opening athleticism was on full display at Oklahoma State, where he accounted for 477 total yards. The not-so-good news: It took him 63 plays as a passer/rusher to put up that number, an average of a relatively pedestrian 7.6 yards per play, while his recklessness was also on display. He put the ball on the ground twice, missed open receivers, and served up a pick-6 that got the Cowboys on the board in an eventual 39-31 loss in double overtime.

https://twitter.com/big12studios/status/1832512008136049144/

We don’t have enough space here to go into forensic detail about how Arkansas managed to lose a game it thoroughly dominated statistically — just for starters, the Razorbacks outgained Oklahoma State by 263 yards of total offense and nearly 2 full yards per play — but suffice to say that 3 giveaways and 4 scoreless trips inside the OSU 30-yard line adds up to a significant swing. The preseason read on Green remains in force: A 6-6, 230-pound specimen with wheels, he’s going to do some “wow” stuff on a weekly basis, and some stuff that makes you groan. For a team that’s now 3-10 in 1-score games since the start of the 2022 season, the margin is thin.
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(Last week: 12)

11. Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma

The first 2 games on Oklahoma’s schedule, home dates against Temple and Houston, were supposed to be gimmes that allowed Arnold to settle into a high-pressure role with a minimum of drama before hitting the SEC gauntlet. So much for that. Coming off a lukewarm stat line in Week 1, Arnold was ice-cold Saturday in a sluggish, 16-12 win over Houston, averaging a meager 5.4 yards per attempt on what he himself described as “just a bad night in general.” He led 1 sustained scoring drive against the Cougars, an 81-yard march for a touchdown in the first half; otherwise, OU’s only other points came as the result of 1) a muffed punt that set up the offense in a goal-to-go situation early in the game, and 2) a safety by the defense that gave the Sooners a field-goal-proof, 4-point lead late in the fourth quarter.

The rest of the night was Punt City. Excluding the long touchdown drive, Oklahoma’s other 10 non-short-field possessions yielded 138 yards (including penalties), 8 punts, a missed field goal and an interception.

https://twitter.com/UHCougarFB/status/1832600682513195253/

The “Heisman or bust” curve for Oklahoma quarterbacks established in the Lincoln Riley years is an unfair standard with Riley long gone. But the Sooners are invested in Arnold, the gem of their 2023 recruiting class, who is clearly in a ride-or-die position as the starter. Brent Venables effectively banked his tenure on his prized recruit when he let his incumbent, Dillon Gabriel, portal out last December; he’d love nothing more than to insist “2-0 is 2-0,” chalk up Arnold’s early struggles to growing pains, and hope his precocious talent bears out ASAP. As it stands, a 37.5 QBR against a team that was picked to finish 15th in the Big 12 and lost its opener by 20 points to UNLV isn’t going to cut it with a steep conference slate looming.
–     –     –
(Last week: 8)

12. Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway, Florida

Billy Napier told reporters Monday that Mertz and Lagway will both play in this weekend’s SEC opener against Texas A&M. I think I speak for virtually the entire outside world when I say: Why, man?

https://twitter.com/GatorsFB/status/1832588602750202030/

The question does not need to be litigated or dragged out. It’s not even a question.

With all due respect to the savvy veteran stylings of Mertz, who sat out the Gators’ 45-7 win over Samford recovering from a concussion suffered in the season-opener, Lagway is clearly the future. Based on his 456-yard, 3-touchdown debut on Saturday, he’s also the present.

After looking listless and juiceless in their Week 1 flop against Miami, the Gators were explosive, averaging 24.5 yards per completion against the Bulldogs with 9 passes that gained 20+ yards.

https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1832562866672615721/

Sure, it was at the expense of Samford. It was also the most fun Florida fans have had watching their team since Anthony Richardson declared early for the draft, if not longer. Where Mertz represented a predictable, risk-averse march to mediocrity, at best, Lagway represents a vision for the offense that puts butts in the seats and has the potential to salvage Napier’s job simply by being a vision, even if the results don’t come right away against serious competition. The results weren’t exactly coming with Mertz at the wheel, either.

First career touchdown for @DerekLagway and @Tankk_1k pic.twitter.com/iWKlsjA2Bb

— Florida Gators Football (@GatorsFB) September 8, 2024

Why prolong the inevitable? Florida is not a threat to win more than 6 or 7 games against its nightmare of a schedule regardless of who’s taking the snaps. No one in Gainesville is worried about the obvious downside of handing the keys to a true freshman. The real concern now is the thought that Napier might be too stubborn to change course even when the ship is already going under.
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(Last week: 15)

13. Blake Shapen, Mississippi State

Mississippi State’s offense spent the first half of its Week 2 trip to Arizona State loitering aimlessly, falling into a 30-3 hole as most of the viewing audience passed out on the couch with visions of the Sun Devils cashing in a Shapen fumble for a touchdown dancing in their heads. The Bulldogs rallied in the second half, scoring touchdowns on 3 of their 4 offensive possessions after halftime with Shapen going 7-for-9 for 153 yards and 2 touchdowns on the scoring drives. (The second of which, a short toss that shifty WR Kevin Coleman took 80 yards after making a man miss in the open field, cut the margin to 30-23 with 5:27 left to play.) Alas, the comeback fizzled when ASU ran it down the defense’s throat on a clock-killing final possession. Frankly, with the season Mississippi State likely has ahead, resilience in the face of an apparently hopeless situation is a quality Shapen is going to have draw on often.
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(Last week: 14)

14. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina

Sellers was on the right side of a 31-6 final score in his first SEC start, so delving too deeply into the details of his 11-for-15, 159-yard stat line is beside the point. Air-mail interception notwithstanding, he looked better in the Gamecocks’ win over Kentucky than he did in his Week 1 debut against Old Dominion, so let’s chalk it up as moving in the right direction. The real pressing question concerning the passing game: Where is Nyck Harbor?
–     –     –
(Last week: 16)

15. Payton Thorne, Auburn

Thorne looked like a new man in Auburn’s opener, throwing for 322 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 73-3 slaughter of Alabama A&M. In Saturday’s 21-14 loss to Cal, he looked like he same guy Auburn fans remembered from 2023, serving up a grim reminder of why they desperately hoped Hugh Freeze would upgrade the position via the portal over the offseason. After a fast start, Thorne — a 6th-year senior making his 40th career start for a power conference team — looked like a reckless, wet-behind-the-ears rookie the rest of the way, throwing 4 interceptions in a span of 16 attempts over the final 3 quarters. (Read that again for emphasis: 4 interceptions. In 16 attempts.) Per PFF, 3 of the INTs came from a clean pocket, including both of the back-to-back, game-clinching picks on the Tigers’ last 2 offensive snaps with the game still within reach.

NOHL!! WILLIAMS!!

Second INT of the day for @NohlWilliams#GoBears | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/krupspm2Yt

— Cal Football (@CalFootball) September 7, 2024

FOURTH THORNE INTERCEPTION, THE BEARS WIN AND UPSET AUBURN. #auburnfootball #thorne #calfootball pic.twitter.com/BHhZguK8eh

— Sports Pulse (@sportspulsenow_) September 7, 2024

It could have been worse: A 5th INT, an apparent pick-6 on the opening series, was overturned on review, thus salvaging one of the Tigers’ two successful drives on the day.

A miserable afternoon by any standard, but for a veteran player who was already the walking definition of “embattled” prior to the season, self-immolating in one of the more winnable games on the schedule was a worst-case scenario. Auburn made a real effort over the offseason to improve an underwhelming surrounding cast, essentially rebuilding the wide receiver rotation from scratch with multiple transfers and a pair of blue-chip freshmen, Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson, all of whom contributed to the good vibes in the opener. The Tigers were double-digit favorites against Cal largely based on that sense of optimism. (Thorne said after the game that he received messages on Venmo requesting money to cover lost bets.) The vibes turned to ash in a matter of hours Saturday, and it’s hard to imagine them returning as long as Thorne remains QB1. At the moment, Auburn will be lucky to be favored again in SEC play, up to and including a Nov. 2 date against Vanderbilt.

The situation is not as cut-and-dry as sending a struggling incumbent to the bench. Neither of Thorne’s understudies, redshirt freshman Hank Brown and true freshman Walker White, has taken a meaningful college snap. In that context, there’s something to be said for sticking with a well-season vet, however uninspiring. But that something is usually along the lines of “at least we trust the guy who’s played a ton not to turn the ball over.” When you can’t even say that anymore, it’s time consider that reality is making the decision for you.
–     –     –
(Last week: 13)

16. Brock Vandagriff, Kentucky

Vandagriff’s first career start, a 31-0 win over Southern Miss in Week 1, was called on account of lightning midway through the third quarter. His second start was a nightmare. Looking more like a deer in the headlights than an aspiring pro, Vandagriff froze up in a 31-6 loss to South Carolina, finishing 3-for-11 passing for 30 yards in a performance that was as dire in real time as it was on paper. His passer rating (35.2), overall PFF grade (28.8) and Total QBR (an incredible 1.2, out of a possible 100) ranked dead last among Week 2 starters nationally in all 3 categories.

https://twitter.com/GamecockFB/status/1832544957455815043/

(If you’re wondering, a 1.2 QBR score is not the worst on record, although it is close to the worst in SEC play: Out of 3,238 entries by SEC quarterbacks in the QBR database, only one — Ole Miss’ Robert Lane — has fared worse, posting a 1.1 in a November 2004 loss at Arkansas. If the name “Robert Lane” rings a bell, you are true champion of Remembering Some Guys.)

Although Vandagriff was a wild card coming into the season, in his case that label tended to imply optimism: A big-time talent finally getting his shot. At Georgia, he was a major prospect who was widely regarded as the heir apparent to Carson Beck; if Beck had opted to go pro last winter, Vandagriff was the presumptive favorite (from the outside, anyway) to succeed him as the face of the no. 1 team in the country. Of the many questions that followed him to Kentucky, is this guy even playable? wasn’t one of them. But it certainly is now. The 25-point margin against South Carolina represented Kentucky’s most lopsided loss against an unranked opponent since 2017, in a game UK was favored to win.

Vandagriff’s collapse puts Mark Stoops in a bind. Pulling the plug on a big-ticket transfer after a single game, even a catastrophic one, isn’t tenable. Clearly, though, neither was Vandagriff’s play against the Gamecocks. In his defense, he was under pressure from a relentless Carolina pass rush on nearly two-thirds of his drop-backs, resulting in 3 sacks, multiple hits and a fumble. His offensive line was flagged for 6 penalties, wiping out multiple positive plays and repeatedly putting the Wildcats behind the sticks. Still, per PFF he was only 2-for-5 passing for 28 yards when kept clean, and wasn’t pressured on the pick-6 that ended his afternoon at the start of the fourth quarter (see above).

At this time last week, Kentucky’s upcoming tilt with Georgia in Lexington promised the intrigue of a former blue-chip striving to make good on his long-awaited opportunity against his old team. Based on the initial returns on Saturday, it’s shaping up more like a pending bloodbath. The Wildcats bet the house on Vandagriff, but if they decided to trot out Rutgers transfer Gavin Wimsatt to take his lumps instead, who could blame them?
–     –     –
(Last week: 9)

The post SEC QB Rankings, Week 3: Quinn Ewers is all business appeared first on Saturday Down South.

• Horns hold court in the Big House
• Bama (barely) preserves its dignity
• Arkansas’ arc bends toward chaos
• Players of the week, Superlatives Standings and updated power rankings

… and more takeaways, trends, and technicalities from Week 2 in the SEC. But first:

Panic! In the Pocket

Is it too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about how the rest of the season is going to unfold after the first Saturday of September? Of course. Is it too soon to be stricken with angst over your team’s outlook at the most important position? Never. Half the SEC can feel relatively good about where they stand behind center — or at least relatively stable — with somewhere between 3 and 5 legitimate Heisman candidates on the conference roster. (Give or take Tennessee’s sophomore phenom, Nico Iamaleava.) The other half, however, is in the midst of various stages of hyperventilation, or should be.

For them, we’ve developed the latest in emotional forecasting: The official Monday Down South QB Panic Index, designed to assess each of the league’s more nerve-inducing class of signal-callers by just how much anxiety he inspires in his fan base going forward, from the most to the least.

DEFCON 1: Kentucky

Brock Vandagriff‘s first career start, a 31-0 win over Southern Miss in Week 1, was called on account of lightning midway through the third quarter. His second start was an unmitigated disaster. Looking more like a lamb to the slaughter than an aspiring pro, Vandagriff fell apart in Saturday’s 31-6 loss to South Carolina, finishing 3-for-11 passing for 30 yards in a performance that was as dire in real time as it was on paper. His passer rating (35.2), overall PFF grade (28.8) and Total QBR score (an incredible 1.2, out of a possible 100) ranked dead last among Week 2 starters nationally in all 3 categories.

That's six pic.twitter.com/U47MJ2gXqO

— Gamecock Football (@GamecockFB) September 7, 2024

Vandagriff was a wild card coming into the season, but he was supposed to be one of the good kind: A big-time talent just waiting for his shot. At Georgia, he was a major prospect who was widely regarded as the heir apparent to Carson Beck; if Beck had opted to go pro last winter, Vandagriff was the presumptive favorite (from the outside, anyway) to succeed him as the face of the No. 1 team in the country. Of the many questions that followed him to Kentucky, is this guy even playable? wasn’t one of them. But it certainly is now.

Vandagriff’s collapse puts Mark Stoops in a bind. Pulling the plug on a big-ticket transfer after a single game, even a catastrophic one, isn’t tenable. Clearly, though, neither was Vandagriff’s play against the Gamecocks. In his defense, he was under pressure from a relentless South Carolina pass rush on nearly two-thirds of his drop-backs, resulting in 3 sacks, multiple hits and a fumble. Still, per Pro Football Focus he was only 2-for-5 passing for 28 yards when kept clean, and he wasn’t pressured on the pick-6 that ended his afternoon at the start of the fourth quarter (see above).

As late as Saturday morning, this weekend’s tilt with Georgia in Lexington promised the intrigue of an up-and-comer striving to make good on his long-awaited opportunity against his old team. Based on the initial returns on Saturday afternoon, it’s shaping up more like a pending bloodbath. The Wildcats bet the house on Vandagriff, but if they decided to trot Rutgers transfer Gavin Wimsatt to take his lumps instead, no one would blame them. Probably including Vandagriff himself.

Red alert: Auburn

Payton Thorne looked like a new man in the opener, throwing for 322 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 73-3 slaughter of Alabama A&M. In Saturday’s 21-14 loss to Cal, he looked like he same guy Auburn fans remembered from 2023, serving up a grim reminder of why they desperately hoped Hugh Freeze would upgrade the position via the portal over the offseason. After a fast start, Thorne — a 6th-year senior making his 40th career start for a power conference team — looked like a reckless, wet-behind-the-ears rookie the rest of the way, throwing 4 interceptions in a span of 16 attempts over the final 3 quarters. (Read that again for emphasis: 4 interceptions. In 16 attempts.) Per PFF, 3 of the 4 INTs came from a clean pocket, including both of the back-to-back, game-clinching picks on the Tigers’ last 2 offensive snaps.

NOHL!! WILLIAMS!!

Second INT of the day for @NohlWilliams#GoBears | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/krupspm2Yt

— Cal Football (@CalFootball) September 7, 2024

FOURTH THORNE INTERCEPTION, THE BEARS WIN AND UPSET AUBURN. #auburnfootball #thorne #calfootball pic.twitter.com/BHhZguK8eh

— Sports Pulse (@sportspulsenow_) September 7, 2024

It could have been worse: A 5th INT, an apparent pick-6 on the opening series, was overturned on review, thus salvaging 1 of the Tigers’ 2 successful drives.

A miserable afternoon by any standard, but for a veteran player who was already the walking definition of “embattled” prior to the season, a visible self-immolation in one of the more winnable games on the schedule was a worst-case scenario. Auburn made a concerted effort over the offseason to improve its underwhelming surrounding cast, essentially rebuilding the wide receiver rotation from scratch with multiple transfers and a pair of blue-chip freshmen, Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson — all of whom contributed to the good vibes in the opener.

The Tigers were double-digit favorites against Cal largely based on that sense of optimism. The vibes turned to ash in a matter of hours Saturday, and they won’t be back as long as Thorne remains QB1. At the moment, they’ll be lucky if they’re favored again in SEC play, up to and including Vanderbilt.

Neither of Thorne’s understudies, redshirt freshman Hank Brown and true freshman Walker White, have taken a meaningful college snap. In that context, there’s something to be said for sticking with a well-season vet, however uninspiring. But that something is usually along the lines of “at least we trust the guy who’s played a ton not to turn the ball over.” When you can’t even say that anymore, it’s time consider that reality is making the decision for you.

Elevated: Texas A&M

A&M remains on high alert until further notice following Conner Weigman‘s 12-of-30, 2-interception meltdown against Notre Dame in Week 1, which arguably looks even worse after the Fighting Irish walked directly into an ambush against Northern Illinois in Week 2. Meanwhile, the Aggies rebounded by opening up a can on poor McNeese State, scoring on their first 8 offensive possessions in a 52-10 blowout. Weigman finished 11-for-14 against the Cowboys for 125 yards, 2 touchdowns and the top overall PFF grade (97.7) of any FBS quarterback over the weekend. Next up on the reassurance/redemption tour: At Florida for the SEC opener, where he desperately needs to prove in a hostile environment that he’s still on the right track.

On alert: Oklahoma

The first 2 games, home dates against Temple and Houston, were supposed to be gimmes that allowed Jackson Arnold to settle into a high-pressure role with a minimum of drama before hitting the SEC gauntlet. So much for that.

Coming off a lukewarm stat line in Week 1, Arnold was ice-cold Saturday in a sluggish, 16-12 win over Houston, averaging a meager 5.4 yards per attempt on what he himself described as “just a bad night in general.” He led 1 sustained scoring drive against the Cougars, an 81-yard march for a touchdown in the first half; otherwise, OU’s only other points came as the result of 1) a muffed punt that set up the offense in a goal-to-go situation early in the game, and 2) a safety by the defense that gave the Sooners a field-goal-proof, 4-point lead late in the fourth quarter.

The rest of the night was Punt City. Excluding the long touchdown drive, Oklahoma’s other 10 non-short-field possessions yielded 138 yards (including penalties), 8 punts, a missed field goal, and an interception.

https://twitter.com/UHCougarFB/status/1832600682513195253/

The “Heisman or bust” curve for Oklahoma quarterbacks established in the Lincoln Riley years is an unfair standard with Riley long gone. But the Sooners are deeply invested in Arnold, the gem of their 2023 recruiting class, who is clearly in a ride-or-die position. Brent Venables effectively banked his tenure on his prized recruit when he let his incumbent starter, Dillon Gabriel, portal out last December; he’d love nothing more than to insist “2-0 is 2-0,” chalk up Arnold’s early struggles to growing pains, and hope his precocious talent bears out ASAP. As it stands, a 37.5 QBR score against a team that was picked to finish 15th in the Big 12 and lost its opener by 20 points to UNLV isn’t going to cut it with a steep conference slate looming.

Recalibrating: Florida

OK, here’s one sweeping conclusion about how the rest of the season is going to unfold: DJ Lagway is Florida’s new starting quarterback. (Or should be, anyway.)

THROW IT ANYWAY @DerekLagway

https://t.co/hB4MreiMiV pic.twitter.com/Q9pCPQRe6D

— Florida Gators Football (@GatorsFB) September 8, 2024

The question does not need to be litigated or dragged out. It’s not even a question. With all due respect to the savvy veteran stylings of Graham Mertz, who sat out the Gators’ 45-7 win over Samford recovering from a concussion suffered in the opener, Lagway is clearly the future, and, based on his 456-yard, 3-touchdown debut on Saturday, he’s also clearly the present.

After looking listless and juiceless in their Week 1 flop against Miami, the Gators were explosive on Saturday, averaging 24.5 yards per completion with 9 receptions that gained 20+ yards.

DJ LAGWAY

pic.twitter.com/em03kgoJbX

— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 7, 2024

Sure, it was at the expense of Samford. It was also the most fun Florida fans have had watching their team since Anthony Richardson declared early for the NFL Draft, if not longer. Where Mertz represented a predictable, risk-averse march to mediocrity, at best, Lagway represents a vision for the offense that puts butts in the seats and has the potential to salvage Billy Napier‘s job simply by being a vision, even if the results don’t come right away against serious competition. The results weren’t exactly coming with Mertz at the wheel, either.

First career touchdown for @DerekLagway and @Tankk_1k pic.twitter.com/iWKlsjA2Bb

— Florida Gators Football (@GatorsFB) September 8, 2024

Why prolong the inevitable? Florida is not a threat to win more than 6 or 7 games against its nightmare of a schedule regardless of who is taking the snaps. The only panic in Gainesville is at the thought that Napier might be too stubborn to change course even when the ship is already going under.

Monitoring: South Carolina

LaNorris Sellers was on the right side of a 31-6 final score in his first SEC start, so delving too deeply into the details of his 11-for-15, 159-yard stat line is beside the point. Air-mail interception notwithstanding, he looked better against Kentucky than he did in his Week 1 debut in Old Dominion, which is moving in the right direction.

Monitoring: Arkansas

The good news: Taylen Green‘s eye-opening athleticism was on full display Saturday, when he accounted for 477 total yards at Oklahoma State. The not so good news: It took him 63 plays as a rusher/receiver to put up that number, an average of a relatively pedestrian 7.6 yards per play, and his recklessness also was on display. He put the ball on the ground twice, missed open receivers, and served up a pick-6 that became OK State’s first touchdown in a 39-31 loss in double overtime. More on how the Razorbacks managed to blow a game they dominated statistically and led virtually throughout below.

Monitoring: Mississippi State

If I was writing this in the third quarter of Mississippi State’s 30-23 loss at Arizona State, Blake Shapen might have been listed under “Elevated.” At that point, ASU led 30-3 while the Bulldogs loitered aimlessly. By the end, though, Shapen had shaken off some of the rust to lead 3 unanswered touchdown drives that cut the margin to 30-23. He didn’t get a chance to finish off the comeback only because the defense couldn’t get ASU’s offense off the field in the final 5 minutes. Frankly, with the season Mississippi State likely has ahead, resilience in the face of adversity is probably more valuable than anything having to do with his arm or athleticism.

_ _ _ _ _

Texas: Defense travels

Texas’ title chase begins and ends with the decorated right arm of Quinn Ewers, who came out of the weekend as the odds-on favorite for the Heisman. But based on Saturday’s one-sided, 31-12 beatdown at Michigan, the defense is going to be good for its share of the mileage. If the Longhorns hadn’t loosened the slack in garbage time, Michigan might still be merely theorizing about the existence of the end zone.

Let’s start with the fact that, to put it mildly, the offense that took the field for Michigan on Saturday bore little resemblance the unit that brought down the confetti in January. The Wolverines returned a single offensive starter from the CFP Championship Game (TE Colston Loveland), and trotted out an untested walk-on at quarterback (Davis Warren, making just his second career start) behind a completely rebuilt offensive line. Offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore is now head coach Sherrone Moore, having ceded play-calling duties to new OC Kirk Campbell.

The Wolverines struggled in their season-opening win over Fresno State, and seem likely to go on struggling as long as Warren — who has done very little in 2 games to make anyone forget the walk-on part — remains the starter. And the fact that he won the offseason competition to replace JJ McCarthy in the first place doesn’t exactly bode well for the guys he beat out.

That said, a convincing win in the Big House over an outfit that came in riding a 23-game home winning streak speaks for itself, and Texas’ domination was more thorough than the score or the stats implied.

Nearly 45% of the Wolverines’ total yardage, 6 of their 13 first downs, and their only touchdown came on their last 2 possessions in the fourth quarter, by which point the game had long been decided. Prior to that, their first 7 turns with the ball were grim, yielding 2 punts, 3 turnovers, and a pair of field goals on their only ventures across midfield.

More important, in the process Texas learned a lot about some of the more uncertain areas of the lineup, most of it good. The interior d-line, arguably the Longhorns’ top concern on either side of the ball following the departure of a consensus All-American (T’Vondre Sweat) and first-round pick (Byron Murphy) from last year’s CFP run, was a strength; Michigan’s top 2 running backs, Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings, combined for just 66 yards with a long gain of 12. The secondary, another question mark with an influx of new starters on a unit that was up and down last year, picked off 2 passes — commemorated with a prop sword dubbed “Texcalibur” — and held Wolverines wideouts to a long gain of 12 yards prior to garbage time. The outside pass rush, a decidedly juiceless proposition in 2023, was boosted by a breakout game from the gem of the ’24 recruiting class, Collin Simmons, whom PFF credited with a team-high 6 QB pressures and the only sack by either team in just his second college game.

Collin Simmons is a monster, 3 and done type guy. pic.twitter.com/s8FTuDMMsR

— Nash (@NashTalksTexas) September 7, 2024

Encouraging on its own, even more so coming on the heels of a shutout win over Colorado State in Week 1 in which the Rams averaged 3.1 yards per pass and had more yardage on punts (279) than in total offense (192).

It’s a long year, and the Longhorns are going to run into significantly better offenses along the way than the two they’ve left hogtied so far, specifically Oklahoma and Georgia on back-to-back Saturdays in mid-October. But the temptation to glance past the Sooners and Bulldogs toward January gets a little stronger when acing your big early road test winds up feeling more like a routine tuneup.

Alabama: Bulls take Tide OL for another ride

On a night when the upset sirens were sounding well into the fourth quarter, the final score didn’t come close to reflecting just how narrow Alabama’s 42-16 win over USF really was. With 11 minutes left, the Crimson Tide led by a single point, 14-13. If you really want an honest record of how the game unfolded, forget about the scoreboard. The reaction shots of increasingly disgruntled Bama fans told you all you needed to know.

Alabama fans tonight… pic.twitter.com/RO0f2szDVV

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 8, 2024

Anger gave way to disbelief until the dam broke, finally, giving way to a late flurry of haymakers (3 Alabama touchdowns in the final 6 minutes) that nudged the result from the “close shave” column into the much larger archive of routine Bama blowouts. But it will be a while before anyone who actually watched it remembers it that way. In real time, most of the angst was reserved for a reshuffled offensive line, which earned the scorn in the absence of starting left tackle Kadyn Proctor. With Proctor sidelined by a shoulder injury, the starting five was a wreck, allowing 11 pressures (including 3 sacks), committing 6 holding penalties and jumping offsides 3 times.

The goat of the group was the new right tackle, redshirt freshman Wilkin Formby — a hometown 4-star product from Tuscaloosa — whose first career start went about as badly as it could go; on 36 pass-blocking snaps, he allowed 4 pressures and was flagged 3 times, including a holding call that negated a long completion, posting an abysmal PFF pass-blocking grade of 25.0. Formby was also flagged on a long touchdown run by Jalen Milroe that would have given the Tide some breathing room in the first half. Later on, all 3 of the late Bama touchdowns in the closing minutes came after Formby was replaced in the lineup by veteran Elijah Pritchett.

Ironically, Formby’s rough night was an echo of Proctor’s own baptism by fire against USF last year, when he allowed 2 sacks and was singled out as a weak link in one of the most alarming offensive performances of the Nick Saban era. For the season, PFF cited Proctor for more pressures allowed (36) than any other player in the SEC, and more sacks allowed (12) than any other player in the country. Slowly but surely, though, Proctor grew into the job, and ended his freshman campaign with 5-star hype intact heading into Year 2. For most of Saturday night, his absence felt like a bigger crisis than his presence ever did in ’23. Formby, a fairly touted recruit in his own right, may or may not get a chance to redeem himself. (Unlike Proctor last year, he’s not a regular member of the starting five.) But it’s worth keeping in mind that the first impression is rarely the last.

Life on the margins: Woo Pig, you blew it

Most box scores are fairly straightforward, but every so often there’s one that flies in the face of common sense. Arkansas’ 39-31 loss at Oklahoma State in double overtime is one of those box scores. The Razorbacks outgained the Cowboys by 265 yards of total offense, and by nearly 2 full yards per play; they earned 33 first downs to the Cowboys’ 21; they had 9 plays that gained 20+ yards vs. the Cowboys’ 2; they converted 58% of their 3rd-down attempts to the Cowboys’ 31%; they racked up a 12-and-a-half-minute advantage in time of possession; they held Oklahoma State’s All-American workhorse, Ollie Gordon II, to just 2.9 yards per carry with a long gain of 12 … and they lost?

What the heck happened here?

1. Wasted yards. Arkansas blew a ton of chances to score. In regulation, 10 of the Hogs’ 13 offensive possessions ended in Oklahoma State territory, with 2 others ending at midfield. They scored on 5 of those possessions; on the other 7 they came up empty, including 4 trips inside the OSU 30-yard line that resulted in zilch. Including penalties, the Razorbacks gained 292 yards — more than 45% of their total for the game — on drives that produced no points, or what I call “wasted yards.” Oklahoma State, which spent most of the first half offensively flailing in its own territory? Only 107 wasted yards, half of them coming on the game’s opening possession which ended in a turnover on downs.

2. Turnovers. Arkansas failed to capitalize on its opportunities in a variety of ways, including a missed field goal, a turnover on downs, and the clock running out on the first half with the ball at the OSU 20. The main issue, though, was giveaways, which not only cost the Razorbacks points but led directly to points going the other way, including a 73-yard pick-6 by OSU’s Kale Smith that represented a dramatic momentum swing and the Cowboys’ only points of the first half.

https://twitter.com/big12studios/status/1832512008136049144/

Just as consequential was a muffed punt in the fourth quarter by Isaiah Sategna, which set up Oklahoma State’s offense for a short-field touchdown to even the score at 21. That’s the point on the win probability graph when you see Arkansas’ chances abruptly plummet for the first time.

3. That ending. If you had the Razorbacks as 7.5-point underdogs, you were probably feeling good about that bet for the vast majority of the afternoon: OK State led for a grand total of 2 minutes and 6 seconds in regulation. You probably felt even better about it when Arkansas’ offense came up empty on the first possession of overtime, all but assuring the Cowboys would settle for a walk-off field goal. Alas, the only safe bet in college football is that nothing is ever assured. Oklahoma State proceeded to 1) miss the game-winning kick, sending the game to a second overtime; 2) score a touchdown on its ensuing possession to take a 37-31 lead; 3) convert the mandatory 2-point attempt to expand the margin to 8; and 4) force Arkansas’ offense into a game-clinching turnover on downs to complete a wildly improbable cover. Never gam– [smuggled into an unmarked van by our advertisers].

Turning point of the week

USF wave the white flag

South Florida, a massive underdog at Alabama, trailed the Crimson Tide by 8 points, 21-13, midway through the fourth quarter of a nail-biter. USF faced 4th-and-goal from the Bama 4-yard line. Easy call: Go for the touchdown and 2-point conversion to tie, right?

Easy for you and me in the peanut gallery, maybe.

For coach Alex Golesh, not so much. Instead, Golesh signaled for the kicker, passing on a shot at the end zone in favor of a chip-shot field goal that cut the deficit from 8 to 5 … and still left the Bulls needing a touchdown in the final 6:45 to win.

“I thought you had to go get points there in the drive and make it a one-possession game,” Golesh said later, confusingly, given that an 8-point deficit is already a one-possession game. “I took the points with the thought that our defense was playing lights out. I’d go back and I would still do the same thing. Defense is playing lights out — you take the points, you secure a one-possession game, you get a stop on defense, you essentially set up a 2-minute drive to go win the game.”

At any rate, whatever message Golesh was trying to send by kicking, his team interpreted it as a surrender.

From that point on, the same Alabama offense that had spent most of the game looking sloppy and disheveled ripped off 21 unanswered points, hitting paydirt on 3 of its next 6 plays to close the game; just like that, a burgeoning upset bid became a rout that very nearly covered the spread.

Who knows how the ending might have played out differently if USF had been bolder with the game on the line, or might not have. Maybe the Bulls were out of gas and would have collapsed regardless of the call — all the more reason, then, to take full advantage of what was almost certainly going to be their last realistic opportunity to close the gap while it was in their grasp.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Alabama DT Tim Keenan III: Alabama struggled to contain USF quarterback Byrum Brown on the perimeter, but the Bulls made little headway between the tackles, where the 326-pound Keenan was a rock. A true nose in the “War Daddy” mold, Keenan was credited with 9 tackles, including 5 “stops,” PFF’s category for plays that represent a failure for the offense based on down and distance. Unlike old-school nose tackles, he can also wreck pockets on a regular basis as a pass rusher: He generated team-high 6 QB pressures, getting home twice and playing a major role in Brown’s dismal stat line as a passer (15-for-35 for 103 yards, or 2.9 yards per attempt). Along with inside linebacker Jihaad Campbell, the middle of the defense is one area Bama can feel good about heading into next week’s trip to Wisconsin.

2. Auburn edge Keldric Faulk: While the offense was stinking it up against Cal, Faulk was living up to the preseason hype. A load off the edge at 6-6, 288 pounds, he took up residence in the Golden Bears’ backfield, recording 5 QB pressures, 3 tackles for loss, 2 sacks and 7 stops, hitting like a freight train in the process.

Keldric Faulk’s 2nd sack of the series pic.twitter.com/6fd0VUOLjP

— Power of Dixieland (@PwrofDixieland) September 7, 2024

Some guys have “next level” written all over them, and Faulk, a true sophomore, is one of them. In a typically crowded year for SEC edge rushers, he has a chance to move to the top of the list with a bullet.

3. Texas QB Quinn Ewers: Ewers’ raw stat line at Michigan (24-for-36, 246 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs) was solid enough, especially adjusted for the competition: He’s the first opposing quarterback to throw for multiple touchdowns in Michigan Stadium since the pandemic, and both his passer rating (151.6) and QBR score (89.7) were the best anyone has put up against the Wolverines since Georgia’s Stetson Bennett IV shredded them in the CFP semifinal in 2021. He was 6-for-10 on third down, and 2-for-3 of passes of 20+ air yards, including his first touchdown. (That followed another impressive TD pass that was wiped out by a penalty on the opening series of the game.)

More impressive, though, was the apparent ease of it all, which left you with the sense that he was willing and able to do a lot more if the defense hadn’t had the game well in hand. The passing game throttled down at halftime, after which Texas scored just once and prioritized keeping the ball out of trouble. With the big nonconference test out of the way and UT-San Antonio, UL-Monroe and Mississippi State on deck, it might be a while before we get a chance to see him come out with both barrels blazing again.

4. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson: All eyes in the Vols’ 51-10 win over NC State were on their phenom QB, Nico Iamaleava. But the most productive player was Sampson, who looks a clear-cut No. 1 back in his third season on campus and a sneaky frontrunner to lead the conference in rushing and/or all-purpose yards. Against the Wolfpack, he accounted for a career-high 169 scrimmage yards on 7.3 per touch, highlighted by a pair of touchdown runs from 9 yards and 34 yards out.

Massive season coming for Dylan Sampson. pic.twitter.com/OawW6cpKkP

— Josh Ward (@Josh_Ward) September 8, 2024

That marked Sampson’s 7th career 100-yard game from scrimmage, 6 of which Tennessee has now won by 30+ points. There should be plenty of opportunities this year to prove there’s more to his game than mop-up duty in blowouts.

5. South Carolina DB Nick Emmanwori: Emmanwori made the highlight reel courtesy of his game-clinching pick-6 off Brock Vandagriff, but he was everywhere in the Gamecocks’ rout of Kentucky, recording a team-high 7 tackles as well as the best overall PFF grade (91.0) among SEC defenders in Week 2 who played at least 20 snaps.

Honorable mention: Texas TE Gunnar Helm, who caught all 7 targets as Ewers’ intended receiver for a career-high 98 yards and a touchdown. … Texas DB Andrew Mukuba, who picked off a pass, broke up a couple more and made his presence felt as a tackler on a banner afternoon for the UT defense. … Texas edge Collin Simmons and South Carolina edge Dylan Stewart, for reasons outlined above. … Oklahoma LB Danny Stutsman, who led all SEC defenders in Week 2 with 15 tackles and 9 stops in the Sooners’ defensively-driven win over Houston. … Arkansas WR Andrew Armstrong, who led all SEC receivers with 164 yards on 10 catches in the Razorbacks’ razor-thin loss at Oklahoma State. … Arkansas RB Ja’Quinden Jackson, who ground out 149 yards and 3 touchdowns on 24 carries. … Ole Miss RB Henry Parrish Jr., who ran for 165 yards and 4 touchdowns on just 14 carries in the Rebels’ 52-3 win over Middle Tennessee. … Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart, who completed 25-of-27 passes for 377 yards against MTSU and added a touchdown as a runner. … Georgia QB Carson Beck, who tied the single-game school record with 5 touchdown passes to 5 different receivers in a casual rout over Tennessee Tech. … And Florida QB DJ Lagway, whose 456-yard, 3-touchdown bonanza against Samford should be only the beginning of what figures to be a long tenure as the Gators’ starter.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3d, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, 2 for Fat Guy of the Week, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Obscure stat of the week

Jaxson Dart completed his first 24 passes against Middle Tennessee — most of them of the extremely high-percentage variety — which set a school record with room to spare. (The previous was 19 straight, set by Matt Corral in 2020 against Vanderbilt.) Combined with his finish in Week 1, Dart also set the SEC record with 30 consecutive completions before his streak finally ended on his 25th attempt of the night.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Georgia (2-0). Tennessee Tech coming to town is a prime “empty the bench” opportunity, and the Bulldogs took full advantage: 49 UGA players recorded a statistic in the official box score. The next 8 games are all vs. SEC opponents, so a bunch of those names likely won’t appear again until late November.

2. Texas (2-0). If the Longhorns have a lingering concern after throttling the defending champs, it’s sustaining a week-in, week-out ground game with presumptive bell cow CJ Baxter out for the season. Understudies Jaydon Blue, Jerrick Gibson and Tre Wisner have flashed, but all 3 check in between 200 and 205 pounds and it is a long road to January.

3. Ole Miss (2-0). You probably could have guessed that the Rebels lead the nation through 2 weeks in scoring offense, total offense and yards per play. But note also that they’re 1 of only 5 teams that has yet to allow a touchdown over 2 games, joining Georgia, Missouri, Ohio State and Washington.

4. Alabama (2-0). The panic that followed last year’s close shave against USF should serve as a reminder not to overreact to, uh, this year’s close shave against USF. But with Wisconsin up and Georgia on deck, the window for fixing their [stuff] is not not open for long.

5. Tennessee (2-0). Continuing a theme: As impressive as the offense is behind Nico Iamaleava, the defense fueled a blowout over NC State. The Wolfpack finished with their worst output in terms of total yards (143) and yards per play (2.9) since their 2009 opener against South Carolina, which I’m going to ahead and say is the closest Grayson McCall is going to get to being compared to Russell Wilson. In fact, all 10 of the Pack’s points came as the direct result of Iamaleava interceptions, including a pick-6 for their lone touchdown.

6. Missouri (2-0). Not only has Mizzou yet to allow a point against Murray State and Buffalo: The defense has faced just 6 plays inside its own 40-yard line, which have netted a grand total of 3 yards.

7. Oklahoma (2-0). We’ll see how the season plays out, trend-wise, but Oklahoma finally putting a respectable defense on the field at the same time that its offense craters would be a real monkey’s paw scenario.

8. LSU (1-1). There was a brief moment Saturday night when LSU gave up a 67-yard touchdown run to a guy named Collin Guggenheim that the Tigers looked like they might be in some trouble against Nicholls State: Guggenheim’s second TD of the game pulled the Colonels within 23-21 early in the third quarter. Instead, LSU scored touchdowns on its next 3 possessions, threw it into cruise control in the fourth to preserve a 44-21 win, and no one in Baton Rouge ever has to acknowledge that this game happened.

9. South Carolina (2-0). Not sold on the offense — extraterrestrial wideout Nyck Harbor has yet to catch a pass this season, and wasn’t even targeted against Kentucky, what’s up? — but if the defense is a stock, I’m buying. 5-star freshman Dylan Stewart is a confirmed dude whose impact vastly exceeds his presence on the stat sheet.

Dylan Stewart continues to be a force

pic.twitter.com/VIczoqORNB

— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 7, 2024

10. Texas A&M (1-1). As always, dropping half-a-hundred on a random FCS patsy doesn’t count for much. But it certainly beats not dropping half-a-hundred on a random FCS patsy, and after the opener A&M needed all the reassurance it get could.

11. Vanderbilt (2-0).  The Commodores waxed an FCS outfit, Alcorn State, 55-0, and nobody batted an eye. Good times in Nashville.

12. Arkansas (1-1). I’m not prepared to embark on the Sam Pittman Hot Seat Watch in Week 2, but the Hogs’ double-OT loss at Oklahoma State was a “pulling defeat from the jaws of victory” effort if ever there was one. Arkansas is 3-10 in 1-score games since the start of the 2022 season.

13. Florida (1-1). Bring on Lagway.

14. Auburn (1-1). There’s a lot to like about the up-and-coming talent in Hugh Freeze’s first 2 recruiting classes, but until the Tigers get the QB situation sorted, breaking into the top half of the league is a pipe dream.

15. Kentucky (1-1). The atmosphere for big-time football in Lexington has improved dramatically over the past few years, but since their emphatic 2021 upset over LSU the Wildcats are just 3-8 at home vs. SEC opponents. The 25-point margin of defeat against South Carolina was the second-most lopsided loss in that span behind a 49-21 loss to Alabama in 2023.

16. Mississippi State (1-1). The Bulldogs gave up 297 scrimmage yards to Arizona State RB Cam Skattebo, a character who can only exist in a college football game unfolding in the middle of the night. These are the things you miss when you have healthy sleep habits.

The post Monday Down South: Introducing the QB Panic Index appeared first on Saturday Down South.

The stakes

(Texas is favored by 7.5 points via FanDuel Sportsbook.)

Michigan spent 2 solid years consumed by an all-or-nothing pursuit of its first national championship in a generation, and its dream came true. The drought is over, the thirst is quenched, and the void is filled. Now? Leave the angst to somebody else for a change. In Ann Arbor, it’s hangover time.

If you’re just catching up with the Wolverines for the first time since the confetti fell in January, a lot has changed. I mean, a lot has changed: Besides the NFL-bound Jim Harbaugh, the mass exodus from the 2023 team included nearly his entire staff and 18 of 22 starters in the CFP title game. (Plus the kicker, for good measure.) Harbaugh’s successor, 38-year-old Sherrone Moore, is a first-time head coach charged with replacing a first-round quarterback, All-American running back, both starting wideouts, the entire starting offensive line, and 9 of the top 12 tacklers on defense.

All those new faces, and a full trophy case? Take your time, man. Potential NCAA sanctions looming in the background? Don’t even sweat it. The Wolverines will be back when they’re back.

It’s good to be the champs, as most Texas fans still remember, vaguely, from the Longhorns’ last title 19 years ago. (If they didn’t, they could always have their memories jogged by the broadcast of the January 2006 Rose Bowl airing on a loop on the late Longhorn Network, RIP.) They’re also familiar with the feeling that it’s been much too long since the championship itch was scratched. Quinn Ewers was 2 years old when Vince Young sauntered into immortality, and most of this year’s freshman class wasn’t even born.

The ‘Horns got reacclimated to that altitude in 2023, beating Alabama, winning the Big 12, and punching their Playoff ticket for the first time before bowing out in the semis in a game they we we favored to win. The urgency that Michigan felt to go all the way the past 2 years is alive and well in Austin.

Unlike Michigan, whose championship window came with an implicit expiration date, Texas is looking forward to having plenty of bites at the apple. Steve Sarkisian has improved the talent level via traditional recruiting and the portal: In his first season, he inherited a roster that ranked 11th in 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite; 3 years later, the current roster ranks No. 4. It’s not exactly now or never, assuming crown-jewel understudy Arch Manning remains on deck to extend the window into 2025, at least. But now would be nice, before the vibe shifts into defining Sarkisian’s tenure by the one big looming box he hasn’t checked rather than the ones he has.

The stat: 4.73

That was Texas’ net points per possession in its Week 1 win over Colorado State, best in the nation vs. an FBS opponent. After a slow start on their first possession, the Longhorns proceeded to score 52 points over their next 10 (7 touchdowns, 1 field goal) while pitching a shutout against the CSU offense, the first time the Rams had been held to a goose egg since 2013.

Actually, leaving it at “shutout” might be selling the defense’s effort short. Colorado State didn’t come close to scoring, crossing midfield just once in the competitive portion of the game. (That drive ended with a punt from the Texas 49-yard line.) Despite the presence of Tory Horton — the active FBS leader in career receiving yards and touchdowns — the Rams averaged a dismal 3.1 yards per pass with a long gain of 12.

Colorado State had more punts (7) than passing first downs (6), and more yardage on punts (279) than in total offense (192). Texas’ defense accounted for more yards on one play, a 30-yard interception return by Jahdae Barron, than it allowed on any CSU possession prior to garbage time.

There’s no such thing at this level as a truly perfect game, but even against one of the scrubbier members of the Mountain West, that’s about as close as it gets.

The big question: Who the heck is Davis Warren?

In the portal era, starting quarterbacks at a name-brand program fall into 1 of 3 columns: 1) Entrenched vet; 2) Blue-chip prospect on the rise; or 3) Big-ticket transfer. This is just how it works, in 2024. In fact, the higher a team resides on the food chain, the more of those boxes it tends to go out of its way to check.

At the moment, Alabama, Georgia and Texas all have 1) and 2), for insurance. Ohio State and Oregon, lacking a 1), went out and landed 2) and 3) over the offseason. And so on down the line. Adjusting for ambition, nearly every starting QB in a Power 4 conference plausibly fits in that rubric. If you don’t, your destiny is the portal or the clipboard, pretty much without exception.

I have to use qualifiers like “nearly” and “pretty much” in that last sentence because of Warren, the exception. When Michigan elevated Warren to QB1 for its opener against Fresno State, he became the only opening-day starter for a ranked team who is none of the above. He is inexperienced, unheralded, and prior to last week, the only place he was entrenched was in obscurity. Now, he’s the starting quarterback for the defending national champs.

A former walk-on in his 4th year in Ann Arbor, Warren has traveled a long way to the top of the Wolverines’ depth chart, literally and figuratively. His final 2 years of high school in Los Angeles were all but erased by a leukemia diagnosis in 2019, which cost him his junior season, and the pandemic in 2020, which shut down prep football in California entirely.

To recruiters, that left Warren as just a skinny kid with no tape. Although he managed to stick at Michigan as a walk-on, over his first 3 seasons he was little more to the outside world than a name on the roster, attempting 14 passes in a handful of garbage-time appearances in 2022-23. The competition to replace JJ McCarthy this offseason included a veteran with starting experience in the Big Ten (Indiana transfer Jack Tuttle); a couple of huge, athletic redshirt sophomores who’d come off the bench ahead of Warren in ’23 (Alex Orji and Jayden Denegal); and a touted true freshman (Jadyn Davis). If you read a breakdown of the position over the offseason, it was almost certainly written with the assumption that Orji was the frontrunner.

When Michigan kicked off its title defense against Fresno State, though, it was Warren who trotted out with the starters and Warren who took nearly every snap, only yielding to Orji for a handful of “change of pace” downs in the Wildcat. On paper, his debut was nothing to write home about: 4.7 yards per attempt, just 1 completion of 10+ air yards, no contribution as a runner, red-flag numbers in terms of efficiency (104.9), EPA (-0.2), and Total QBR (33.0). Of Michigan’s 2 touchdown drives, the first covered just 31 yards following an early takeaway, and the second unfolded almost entirely on the ground.

Still, at the end of the day Warren gave the Wolverines what they needed to survive in a defensively-driven game, avoiding the killer mistake — his lone interception was effectively a punt — and finishing the aforementioned run-heavy scoring drive with his first career touchdown pass from 18 yards out. He didn’t do anything with the slightest potential of going viral, which as far his coaches are concerned, I promise is just fine.

Is it sustainable in a game where the defense allows more than 1 touchdown? They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.

The key matchup: Michigan Edge Josaiah Stewart vs. Texas OT Kelvin Banks Jr.

Michigan pressured quarterbacks by committee in 2023, splitting snaps and sacks among 4 full-time edge rushers. The nominal starters, Braiden McGregor and Jaylen Harrell, both moved on. That left Stewart, a former transfer from Coastal Carolina, and junior Derrick Moore, a former top-100 recruit, to make their mark in an expanded role. Neither projects as the second coming of Aidan Hutchinson, but together they should form one of the more imposing duos in the country. Against Fresno State, Stewart and Moore combined for 7 QB pressures and 2 sacks — both officially credited to Stewart, but with a substantial assist on the first one from his fellow bookend:

Josaiah Stewart showed out with two sacks and five tackles as the #Wolverines defense shut down Fresno State. https://t.co/GFUQudWwrU pic.twitter.com/93KC4BE2GV

— Chas Post (@chas_post23) September 1, 2024

Getting to Ewers is not so straightforward. His blindside is protected by Banks, already a virtual lock to end Texas’ 22-years-and-counting drought since it last had an offensive lineman drafted in the first round.

A Day 1 starter as a freshman, Banks has held down the left tackle job in all 28 games he’s played, earning second-team All-Big 12 in 2022 and first-team in ’23. He barely came off the field during last year’s Playoff run while allowing a single sack, in the opener; he extended the shutout streak to a full calendar year against Colorado State. At 6-4, he comes in slightly below the towering, power forward-esque ideal for a modern blindside protector; in every other respect, the most important boxes are already checked, mean streak included.

The verdict: Texas 24, Michigan 13

Michigan, as always, would love to make this a line-of-scrimmage game: Stuff the run, turn up the heat on Ewers, ideally force him into a mistake a la the game-clinching pick-6 by All-American CB Will Johnson that turned an uncomfortably close game against Fresno State into a routine dispatch. (The final 30-10 margin came just 1 point shy of covering a 20.5-point spread.) The uglier, the better. Even if they succeed in dragging the game into the gutter, though, how are the Wolverines going to score? The offense was anemic against a middle-of-the-pack D from the Mountain West, getting next to nothing from the wideouts or NCAA Football cover boy Donovan Edwards. The lack of explosiveness at the skill positions is as pressing a concern as a walk-on quarterback and a rebuilt offensive line.

Texas has no such concerns. The Longhorns boast the nation’s best QB room, a bounty of options at wideout, and an o-line that returns 4 starters from last year. Whatever the defense’s issues might turn out to be, they weren’t on display against Colorado State, and it’s difficult to see how Michigan is going to generate much stress without getting extremely creative. The ‘Horns have considerably more juice, but if it comes down to it they can handle themselves in a slugfest, too.

The post No. 3 Texas at No. 10 Michigan: The ultimate preview … and prediction appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Game of the Week: Texas (-7.5) at Michigan

(All betting lines provided by FanDuel Sportsbook.)

The stakes

Michigan spent 2 solid years consumed by an all-or-nothing pursuit of its first national championship in a generation, and its dream came true. The drought is over, the thirst is quenched, and the void is filled. Now? Leave the angst to somebody else for a change. In Ann Arbor, it’s hangover time.

If you’re just catching up with the Wolverines for the first time since the confetti fell in January, a lot has changed. I mean, a lot has changed: Besides the NFL-bound Jim Harbaugh, the mass exodus from the 2023 team included nearly his entire staff and 18 of 22 starters in the CFP title game. (Plus the kicker, for good measure.) Harbaugh’s successor, 38-year-old Sherrone Moore, is a first-time head coach charged with replacing a first-round quarterback, All-American running back, both starting wideouts, the entire starting offensive line, and 9 of the top 12 tacklers on defense.

All those new faces, and a full trophy case? Take your time, man. Potential NCAA sanctions looming in the background? Don’t even sweat it. The Wolverines will be back when they’re back.

It’s good to be the champs, as most Texas fans still remember, vaguely, from the Longhorns’ last title 19 years ago. (If they didn’t, they could always have their memories jogged by the broadcast of the January 2006 Rose Bowl airing on a loop on the late Longhorn Network, RIP.) They’re also familiar with the feeling that it’s been much too long since the championship itch was scratched. Quinn Ewers was 2 years old when Vince Young sauntered into immortality, and most of this year’s freshman class wasn’t even born.

The ‘Horns got reacclimated to that altitude in 2023, beating Alabama, winning the Big 12, and punching their Playoff ticket for the first time before bowing out in the semis in a game they we we favored to win. The urgency that Michigan felt to go all the way the past 2 years is alive and well in Austin.

Unlike Michigan, whose championship window came with an implicit expiration date, Texas is looking forward to having plenty of bites at the apple. Steve Sarkisian has improved the talent level via traditional recruiting and the portal: In his first season, he inherited a roster that ranked 11th in 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite; 3 years later, the current roster ranks No. 4. It’s not exactly now or never, assuming crown-jewel understudy Arch Manning remains on deck to extend the window into 2025, at least. But now would be nice, before the vibe shifts into defining Sarkisian’s tenure by the one big looming box he hasn’t checked rather than the ones he has.

The stat: 4.73

That was Texas’ net points per possession in its Week 1 win over Colorado State, best in the nation vs. an FBS opponent. After a slow start on their first possession, the Longhorns proceeded to score 52 points over their next 10 (7 touchdowns, 1 field goal) while pitching a shutout against the CSU offense, the first time the Rams had been held to a goose egg since 2013.

Actually, leaving it at “shutout” might be selling the defense’s effort short. Colorado State didn’t come close to scoring, crossing midfield just once in the competitive portion of the game. (That drive ended with a punt from the Texas 49-yard line.) Despite the presence of Tory Horton — the active FBS leader in career receiving yards and touchdowns — the Rams averaged a dismal 3.1 yards per pass with a long gain of 12.

Colorado State had more punts (7) than passing first downs (6), and more yardage on punts (279) than in total offense (192). Texas’ defense accounted for more yards on one play, a 30-yard interception return by Jahdae Barron, than it allowed on any CSU possession prior to garbage time.

There’s no such thing at this level as a truly perfect game, but even against one of the scrubbier members of the Mountain West, that’s about as close as it gets.

The big question: Who the heck is Davis Warren?

In the portal era, starting quarterbacks at a name-brand program fall into 1 of 3 columns: 1) Entrenched vet; 2) Blue-chip prospect on the rise; or 3) Big-ticket transfer. This is just how it works, in 2024. In fact, the higher a team resides on the food chain, the more of those boxes it tends to go out of its way to check.

At the moment, Alabama, Georgia and Texas all have 1) and 2), for insurance. Ohio State and Oregon, lacking a 1), went out and landed 2) and 3) over the offseason. And so on down the line. Adjusting for ambition, nearly every starting QB in a Power 4 conference plausibly fits in that rubric. If you don’t, your destiny is the portal or the clipboard, pretty much without exception.

I have to use qualifiers like “nearly” and “pretty much” in that last sentence because of Warren, the exception. When Michigan elevated Warren to QB1 for its opener against Fresno State, he became the only opening-day starter for a ranked team who is none of the above. He is inexperienced, unheralded, and prior to last week, the only place he was entrenched was in obscurity. Now, he’s the starting quarterback for the defending national champs.

A former walk-on in his 4th year in Ann Arbor, Warren has traveled a long way to the top of the Wolverines’ depth chart, literally and figuratively. His final 2 years of high school in Los Angeles were all but erased by a leukemia diagnosis in 2019, which cost him his junior season, and the pandemic in 2020, which shut down prep football in California entirely.

To recruiters, that left Warren as just a skinny kid with no tape. Although he managed to stick at Michigan as a walk-on, over his first 3 seasons he was little more to the outside world than a name on the roster, attempting 14 passes in a handful of garbage-time appearances in 2022-23. The competition to replace JJ McCarthy this offseason included a veteran with starting experience in the Big Ten (Indiana transfer Jack Tuttle); a couple of huge, athletic redshirt sophomores who’d come off the bench ahead of Warren in ’23 (Alex Orji and Jayden Denegal); and a touted true freshman (Jadyn Davis). If you read a breakdown of the position over the offseason, it was almost certainly written with the assumption that Orji was the frontrunner.

When Michigan kicked off its title defense against Fresno State, though, it was Warren who trotted out with the starters and Warren who took nearly every snap, only yielding to Orji for a handful of “change of pace” downs in the Wildcat. On paper, his debut was nothing to write home about: 4.7 yards per attempt, just 1 completion of 10+ air yards, no contribution as a runner, red-flag numbers in terms of efficiency (104.9), EPA (-0.2), and Total QBR (33.0). Of Michigan’s 2 touchdown drives, the first covered just 31 yards following an early takeaway, and the second unfolded almost entirely on the ground.

Still, at the end of the day Warren gave the Wolverines what they needed to survive in a defensively-driven game, avoiding the killer mistake — his lone interception was effectively a punt — and finishing the aforementioned run-heavy scoring drive with his first career touchdown pass from 18 yards out. He didn’t do anything with the slightest potential of going viral, which as far his coaches are concerned, I promise is just fine.

Is it sustainable in a game where the defense allows more than 1 touchdown? They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.

The key matchup: Michigan Edge Josaiah Stewart vs. Texas OT Kelvin Banks Jr.

Michigan pressured quarterbacks by committee in 2023, splitting snaps and sacks among 4 full-time edge rushers. The nominal starters, Braiden McGregor and Jaylen Harrell, both moved on. That left Stewart, a former transfer from Coastal Carolina, and junior Derrick Moore, a former top-100 recruit, to make their mark in an expanded role. Neither projects as the second coming of Aidan Hutchinson, but together they should form one of the more imposing duos in the country. Against Fresno State, Stewart and Moore combined for 7 QB pressures and 2 sacks — both officially credited to Stewart, but with a substantial assist on the first one from his fellow bookend:

https://twitter.com/chas_post23/status/1830135659912146989/

Getting to Ewers is not so straightforward. His blindside is protected by Banks, already a virtual lock to end Texas’ 22-years-and-counting drought since it last had an offensive lineman drafted in the first round.

A Day 1 starter as a freshman, Banks has held down the left tackle job in all 28 games he’s played, earning second-team All-Big 12 in 2022 and first-team in ’23. He barely came off the field during last year’s Playoff run while allowing a single sack, in the opener; he extended the shutout streak to a full calendar year against Colorado State. At 6-4, he comes in slightly below the towering, power forward-esque ideal for a modern blindside protector; in every other respect, the most important boxes are already checked, mean streak included.

The verdict …

Michigan, as always, would love to make this a line-of-scrimmage game: Stuff the run, turn up the heat on Ewers, ideally force him into a mistake a la the game-clinching pick-6 by All-American CB Will Johnson that turned an uncomfortably close game against Fresno State into a routine dispatch. (The final 30-10 margin came just 1 point shy of covering a 20.5-point spread.) The uglier, the better. Even if they succeed in dragging the game into the gutter, though, how are the Wolverines going to score? The offense was anemic against a middle-of-the-pack D from the Mountain West, getting next to nothing from the wideouts or NCAA Football cover boy Donovan Edwards. The lack of explosiveness at the skill positions is as pressing a concern as a walk-on quarterback and a rebuilt offensive line.

Texas has no such concerns. The Longhorns boast the nation’s best QB room, a bounty of options at wideout, and an o-line that returns 4 starters from last year. Whatever the defense’s issues might turn out to be, they weren’t on display against Colorado State, and it’s difficult to see how Michigan is going to generate much stress without getting extremely creative. The ‘Horns have considerably more juice, but if it comes down to it they can handle themselves in a slugfest, too.
– –  –
• Texas 24 | Michigan 13

Tennessee (-9.5) vs N.C. State

Who do you trust more with the ball in his hands: A decorated, 6th-year vet with an abundance of experience but limited upside? Or a rising star still at the beginning of his ascent? That’s the dynamic between the starting quarterbacks, NC State’s Grayson McCall and Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava, whose very different career arcs will intersect Saturday night in Charlotte, NC. Both guys arrive with high expectations and a lot to prove in a game that will serve as their introduction to much of the country.

McCall, the vet, has been cruising just below the national radar for years. From 2020-22, he posted a 29-5 record as a starter at Coastal Carolina and won Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year 3 years in a row, ranking among the FBS leaders in pass efficiency each year. (In fact, in 2021 he set the single-season record for efficiency, since surpassed by Jayden Daniels). McCall briefly tested the portal in 2023 following the departure of CCU coach Jamey Chadwell for Liberty, then reconsidered; his production subsequently dipped last year under a new staff before his season was cut short by a concussion.

Back on the market last December, McCall’s stock was still high enough that his commitment to NC State qualified as a coup for the Wolfpack, who have juggled multiple QBs in 4 of the past 5 seasons. As for whether he qualifies as a draftable prospect in 2025, the jury remains out. His performance against the Vols will figure prominently in the verdict.

Iamaleava, if you’ve been living under a rock, is the buzziest young QB in America on the basis of 1) elite recruiting hype; 2) a wiry, 6-6 frame that invites comparisons to Trevor Lawrence; and, finally, 3) his actual performance in his first 2 career starts.

Elevated to QB1 last year ahead of the Citrus Bowl, Iamaleava launched the bandwagon by accounting for 4 touchdowns (3 rushing, 1 passing) in a 35-0 rout over Iowa. Last week, he commemorated his first start in Neyland Stadium by torching Chattanooga for 314 yards and 3 touchdowns in the first half, then sat out the second in a 69-3 blowout that looked like the real-life equivalent of a kid playing NCAA Football 25 in Junior Varsity mode.

Iamaleava is still very much in the growth/hype stage, but not for long. We can read a map around here, and his course to Heisman contention and first-round status has already been routed through the GPS. The only question on Saturday night is just how far along he is down it.
– –  –
• Tennessee 34 | N.C. State 23

Arkansas vs Oklahoma State (-7.5)

Running backs aren’t valued as highly these days as they used to be, a trickle-down effect from the pros. But don’t let anybody convince you the old-school workhorse is extinct. Instead, show them Oklahoma State RB Ollie Gordon II. In 2023, Gordon led the nation with 324 offensive touches, averaging a grueling 27.7 per game after emerging as the Cowboys’ primary back in Week 4. In last week’s opener, he picked up where he left off, logging 31 touches for 146 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 44-20 win over FCS powerhouse South Dakota State. The vast majority of that output came after contact, per PFF, which credited Gordon with 17 missed tackles forced — the most of any FBS player in Week 1.

Ollie Gordon II’s combined vision, cutting flexibility, and finishing physicality is *chef’s kiss*

pic.twitter.com/p5fhvUBKpM

— Ian Cummings (@IC_Draft) August 31, 2024

Both Gordon and Oklahoma State’s long-in-the-tooth o-line are about as known as quantities get at the college level. Arkansas’ run defense, on the other hand, is a wild card.

The Razorbacks have struggled against the run the past 2 years, giving up 210 yards per game on the ground (excluding sacks) vs. Power 5 opponents. I’m not going to cite anything that happened in a 70-0 humiliation of Arkansas Pine-Bluff in Week 1 as evidence of anything that might happen against real competition, but suffice to say the effort against UAPB didn’t raise any red flags. Saturday will be Hogs’ fans first taste of what to expect the rest of the year.
– –  –
• Oklahoma State 32 | Arkansas 20

South Carolina at Kentucky (-10.5)

Stars are not born in this league against Old Dominion, but it’s safe to say 5-star South Carolina freshman Dylan Stewart is well on his way. In his first college game, Stewart was a bona fide terror off the edge against ODU, racking up 6 QB pressures, 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and the top overall PFF grade (92.8) of any FBS defender in Week 1 who logged at least 20 snaps. His second forced fumble, coming with Carolina trailing 19-16 midway the fourth quarter, saved the Gamecocks’ bacon, setting up a struggling offense inside the ODU 10-yard line for what would turn out to be the decisive touchdown in a 23-19 escape.

When it mattered most. pic.twitter.com/FMi5sqcAaA

— Gamecock Football (@GamecockFB) September 1, 2024

Now, going from facing a pair of Sun Belt tackles at home in Week 1 to facing a pair of veteran SEC tackles on the road who see him coming in Week 2 is no small step.

Kentucky’s Marques Cox and Gerald Mincey have played a lot of football and have spent all week hearing about what a freak this kid is. But there is no accounting for the kind of raw speed off the ball Stewart put on film his first time out. If he still finds a way to make an impact against a couple of upperclassmen who have his number, go ahead and pencil him in as a week-in, week-out factor for the next 3 years.
– –  –
Kentucky 22 | • South Carolina 17

South Florida at Alabama (-29.5)

From a distance, the panic that followed Bama’s waterlogged, 17-3 win at USF in 2023 looks a little absurd. At the time, though, let the record show the sky really was falling. The Crimson Tide opened the season with question marks across the lineup after missing the Playoff in 2022, and had no ready answers in a 34-24 loss to Texas in Week 2, Alabama’s most lopsided defeat at home (10 points!) in Nick Saban’s entire tenure.

Jalen Milroe had just been benched as a result, apparently ending his stint as QB1 after just 2 games. Then came the uncharacteristic slog in Tampa, where Milroe’s understudies performed miserably and it suddenly occurred to everyone for the first time in 15 years that Bama might be just another team battling from one Saturday to the next.

A year later, the team and the mood are in such a completely different place it’s hard to remember what anybody was ever worried about. The dynasty held, rebounding from the USF episode to win 10 straight en route to the SEC title; Milroe is an entrenched Heisman candidate; and the Tide looked as dominant as ever in all phases in their debut under Kalen DeBoer, a 63-0 slaughter of Western Kentucky. In the first half, the offense scored 6 touchdowns in a span of 17 plays, 4 of them covering 40+ yards.

USF under second-year coach Alex Golesh is not chopped liver by any means, but by the time they welcome Saban back at halftime to officially name the field in his honor the party should be in full swing.
– –  –
• Alabama 45 | USF 14

Houston at Oklahoma (-28.5)

Whatever minor concern this game might have inspired in Sooners fans evaporated in Week 1 with Houston’s 27-7 loss to UNLV, a surprising flop that was every bit as depressing as the score implied. The Cougars were wretched offensively, failing to score until tacking on a garbage-time TD to avoid their first home shutout in 30 years. Fifth-year QB Donovan Smith, in particular, had a night to forget, averaging a dismal 4.5 yards per attempt with 2 interceptions, including a pick-6; he ended the weekend ranked 129th out of 130 quarterbacks nationally in Total QBR and dead last in overall PFF grade.

Games like that are why first-year coach Willie Fritz has what he calls a 24-hour “gloat and pout” rule. Smith is still listed as the starter on the official depth chart, and has generally been a cromulent middle-rung Big 12 QB over the course of his career at Houston and Texas Tech. Possibly he was just shaking off the rust from offseason shoulder surgery that sidelined him in the spring. Regardless, if he moves the needle against Oklahoma, something has gone very wrong on the other side of the ball.
– –  –
Oklahoma 39 | • Houston 13

Cal at Auburn (-13.5)

Auburn saw exactly what it hoped to see from its revamped wide receiver room in Week 1, with newcomers at the position collectively accounting for 393 yards and six touchdowns on 28.1 yards per catch. So, fine, those numbers came at the expense of Alabama A&M, not Alabama. So what? Blue-chip freshmen Perry Thompson and Cam Coleman both got in on the bonanza, hauling in long TD receptions covering 70 yards and 44 yards, respectively, as did Penn State transfer KeAndre Lambert-Smith. Who is the last Auburn wide receiver you can remember generating excitement against anybody? How many chances are the Tigers going to have to see Payton Thorne look good? Let them have this.

Payton Thorne connects with KeAndre Lambert-Smith for a 67-yd TD! #WDE pic.twitter.com/HwAvn3xC9m

— Power of Dixieland (@PwrofDixieland) August 31, 2024

OK. Now for the first of many reality checks, against a Cal defense that held Auburn to 230 total yards last year in a low-octane, 14-10 rock fight in Berkeley. Cal’s offense might not be much better this time — the Bears managed just 281 yards in Week 1 in a 31-13 win over UC-Davis — but here’s betting Auburn’s additions are the kind that translate.
– –  –
Auburn 31 | • California 19

Mississippi State at Arizona State (-5.5)

This is a late-night kickoff in the desert, where daytime temps have topped 100 degrees for 100 days in a row and weird things happen. The Bulldogs and Sun Devils both overachieved in Week 1, in a 56-7 win over Eastern Kentucky and a 48-7 blowout over Wyoming, respectively. The latter game was an eye-opener for ASU, especially, which ranked last in the Pac-12 in 2023 in total and scoring offense and was favored against Wyoming by just 7.5 points. The Devils’ rebuilding project under second-year coach Kenny Dillingham has a 1-year head start on Jeff Lebby‘s gut job in Starkville, which seems like just enough to get them over at home.
– –  –
• Arizona State 36 | Miss. State 27

Middle Tennessee at Ole Miss (-42.5)

It’s worth emphasizing, repeatedly, that no matter how good Ole Miss looks over the first half of the season — and all indications are the Rebels are going to continue to look very good — or how high they rise in the polls, we’re all best served holding our judgment until mid-October, at the earliest. That’s when they visit LSU, the first of 3 prove-it dates over the second half of the year. (The trip to Baton Rouge is followed by Oklahoma in Week 9 and Georgia in Week 11, both in Oxford.) Their toughest game in the meantime is a Sept. 28 date against Kentucky, sandwiched between trips to Wake Forest and South Carolina. By then, an all-gas-no-brakes effort against the likes of the Blue Raiders will be a distant footnote.
– –  –
• Ole Miss 54 | MTSU 10

Buffalo at Missouri (-34.5)

Missouri held Murray State to 85 total yards on 1.7 yards per play in Week 1, fewest in the nation on both counts, and a long gain of 9 yards. The Racers managed 5 first downs, 3 of them coming on a couple of garbage-time drives in the fourth quarter that still went nowhere. Does Buffalo have the juice to reach the end zone? The Bulls might have more firepower than Murray State, but not that much more.
– –  –
• Missouri 48 | Buffalo 3

Tennessee Tech at Georgia (-53.5)

Georgia can name its score here, obviously, but beware a 50-point spread. Excluding a close shave against Nicholls State in 2016 — Kirby Smart‘s second game as head coach — the Dawgs’ average margin of victory vs. FCS opponents under Smart is roughly 40 points per game, with the largest MOV coming in a 56-7 win over Charleston Southern in 2021.

As a rule, they’re not interested in inflicting that deep of a wound, so unless there’s a secret grudge between the coaching staffs or somebody on Tennessee Tech’s side gets a little too filled with the spirit or something, expect the proceedings to remain relatively civil.
– –  –
Georgia 51 | • Tennessee Tech 6

Nicholls State at LSU (-51.5)

One of the bright spots in LSU’s opening-day loss to USC was the play of RB John Emery Jr., a 6th-year senior who accounted for 71 scrimmage yards against the Trojans in one of the best games of his turbulent LSU career. Unfortunately, the comeback tour ended there: On Wednesday the Tigers confirmed that Emery is out for the season with a torn ACL, his second in as many years.

Between COVID, injuries, and academics, Emery has been through it all; he’s only managed to last a full season once, in 2022, while the promise that made him one of the top backs in the 2019 recruiting class has long since receded into the distance. His performance in Week 1 was a brief but effective reminder that he’s still around, and that he still has (or had) enough in the tank to play a big role in LSU’s thin backfield rotation. His opportunity being done in, again, by a tiny sliver of fibrous tissue is yet another reminder that no matter how finely tuned the rest of the body may be, human ligaments are basically garbage.
– –  –
• LSU 66 | Nicholls 10

Samford at Florida (n/a)

All eyes are on Florida’s quarterback situation, with Graham Mertz in concussion protocol and the entire fan base eager to see the keys handed over to 5-star freshman DJ Lagway. Meanwhile, the locals surely have not forgotten the last visit from Samford, a surreal, 70-52 shootout in November 2021 that served as one of the final nails in the coffin for then-coach Dan Mullen. Despite the final margin, the Gators spent much of the afternoon in panic mode, trailing by as many as 14 points while giving up 42 in the first half alone. Mullen was fired a week later following an overtime loss to Missouri.

That game was an extreme outlier in all respects, and only a handful of players who were there 3 years ago are still around to remember it. Still, given how loudly the clock is ticking over Billy Napier‘s shoulder right now, anything that inspires so much as a whiff of deja vu is the absolute last thing he needs.
– –  –
Florida 45 | Samford 16

McNeese State at Texas A&M (n/a)

Aggies fans will be watching this one with slightly more interest than they’d hoped coming off an opening-night flop against Notre Dame. Specifically, they’ll be watching for acts of contrition from QB Conner Weigman, who turned in the worst performance of his young career against the Irish and might be playing for his job. If that seems a little extreme based on one game, well, go back and watch the game.

Coach Mike Elko — who at one point was caught on camera yelling ”tell them to run the (bleeping) ball!” — was forced to defend his decision to leave leave Weigman in, the absolute last question any coach wants to be answering after his debut at a new school. There’s no reason to expect much resistance from McNeese State, all the more reason to give a struggling young QB the green light to go off.
– –  –
Texas A&M 52 | McNeese State 3

Alcorn State at Vanderbilt (n/a)

Vanderbilt is playing with house money for a while after springing a 34-27 upset over Virginia Tech. One of the few ways the ‘Dores could blow their sudden gust of goodwill before the calendar turns to October — in fact, possibly the only way — would be to turn around and play the fool against a SWAC outfit that lost its opener 41-3 to UAB. We trust our new favorite boy Diego Pavia will never allow this to happen on his watch.
– –  –
Vanderbilt 44 | Alcorn State 7

Scoreboard

Week 1 record: 14-2 straight up | 10-6 vs. spread

The post Week 2 SEC Primer: Michigan filled its championship void. Is Texas next? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Carson Beck, Georgia

During the broadcast of Georgia’s 34-3 win over Clemson, the crew noted that Beck told them he wrote down winning the Heisman as one of his explicit offseason goals, which I found refreshing. Most players default to team-first clichés when it comes to individual awards. In Beck’s case, though, his case and his team’s are inseparable: Serving as the face-of-the-program captain of the nation’s No. 1 team is the case, and it’s one that Heisman handicappers understand very well.

Beck’s path to the Heisman has nothing to do with nuclear-grade stat lines or viral highlights, which he has yet to produce in any of his 15 career starts. He’s going to get there with a steady accumulation of performances like his 278-yard, 2-touchdown, zero-mistake performance against the Tigers, a classic Georgia romp in which the Dawgs led just 6-0 at the half and Beck — well-protected and surrounded by playmakers — didn’t complete a pass of 20+ air yards at any point. Instead, he remained patient, distributed the rock, and casually led the Dawgs on 4 touchdown drives in 5 possessions after halftime against one of the few defenses in America that’s nearly a match for his own. The degree of difficulty might vary, but a dozen more afternoons in that vein will get him to New York. If he actually gets a chance to check the “overcame adversity” box along the way, he just might win it.
– – –
(Last week: 2)

2. Quinn Ewers, Texas

Ewers opened his season by throwing for 260 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 52-0 thumping of Colorado State and looked like a seasoned pro in the process.

Quinn Ewers subtly manipulating zone defenders with his eyes/feet pic.twitter.com/SSDhMVzvsN

— Mike Renner (@mikerenner_) September 2, 2024

Graduate-level stuff for a 21-year-old. Now let’s see how it goes this weekend at Michigan, where the windows will be tighter and the pockets considerably less pristine.
– – –
(Last week: 1)

3. Jalen Milroe, Alabama

Milroe ushered in the post-Saba era in Tuscaloosa in explosive fashion, accounting for 279 total yards and 5 touchdowns in a 63-0 massacre over Western Kentucky — a margin that cleared the 31.5-point spread twice over. Although he only attempted 9 passes (completing 7), Milroe averaged an absurd 28.6 yards per completion with TDs covering 22, 84 and 55 yards, the latter two both courtesy of 5-star freshman Ryan Williams on his first 2 career receptions.
– – –
(Last week: 3⬌)

4. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

Ole Miss mailed Furman a check for $500,000 to serve as target practice and got its money’s worth, dropping 52 points on the Paladins in the first half alone. (Final score: 76-0. A Paladin is like a kind of medieval knight, if you were wondering.) Dart accounted for 6 of the Rebels’ 7 touchdowns before calling it a day, 4 of them on passes covering 20+ yards; all told, his 418 passing yards represented the second-best total of his career — again, all of it coming before halftime.

https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1830040128443859114

The more interesting development came after halftime.

With Dart on ice, the bulk of the garbage-time reps were reserved for redshirt freshman Austin Simmons, who has apparently passed LSU transfer Walker Howard as the top backup and, to make the obvious leap, as the unofficial heir apparent to the starting job next year. If that pecking order holds, it will be an upset: While Simmons (a lefty who is also a pitcher on the Ole Miss baseball team) was a perfectly respectable recruit, Howard was a borderline 5-star in the 2022 class, and briefly considered a dark horse to usurp Dart as QB1 after he portaled in from LSU last year. At the very least he looked like no-brainer to take over in 2025.

For his part, Lane Kiffin described the backup competition as “very close,” implying the situation is still fluid. I’m not even out of this paragraph yet and I’m already regretting writing my way into handicapping a QB competition that doesn’t even really commence for another 6 months, trust me. (This is what you get when you schedule Furman.) But in the meantime, the succession plan might not be quite as cut-and-dry as most of us had assumed.
– – –
(Last week: 4⬌)

5. Brady Cook, Missouri

Cook accounted for 2 touchdowns (1 passing, 1 rushing) on an otherwise light night in Mizzou’s opener, a 51-0 shutout of Murray State that made plenty of time for the backups. Another tune-up is on deck this weekend against Buffalo — the Bulls, not the Bills — before a Week 3 visit from Boston College threatens to make things interesting.
– – –
(Last week: 6)

6. Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee

Iamaleava commemorated his first start in Neyland Stadium by ringing up 314 yards and 3 touchdowns in the first half of a 69-3 blowout over Chattanooga, a sentence that makes me feel like I’m recapping an NCAA Football 25 simulation in Junior Varsity mode. The opposition gets real fast this weekend against NC State.
– – –
(Last week: 8)

7. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU

Brian Kelly was blunt following LSU’s 27-20 loss to USC, telling reporters immediately after the game that the Trojans’ Miller Moss “outplayed our quarterback.” There’s no denying that, especially down the stretch: Besides outdueling Nussmeier on paper, Moss was at his best with the game on the line, leading USC on back-to-back, go-ahead touchdown drives in the fourth quarter while LSU could only manage a field goal. The loss marked the Tigers’ 5th straight in season-openers with 4 different QBs in the saddle, leaving Kelly literally pounding the table in frustration.

Apart from the final score, though, there was a lot to like. Nussmeier ended the night 30-for-39 overall, 12-for-17 when facing a blitz, and 3-for-5 on attempts of 20+ air yards, including a perfectly placed touchdown pass to Kyren Lacy, who looked for all the world like the breakout receiver LSU was counting on him to be. He posted a higher passer rating (155.1) and QBR score (87.6) than Jayden Daniels in last year’s Week 1 loss to Florida State, despite Daniels’ stat line in that game being inflated by garbage time. And the biggest blemish on Nussmeier’s line, an interception on his final attempt, came on an essentially meaningless play in the dying seconds.

All things considered, that’s about as good as LSU fans could realistically expect from a guy in his second career start against real competition, especially in a game in which the offense was limited to just 9 full possessions. (USC got 10, the last one turning out to be the difference.) Personally, my first impression before diving into the box score was that Nussmeier was more or less exactly who I expected him to be — fine arm, decent consistency, minimal mobility — and the numbers backed that up. Once again, quarterback remains the least of the Tigers’ problems. Nussmeier will keep them in every game, but if he has to be Jayden freakin’ Daniels to get them over the hump, it’s going to be a long year.
– – –
(Last week: 7⬌)

8. Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma

Good luck trying to discern much from Arnold’s Week 1 line against Temple, which you could describe as prolific (4 touchdowns!) or underwhelming (5.6 yards per attempt?) depending on which stat you prefer to linger on. In real time the verdict was more straightforward: Kid can sling it.

https://twitter.com/CamMellor/status/1829658671095431362/

That was one of the few times Arnold felt any need to exert himself — 5 of Oklahoma’s 6 scoring drives in the first half began in Temple territory. The degree of difficulty ticks up each of the next 2 weeks against Houston and Tulane before his first foray into SEC play against Tennessee.
– – –
(Last week: 9)

9. Brock Vandagriff, Kentucky

Vandagriff’s debut in blue was brief, cut short by lightning with Kentucky leading Southern Miss 31-0 a few minutes into the third quarter. (USM, clearly outgunned, agreed to leave with an official L rather than wait around for the abuse to resume in the wee hours.) Before they called it, Vandagriff was on script, overcoming an interception on the Wildcats’ opening possession with 3 touchdown passes and a couple of much-anticipated flashes of his 5-star arm.

Welcome to the Brock Vandagriff era in Lexington
pic.twitter.com/Z8GWuEd1xY

— Cats Coverage (@Cats_Coverage) September 3, 2024

Final line: 12-for-18, 169 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, no surprises. A much stiffer test is on deck this week against South Carolina, followed by a Week 3 visit from his old team, Georgia.
– – –
(Last week: 10)

10. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt

Build the statue! A week into his tenure, Pavia is officially the first Vandy quarterback in the 6-year history of our weekly QB rankings to crack the top 10. The previous high for a Commodores starter came in November 2022, when Mike Wright climbed to No. 11 following the end of the ‘Dores’ 26-game losing streak in SEC play. Last year’s starters, Ken Seals and AJ Swann, never managed to climb out of the basement. This is the position that drove coach Clark Lea to explain his decision to stick with Seals in a blowout loss last November by telling reporters “he gave us a chance to punt.”

So, hail Diego! Saturday’s 34-27 upset over Virginia Tech was not a conference win, but I’d argue it was the biggest of Lea’s tenure. First, there was nothing fluky about it. In the first half, Vanderbilt jumped out to a 17-0 lead on the strength of 3 consecutive extended scoring drives to open the game. In the second, the offense responded to a very “Vandy being Vandy” kind of gaffe by the defense — a blown coverage on 3rd-and-10 that resulted in a go-ahead, 62-yard touchdown, putting the Hokies up 27-20 with less than 5 minutes to go — by driving 70 yards in 6 plays to even the score. Pavia, a Rudy-esque transfer from New Mexico State, accounted for 294 of his team’s 371 total yards and 3 TDs, capped by the eventual game-winning run in overtime.

DIEGO. PAVIA pic.twitter.com/3fA76RTa4m

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) August 31, 2024

There’s also the fact that, for the first time under Lea, there’s suddenly a glimmer of hope that the project is not doomed to be a lost cause. A faint glimmer, maybe, but the realest that Vandy has enjoyed in a while. Lea ended 2023 squarely on the hot seat, gambled his job on a new offensive coordinator and quarterback from one of the sport’s scrubbier backwaters, and it paid off. For a week — or, with Alcorn State and Georgia State on deck ahead of the SEC opener at Missouri, possibly even 2 or 3 weeks — the Commodores can be something other than doormats and laughingstocks plodding through the death throes of yet another failed administration. They can be … normal. Competitive. Headed in the right direction. Not doomed.

For now, anyway. We’ll see how long it lasts. Pavia isn’t about to grow into a next-level prospect overnight. The path to bowl eligibility (meaning multiple conference wins) remains steep. But those are October problems now. Until then, just let them enjoy having a guy who gives them a chance.
– – –
(Last week: 15)

11. Conner Weigman, Texas A&M

No way around it: 8.2 million people watched Weigman stink up the joint against Notre Dame in the weekend’s most disappointing individual performance. A lot of very smart people had Weigman on breakout watch in Year 3 coming off a medical redshirt as a sophomore. The only thing he broke in A&M’s 23-13 loss to the Irish was the home crowd’s spirit.

Weigman connected on his first pass of the night, a dart to Louisiana Tech transfer Cyrus Allen that went for a 15-yard gain. From that point on, he was a basketcase, going 11-for-29 for 85 yards, serving up 2 interceptions and failing to complete another attempt of 10+ air yards. Altogether, he averaged a grim 3.3 yards per attempt, and posted the worst overall PFF grade (31.1) of any FBS quarterback in Week 1 with at least 10 drop-backs. On the Aggies’ lone touchdown drive, a 10-play, 65-yard march spanning the third and fourth quarters, their only gain through the air came on a penalty for defensive pass interference.

Conner Weigman overthrows a 6-6 receiver.

Not good. pic.twitter.com/zcPxiTwepd

— FootballKennerDe (@KennerFootball) September 1, 2024

Chalk it up to Notre Dame’s decorated secondary, an uninspired effort from the surrounding cast, or sloppy footwork. Chalk it up to a new coaching staff still working on its communication. Hell, chalk it up to the cursed quarterback class of 2022. Let’s go with a little bit of all of the above. Whatever the explanation, the result in the opener was not tenable for a team with the talent and the schedule to remain relevant in the Playoff race well into November. It wasn’t tenable for a team that aspires to the Gasparilla Bowl. Weigman is as entrenched as any quarterback in the league, and there’s no version of the 2024 Aggies that satisfies anyone without him holding up his end of the bargain. (Well, anyone except the haters.) This weekend’s date with McNeese State is a chance to get right ahead of a Week 3 trip to Florida that suddenly reeks of desperation on both sides.
– – –
(Last week: 6)

12. Taylen Green, Arkansas

Green looked fantastic in his Arkansas debut, accounting for 317 yards and 4 touchdowns in a 70-0 humiliation of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. As a team, the Razorbacks averaged 9.8 yards per play, went 9-for-9 on 3rd-down conversions, and scored touchdowns on all 10 of their offensive possessions. This game should be stricken from the record and never spoken of again. Bring on Oklahoma State.
– – –
(Last week: 12⬌)

13. Payton Thorne, Auburn

While we’re at it, strike Auburn’s 73-3 cruise over Alabama A&M, too, in which the Tigers at one point scored long touchdowns on 3 consecutive plays from scrimmage. Thorne had a hand in 2 of those, as well as 3 more later in the game. Next up: Cal.
– – –
(Last week: 13⬌)

14. Blake Shapen, Mississippi State

Shane was playing with funny money in his first game in Starkville, accounting for 4 touchdowns in a 56-7 win over Eastern Kentucky — a slightly more reassuring score than most of the other laughers against FCS opponents, given how little we knew about the rebuilding Bulldogs going on. We still don’t know much, but as always, making quick work of Eastern Kentucky sure as heck beats not making quick work of Eastern Kentucky, so mission accomplished. This weekend’s trip to Arizona State remains one of Mississippi State’s best chances to crack the win column against the Power 4.
– – –
(Last week: 14⬌)

15. Graham Mertz or DJ Lagway, Florida

Mertz came back for his 6th and final college season hoping to put to bed doubts that he’s a viable pro prospect. Instead, his future was hanging in the balance before the sun set on the season-opener.

In Mertz’s defense, an awful lot of what went wrong in Florida’s 41-17 flop against Miami had nothing to do with the quarterback, whose job was made infinitely harder by a porous o-line, a juiceless bunch of receivers, and a defense that allowed 6 sustained Miami scoring drives in the first 3 quarters. As for Mertz’s performance, though, there wasn’t much to defend. Looking indecisive and immobile, he suffered through his worst outing as a Gator in terms of completion percentage (55.0%), yards per attempt (4.6), pass efficiency (83.2), Total QBR (19.1) and overall PFF grade (42.4) — a clean sweep of futility. He was 0-for-4 on attempts of 20+ air yards, 0-for-5 on 3rd-down conversions, and 1-for-9 on pressured drop-backs. (The lone completion in the last column going for a gain of 1 yard.) He was sacked 3 times, and ultimately knocked out of the game while air-mailing an interception that ended the competitive portion of the afternoon.

"The Canes are whipping up a storm here in Gainesville."

Joe Tessitore on the call as things go from bad to worse from Florida after QB Graham Mertz is hurt on an interception. pic.twitter.com/7e6gIDCFFo

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 31, 2024

By the time Lagway trotted on in the fourth quarter, the home crowd was ready to move on. The Swamp greeted the freshman with a big, ironic ovation, and he responded by leading Florida’s only sustained scoring drive, a 9-play, 58-yard touchdown march on his second series. Lagway looked good on that drive, going 3-for-4 31 yards as a passer while adding a 16-yard gain on the ground. Of course, by that point it was strictly cosmetic, and the rest of Lagway’s garbage-time debut was mixed; his other 2 possessions resulted in a 3-and-out and an interception, respectively.

Lagway may not be ready for primetime, but he has 3 things going for him that Mertz does not: A fresh face, a blue-chip ceiling, and plenty of time to fulfill it. He’s also available for this weekend’s game against Samford, while Mertz’s status remains TBD due to a concussion. Even if Mertz is cleared to play, the opportunity to let Lagway take the offense for a spin in a relatively low-stakes setting without the drama of an outright demotion comes at the perfect time.

The degree of difficulty ramps back up in Week 3 against Texas A&M and only gets steeper as the season goes on. Regardless of who’s behind center, the Gators’ other problems remain, a relentless schedule coming in at the top of the list. After Saturday, 6 wins already looks like a long shot.

If Billy Napier has any chance of being around in 2025, he has to convince his bosses between now and then that they still have something to look forward to. And no one is looking forward to a guy who couldn’t beat out the end-stage version of Graham Mertz.
– – –
(Last week: 11)

16. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina

The good news: Sellers’ first career start, a 23-19 decision over Old Dominion, went in the win column. The not-so-good news: Pretty much everything else. While the defense held up its end of the deal, South Carolina’s offense struggled on all fronts, managing just 288 total yards on 3.7 per play in what should have been a routine tune-up. Instead, it was a nail-biter in which both of the Gamecocks’ touchdowns were the direct result of takeaways that set up the offense inside the ODU 10-yard line.

Sellers looked like the fledgling starter that he is, finishing 10-for-23 for 114 yards, zero TDs, 1 fumble, and 4 sacks; that corresponded with abysmal numbers for efficiency (85.1) and QBR (17.7). Carolina’s 4 passing first downs matched its fewest in a game since November 2011.

At one point, Sellers inadvertently tripped up his own teammate in the open field, spoiling a big play in his over-eagerness to be useful as a blocker. But there were a few glimpses of his raw potential, too. He was productive as a runner, grinding out 81 yards (excluding sacks); he connected on a long ball for a gain of 41 yards; and his most impressive throw, a straight-up bomb that hit the bulls-eye after traveling a full 65 yards in the air, went down as just another incompletion when his receiver biffed the catch.

Check out the arm on #Gamecocks QB LaNorris Sellers here … an absolute on the money bomb. Gifted. pic.twitter.com/eAxU3b6sDO

— Brad Crawford (@BCrawford247) August 31, 2024

A huge arm doesn’t necessarily guarantee results. (See Milton, Joe.) But it usually does guarantee that the owner is going to keep getting chances until the bombs start landing short. (Milton is currently earning an NFL paycheck after getting drafted in the 6th round.) Sellers has plenty of time to get his coordinates straightened out.
– – –
(Last week: 16⬌)

The post SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 2: Vanderbilt, we have a quarterback appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Stained The Swamp

Look, Miami might be pretty good. Like, first-round-bye good. Based on his performance in The Swamp, portal gem Cam Ward is probably going to shred most of the defenses he sees this season. Granted. But Florida is not the kind of program that grades itself on a curve, and there is no way to spin Saturday’s 41-17 home loss to the Canes as anything other than a dark omen.

The stakes were plain enough going in: If the Gators were going to have a realistic shot at eking out 6 wins against a nightmare of a schedule, Miami had to be one of them. Instead, they woke up on Sept. 1 already staring down the barrel of their fourth consecutive losing season — one that’s all the more the depressing for being all too predictable.

The tone was set on Miami’s first offensive possession, when an apparent 3rd-and-10 stop by Florida’s defense was negated by a penalty for roughing the passer; instead of settling for a field goal, the Hurricanes hit paydirt two plays later to go up 7-0 and never looked back. More than just a deflating start to the season, that sequence felt like a bad case of déjà vu: The Gators also gave up an early touchdown set up by a stupid penalty in last year’s opener, a 24-11 loss at Utah that served as an accurately bleak forecast for the rest of the year. The ’24 campaign opened under the same cloud, which shows no signs of lifting anytime soon. Altogether, Miami scored on 6 of its first 8 possessions and outgained Florida more than 2-to-1 in total offense, 529 yards to 261.

Obviously, the sand is running out on Billy Napier, whose record vs. power-conference opponents now stands at 7-15 with 6 straight losses. Napier’s defenders have sometimes pointed to a diminished talent base that fell behind the curve under his predecessor, Dan Mullen, who was respected on the Xs and Os side but never known as a particularly energetic recruiter.

Maybe that line would still have some traction if this was a winning team whose biggest problem was struggling to get over the hump against Georgia, rather than what it actually is: A thoroughly mediocre outfit that has yet to show any signs of progress on Napier’s watch. Florida’s current roster ranks 12th nationally in 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite — 2 spots ahead of Miami’s — and 11th according to the Blue-Chip Ratio. What little patience was left in the bank in Year 3 was reserved for a product that could at least pass for competitive, whatever that meant after taking the schedule into account. It definitely does not cover getting taken to the woodshed in your own stadium by an in-state rival with a well-earned reputation for underachieving in its own right.

Normally, I’d rather be the guy warning against overreacting to an opening-day flop than banging the gavel. But anyone who can look at a slate that still includes 6 more ranked opponents (plus Texas A&M, UCF and Kentucky) and still chart a course to bowl eligibility for the team that took the field on Saturday needs to be admitted for heat stroke. It’s not just that the Gators were bad in Week 1: 3 years into the Napier era, what does the good version look like? What do they have to hang their hats on, even in theory?

Not the defense. As badly as Napier wants this to be a hard-nosed, defensively-driven program, it’s going in the opposite direction. Florida finished near the bottom of the SEC in both total and scoring D in 2023 under first-year coordinator Austin Armstrong, going up in flames over the second half of the season. Rather than starting over from scratch, though, Napier kept the 31-year-old Armstrong aboard and brought in a former colleague, journeyman Ron Roberts, to serve as a mentor. (Exactly how their duties break down isn’t quite clear; in addition to co-defensive coordinator, Roberts’ official title also includes “executive head coach.”) But 8 of the 11 starters against Miami were holdovers from last year, and they picked up right where the ’23 team left off, giving up 7.7 yards per play.

Not the quarterback, either. Graham Mertz has some wily vet qualities, especially when it comes to avoiding the negative play — in 2023, he finished with the highest completion percentage in the SEC and lowest interception percentage in the entire Power 5. He won’t get you beat, as long as the defense and ground game are holding up their end of the bargain. When they’re not, he’s a sitting duck. In Year 6, whatever play-making ability he might have possessed as an underclassman at Wisconsin was beaten out of him a long time ago. On Saturday, Mertz was 0-for-4 on attempts of 20+ air yards and 1-for-9 on pressured drop-backs, per Pro Football Focus, including 3 sacks, a fumble, and an ugly INT on what turned out to be his final snap of the day.

"The Canes are whipping up a storm here in Gainesville."

Joe Tessitore on the call as things go from bad to worse from Florida after QB Graham Mertz is hurt on an interception. pic.twitter.com/7e6gIDCFFo

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 31, 2024

If there was anything remotely resembling a silver lining, it was the belated appearance of Mertz’s understudy, 5-star freshman DJ Lagway, who got a huge ovation when he entered the game and went on to lead Florida’s only sustained scoring drive, a 9-play, 58-yard touchdown march on his second series. Lagway looked good on the drive, going 3-for-4 for 31 yards as a passer and adding a 16-yard gain on the ground. Of course, by that point it was strictly cosmetic, and even Lagway’s garbage-time debut was mixed; his other 2 possessions resulted in a 3-and-out and an interception, respectively.

But when Napier cued up the film on Sunday morning, what else did he see to reassure him? Benching a struggling incumbent for a fledgling teenager one game into the season might be a panic move, just the kind of energy Napier was desperately hoping to avoid giving off.

But brother, it’s panic time.

Mertz reportedly suffered a concussion on the hit that ended his afternoon; his status for this weekend’s date against Samford is TBD, but there’s no reason to rush him back against an FCS doormat. Instead, it represents a relatively low-stakes opportunity to let Lagway take the offense for a test drive in the 1 remaining game the Gators are assured of winning without the drama of an outright demotion. If his audition is a hit, then it’s time to seriously consider abandoning the low-risk approach for the kind of upside that gives them half a chance when the defense gives up 38 points in the first 3 quarters. Because it’s plain enough there’s no one waiting in the wings who’s suddenly going to solve that.

After Saturday, frankly Napier is left with very little choice. The status quo is a slow, sad slog to irrelevance. The only really unacceptable risk now is to continue to double down.

Georgia: Bullying by the book

At some point over the past few years, Georgia officially supplanted Alabama as the league’s standard bearer for routine, workmanlike dominance, and the Bulldogs’ 34-3 win over Clemson was a classic entry in the genre. Aside from featuring a couple of blue-chip national brands, the game itself was forgettable in exactly the way Georgia games tend to be: The Bulldogs led 6-0 after a first half befitting of that score, and didn’t pull away until a sudden burst of offense in the second half turned a mutual slugfest into a one-sided romp.

Carson Beck put up a good-not-great stat line (23-for-33, 278 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs) without completing a pass of 20+ air yards. At the end of the day, UGA racked up 447 yards of total offense on 7.5 yards per play — an explosive number, on paper — without any individual player hogging the spotlight or the box score. The defense put Clemson’s offense in a chokehold in the first half and kept squeezing until most of the nearly 8 million people who tuned in felt themselves nodding off: Only 1 of the Tigers’ first 9 offensive possessions ended in Georgia territory. (That drive yielded their only points, courtesy of a field goal that cut the deficit to 13-3 midway through the third quarter, but after failing to covert a precious goal-to-go opportunity into a touchdown the decision to settle for 3 may as well have been waving the white flag. UGA’s offense responded with a touchdown drive that effectively put the game on ice.) At no point was the outcome even a little bit in doubt, regardless of the margin at any given moment on the scoreboard.

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaFootball/status/1829966994738946127/

So yeah, yet another standard-issue Georgia beatdown of a serious opponent, ho hum. Kirby Smart‘s Dawgs are so fundamentally sound in the blocking-and-tackling department that it’s easy to take for granted, even against the likes of Clemson. But the boring stuff still adds up. PFF charged Georgia as a team with a grand total of 2 missed tackles on the afternoon, severely limiting the Tigers’ yards after contact on the ground (44) and yards after catch (54). By way of comparison, PFF dinged Clemson for 8 missed tackles, while nearly two-thirds of Georgia’s total output came after contact/catch. Beck was pressured six times by Clemson’s ferocious d-line, sacked once, and otherwise not touched.

Anyway, at the end of the day nobody’s really interested in any of that. Once the score was out of reach the basics were no match for the takes, which were almost entirely aimed at the losing side. Georgia may be just plain old Georgia, but Clemson? The Tigers are officially also-rans, again, their decline from the ranks of year-in, year-out contenders extending into its fourth season and counting. By now, the diagnosis is well-rehearsed.

The lowest-hanging fruit is Dabo Swinney‘s refusal to engage with the transfer portal, which at this point almost reads as spite for being asked about it nonstop. Swinney is not wrong when he insists most of the players in the portal are just guys, not difference-makers. The current roster is as as well-stocked as ever, coming in 5th nationally in the Team Talent Composite and 10th in the Blue-Chip Ratio. The few transfers who could crack the two-deep for the Tigers are replacement-level, at best. But the portal allergy not only makes for a convenient scapegoat: It also makes the cracks in the facade that much more visible. The bigger concern: The post-pandemic version of Clemson is a developmental program that is falling behind the curve in development.

That’s most obvious behind center, where junior QB Cade Klubnik is no closer to living up to his 5-star billing than the guy he replaced, DJ Uiagalelei. Klubnik finished with dismal numbers on Saturday in terms of efficiency (96.3), Total QBR (40.8), and EPA (-2.1) in his 15th career start. But the same can be said for his surrounding cast, which continued to look as juiceless as it has over the past 3 seasons. The Tigers’ longest gain on the ground covered just 9 yards; the only downfield completion came on a highlight-reel grab in traffic. If a Clemson receiver ever managed to get separation against Georgia’s defensive backs, it happened strictly off-screen.

Meanwhile, it was lost on none of Swinney’s critics that both of Beck’s touchdown passes went to transfers playing their first game in a Georgia uniform, Colbie Young (Miami) and London Humphreys (Vanderbilt). The 6-3, 215-pound Young was recruited specifically as a red-zone target, and delivered in that capacity right away; Humphreys, a true sophomore, came aboard after breaking a 49-yard touchdown against UGA last year in Nashville, and scored Saturday in virtually identical fashion. There’s no need to overstate the case here: Georgia is a developmental program, too. Young and Humphreys were 2 of only 4 former transfers who saw meaningful snaps for the Dawgs on either side of the ball, along with fellow wideout Dominic Lovett and tight end Benjamin Yurosek. But their respective skill sets were suited to particular roles, and they both made an immediate impact in them.

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaFootball/status/1829942848818757815/

Obviously, Clemson has a lot more work to do to close the gap than identifying a couple of productive role players. We haven’t even touched here on the departures of long-time coordinators on both sides of the ball. (This column does need to see the light of day by Monday.) The quarterback situation remains an albatross, and not only against the Georgias of the world. But recruiting hype notwithstanding, let’s not pretend anybody ever had Cade Klubnik pegged for the second coming of Trevor Lawrence. The guy after Klubnik isn’t going to be that, either, or the guy after him. If stumbling into the second coming of Trevor Lawrence is what it’s going to take to get the Tigers back to where they want to be, they’re going to be in limbo for a good long while. Until then, the longer they wait to join the rest of the sport in competing for the best available talent, the wider the gap is going to get.

LSU: Losing its edge

LSU fans spent all of last season waiting for Harold Perkins Jr. to look like his dominant freshman self as a pass rusher, and lamenting the fact that he was lining up significantly more often in space than on the edge. The architect of Perkins’ sophomore slump, defensive coordinator Matt House, was sent packing last December on the heels of a disastrous campaign for the defense as a whole; the new DC, Blake Baker, arrived from Missouri vowing to implement a more “aggressive, attacking style” with an emphasis on havoc, renewing the prospect of Perkins pinning his ears back on a regular basis in Year 3.

The early verdict based on Sunday night’s 27-20 loss to USC: More of the same.

Perkins was on the field for 54 of LSU’s 63 defensive snaps against the Trojans, per PFF. On the vast majority of those, he was stationed as a conventional off-ball linebacker, logging just 10 plays on the edge and 4 in the slot. His dozen pass-rushing reps (both off the edge and as a blitzer) came up empty: Zero sacks, zero hits, zero pressures.

On USC’s game-winning 2-minute drill in the fourth quarter — the definition of an obvious passing situation — Perkins didn’t come after Trojans QB Miller Moss a single time, or threaten to. Instead, he loitered passively in short zone coverage on every play, recording a couple of tackles in the process but otherwise making no impact. USC drove 75 yards in 8 plays for the winning TD without facing a 3rd down.

Following the loss, Brian Kelly vented in his postgame press conference about dumb penalties, complacency late in the game, and a failure to finish after taking a 17-13 lead into the fourth quarter. He banged the table for emphasis. The absence of his most talented pass rusher from the pass-rushing rotation on the game’s most crucial series of passing downs went unmentioned.

Brian Kelly was HEATED after tonight's loss pic.twitter.com/lw3bK85YzB

— The Bengal Tiger (@BengalTigerOn3) September 2, 2024

Regardless of his production, Perkins’ deployment remains and will continue to remain a sore point for two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is the raw explosiveness that made him a rising star in the first place, and which he still flashes when given the chance. Although he didn’t register as a pass rusher, he did make one of the most eye-opening plays of the game in the first half when he knifed into the backfield so quickly he was able to account for both the quarterback and the running back on a zone read — an emphatic reminder of what he’s capable of when he’s on the attack:

Lmao Harold Perkins completely blows up the 3rd down with insane quickness to get into the backfield pic.twitter.com/4DtpLWaUzT

— Billy M (@BillyM_91) September 2, 2024

The other reason is the fact that the Tigers are in dire need of all the pass-rushing juice they can get. They’re not cranking out next-level edge rushers in Baton Rouge like they used to. Excluding Perkins (who still led the team last year in both sacks and pressures despite dropping into coverage about twice as often as he rushed), no other edge rusher in 2023 finished with more than 2.5 sacks or 22 pressures on the year. Against USC, LSU generated pressure on just 6 of Moss’ 40 drop-backs, per PFF, even while blitzing on nearly half of them. That number includes a pair of sacks by senior Sai’vion Jones, and does not include 3 passes batted down behind the line of scrimmage. But on the significant majority of reps that he was kept clean, Moss was 25-for-31 for 356 yards and a touchdown.

Getting the most out of Perkins’ unique skill set is not just a matter of parking him on the edge. At 6-1/225, he’s not big enough to hold up full-time against the run, and his future as a pro is most likely in a traditional off-ball role. Micah Parsons he is not. While he’s still on campus, though, he is arguably the best pure speed rusher in the college game, part-time or otherwise. Whether giving him the chance to prove it against USC would have made any difference down the stretch, we’ll never know. But the Tigers can’t afford to keep wondering.

Superlatives

The best individual performances of Week 1.

1. South Carolina DEs Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart. Kennard and Stewart were the 2 most anticipated additions to South Carolina’s defense, albeit for different reasons: Kennard, a 5th-year transfer from Georgia Tech, came with meaningful Power 5 experience; Stewart, the gem of Carolina’s incoming recruiting class, came with 5-star credentials. In their first game as Gamecocks, they each dominated in their own right, combining for 11 QB pressures, 4 sacks and 4 forced fumbles in a down-to-the-wire, 23-19 win over Old Dominion that owed everything to the defense.

This angle shows it better. Beats the tackle with two long strides. Insanity. pic.twitter.com/lnUHx96Fts

— Alex (@GamecockSheriff) September 1, 2024

If you didn’t know Stewart’s name before this weekend, now is the time to learn it. The consensus No. 1 edge defender in the 2024 class was a full-fledged nightmare right out of the box, posting the weekend’s top overall PFF grade among all FBS defenders (95.2). On top of his production, he was also clutch: With South Carolina trailing 19-16 midway through the fourth quarter, Stewart came through with the biggest play of the game, landing a blindside hit on ODU quarterback Grant Wilson that jarred the ball loose inside the Monarchs’ 10-yard line; the Gamecocks recovered, setting up what would turn out to be the winning touchdown 2 plays later.

In fact, Carolina’s only other touchdown also came courtesy of a forced fumble, after Kennard set up the offense inside the ODU 5-yard line on the first series of the game. They can’t go on bailing the offense out every week, but the pass rush is going to be fine.

2. Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia. It took Pavia about a half-hour in a Vandy uniform to cement himself as a Dore for life. In his first start in Nashville, the New Mexico State transfer accounted for 294 total yards (190 passing, 104 rushing) and 3 of Vanderbilt’s 4 touchdowns in a 34-27 overtime stunner over Virginia Tech, completely altering the vibe around the program in the process. Without getting too carried away about their prospects going forward, it’s enough for now to know that the Commodores are not hopeless and that Clark Lea is not coaching for his job on a weekly basis.

3. Georgia DB Malaki Starks. A free safety by trade, Starks spent most of his time against Clemson in the nickel (“Star,” in local parlance) following an injury to projected starter Joenel Aguero. He looked right at home, to put it mildly, posting the top overall PFF grade among Georgia defenders as well as the top coverage grade, lately the result of his acrobatic, game-clinching interception in the fourth quarter..

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaFootball/status/1829957093132288365/

Starks is well past the point in his career when he needs viral highlights to reinforce his All-American bona fides, but hey, it can’t hurt. If the move to Star sticks, expect plenty more where that came from.

4. Alabama QB Jalen Milroe.. Milroe ushered in the post-Saba era in Tuscaloosa in explosive fashion, accounting for 279 total yards and 5 touchdowns in a 63-0 massacre over Western Kentucky — a margin that cleared the 31.5-point spread twice over. Although he only attempted 9 passes (completing 7), Milroe averaged 28.6 yards per completion with TDs covering 22, 84 and 55 yards, the latter 2 both courtesy of 5-star freshman Ryan Williams on his first 2 career receptions.

5. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart. I don’t like acknowledging inflated stat lines against FCS doormats in this space, but Dart’s line against Furman went above and beyond the rate of inflation. He was nearly perfect, going 22-for-27 for 418 yards and 5 touchdowns to 4 different receivers before calling it a day at halftime. The Rebels led at that point 52-0, and went on to win 76-0.

Fat guy of the week: Georgia OL Tate Ratledge

The Dawgs’ longest-tenured starter up front was solid as a rock against Clemson, as usual, shutting out Tigers pass rushers (zero sacks, hits, or pressures allowed) while posting the top PFF rushing grade among Georgia’s starting five.

#Georgia RG Tate Ratledge is one of the Best Interior Offensive Linemen in the 2025 NFL draft. In his debut against Clemson today he showed really solid technique in pass pro. He Anchored down multiple times and had an overall impressive day. pic.twitter.com/bvdPoTaOvu

— Sanjit T. (@Sanjit__T) September 1, 2024

I vow not to put Ratledge in this spot every week, but I can tell already it’s going to be a challenge.

Honorable mention: Georgia RB Nate Frazier, a true freshman, who accounted for 107 yards and a touchdown on a dozen touches against Clemson in his first college game. … Alabama DB Keon Sabb, a Michigan transfer, who picked off 2 passes in his first game for the Crimson Tide. … Texas A&M edge Nic Scourton, a Purdue transfer, who had 4 QB pressures, 2 tackles for loss, and swatted a pass in the Aggies’ loss to Notre Dame. … South Carolina DB Jalon Kilgore, who pulled down the game-clinching interception, broke up 2 other passes, and allowed just 2 completions on 7 targets in the Gamecocks’ defensively-driven win over Old Dominion. … LSU WR Karen Lacy, who had 7 catches for 94 yards and a touchdown in an impressive debut as the Tigers’ No. 1 receiver against USC. … And Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava, making his first start in Neyland Stadium, who passed for 314 yards and 3 touchdowns in the first half alone of a 69-3 blowout over Chattanooga.

–     –     –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

Catch of the year of the week: Vanderbilt WR Quincy Skinner

This angle pic.twitter.com/AZNGtCMiiZ

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) August 31, 2024

Quote of the Week

“When you get beat like that, that’s on the head coach. Complete ownership of an absolute crap second half. Sometimes you get your butt kicked and we did today.” – Dabo Swinney, to reporters following Clemson’s wipeout loss to Georgia.

Moment of Zen of the Week

This moment pic.twitter.com/wCH8nyNDvZ

— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) September 1, 2024

The post Monday Down South: Is it too soon for Florida to panic? Or already too late? appeared first on Saturday Down South.

The stakes

Look, it’s a long year. The longest ever, actually, spanning nearly 5 full months. They’re not handing out Playoff tickets on Labor Day, right? Isn’t Opening Day(-ish) a little soon for Playoff Implications?

Folks, it’s never too soon for Playoff Implications.

Yes, the expanded 12-team CFP format takes some of the sting out of an opening-day loss, which has never been a strictly make-or-break affair for teams with national ambitions as much as it has been a tone-setter for the rest of the season, anyway. This year, that’s more true than ever. Not only can the loser Saturday still make the cut but because first-round byes in the new format are reserved for conference champions, the outcome won’t have any bearing on either team’s pursuit of 1 the top 4 seeds either way. No doors are opening or closing as a result of the first game.

Still, some doors might remain more open than others.

For Clemson, especially, it’s a test of whether an at-large bid remains within the realm of possibility for this team, or if the Tigers’ only viable path is through the ACC title. Florida State’s Week Zero loss to Georgia Tech in Ireland did put Clemson back in the driver’s seat in the conference. But an upset over the nation’s No. 1 team would have enormous implications, not the least of which would be proving that Clemson is still a program capable of winning these types of games — the Tigers haven’t beaten an opponent ranked higher than 10th in the AP poll since 2020, Trevor Lawrence’s last year as the starting quarterback.

Reporters might even be compelled to declare a season-long moratorium on asking Dabo Swinney about his rigid opposition to the transfer portal. (Well, for a few weeks, anyway.) Practically speaking it would also ease the margin for error in the conference standings by preserving an at-large route. With a loss on Saturday, that route almost certainly does not exist.

Georgia doesn’t have much more breathing room. The Dawgs are used to spending entire months of the regular season in cruise control, but that will not be the case this year against what is easily the most booby-trapped schedule of Kirby Smart‘s tenure. Beyond Clemson, UGA is facing road top-10 tests at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss, plus a November date against Tennessee. How many wins against that gauntlet can Georgia afford to take for granted? Blow the opener as a double-digit favorite, and suddenly the answer is none.

The stat: 9.8 yards

That was Clemson QB Cade Klubnik‘s average yards per completion in 2023 — not per attempt, but per completion — good for 102nd nationally and dead last among qualifying passers in the ACC. For context, that’s a full yard below what his predecessor, DJ Uiagalelei, managed over the previous 2 seasons (10.9 ypc) in what was widely acknowledged to be a disappointing turn in one of the sport’s most high-profile positions.

Unless you are unusually attuned to Clemson football, the fact that you probably didn’t hear nearly as much about last year’s low-wattage attack as you did the previous 2 is a sign of just how far the bar has dropped. Is this just what Clemson’s offense is now? The post-pandemic malaise has endured across 3 seasons, 3 offensive coordinators and a pair of 5-star quarterbacks with very different skill sets, with no end in sight.

The Tigers averaged a pedestrian 23.6 points per game in ACC play in 2023, a 13-point drop from 2022 and a 21-point drop from their last Playoff appearance in 2020. The teams that played for the CFP title in 2018 and ’19 both averaged roughly twice that number.

If it seems unfair to compare to the current Tigers to the heyday of the Trevor Lawrence years, well, yeah. Exactly. It’s not all about the QB: Altogether, Clemson has had just 3 offensive players at any position taken in the past 3 drafts, none of them higher than the 4th round. Barring a surprise, that trend will continue in 2025. The drop-off at receiver, especially, is inseparable from the frustration behind center. After a decade-long run of next-level wideouts, Clemson hasn’t an individual player crack the top 15 in the ACC in receiving yards in any of the past 3 seasons. The leading target in 2023, true freshman Tyler Brown, ranked 24th in the conference with 531 yards on 10.2 per catch; the resident veteran of the group, junior Antonio Williams, has averaged just 10.6 yards over the past 2 years.

The verdict is still out on Klubnik, the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class, who could always be due for a leap in his second year as a starter. (He is only a rising junior, after all.) But if there’s anyone in the surrounding cast who makes Georgia’s secondary sweat, let’s just say he’s had one heck of an offseason.

The big question: Does Georgia have a dominant individual presence?

The Dawgs boast an abundance of depth at nearly every position, as always, but no one who singlehandedly moves the needle on his own. Who are the dudes? The gotta-have-it receiver now that Brock Bowers is gone? The unblockable interior force a la Jalen Carter? The one-on-one nightmare? The feared pass rusher? There’s a surplus of candidates, but even the headliners are more “first among equals” in a loaded rotation than true stars.

That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker in their bid to go all the way. Under Kirby Smart, Georgia has never put much emphasis on individual star power on either side of the ball, sharing touches liberally on offense and subbing heavily on defense. Incredibly, UGA has not had a first-team All-SEC quarterback, running back or wide receiver on Smart’s watch; over the past 4 years, only 1 player at any those positions has even cracked the second team (Ladd McConkey in 2022; skills aside, Brock Bowers was listed as a tight end, remember). Defensively, no Smart-era defender has recorded more than 4 interceptions or 8.5 sacks in a given season, or 100+ tackles since 2017. They’re just not on the field long enough.

At the same time, though, there’s no denying that Georgia’s success relies on a steady pipeline of dudes: Smart claims 10 consensus All-Americans (8 of them on defense) and 17 first-round picks. One of those All-Americans, junior safety Malaki Starks, is back for what will almost certainly be his final season on campus after recording 3 INTs as a sophomore. Incumbent QB and Heisman hopeful Carson Beck is clearly the face of the program, but Starks is arguably the team’s best player and most bankable first-rounder. He also plays a position where most of his best work occurs off-screen, where he’s typically dissuading opposing quarterbacks from even attempting to challenge him downfield. The next guy who frequently leaps off the screen is TBD.

The key matchup: Clemson OT Tristan Leigh vs. Georgia Edge Mykel Williams

One of leading candidates for a leap year is Williams, whose just-OK production over his first 2 seasons has not reflected his enormous potential. Part of the reason for that is his position — the same hand-in-the-dirt, stack-and-shed role previously manned by No. 1 overall pick Travon Walker — doesn’t lend itself to conventional box scores. (Walker, a borderline extraterrestrial athlete, had notoriously meager college production for a player who was even being considered for that expensive a pick.) But the pass rush was a sore point across the board last year, most obviously in the absence of an every-down edge threat opposite Williams who was capable of routinely putting opposing tackles in a blender.

In Year 3, the Dawgs are hoping Williams can assume that role himself. By all accounts, he’s spent much of his time in both spring and fall camps working at “Jack,” a stand-up outside linebacker role that allows him more freedom to pin back his ears. Against Clemson, the man between Williams and the quarterback will usually be Leigh, a former 5-star who took over as the starting left tackle in 2023 as a redshirt sophomore. At 6-6, 315 pounds, Leigh has the requisite size and then some; the rest remains a work in progress. PFF cited him for 24 QB pressures and 3 sacks allowed in ’23, including a particularly rough outing against Kentucky in the Gator Bowl. Regardless, this is one of those matchups that scouts will pore over with a fine-toothed comb. Whichever guy plays up to his billing will have made himself some money.

Prediction: Georgia 29, Clemson 13

It’s too pat to chalk up Clemson’s decline from the national elite to any single factor, but Dabo Swinney’s singular refusal to adapt to the free-transfer era is a pretty good shorthand for the state of affairs. Over the past 5 years, the only incoming transfers he has accepted were a pair of deep-reserve quarterbacks more focused on getting a head start on their transition into coaching careers than ever taking a live snap. He has deflected questions about his anti-transfer stance in various ways, most recently quipping, “most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us.” True enough.

But some of the guys in the portal are good enough, as the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Texas, et al readily prove on an annual basis. There’s not a single hole on the depth chart that wouldn’t benefit from an upgrade? Five years ago, Swinney could plausibly contend that the answer was no. Today, even a quick glance at the depth chart will tell you that is no longer the case. (That is, if they bothered to publish a depth chart.)

But the fixation on the portal obscures the bigger picture, which is that in terms of raw talent Clemson remains as loaded as ever. Based on the current roster, the Tigers rank No. 5 in 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite and 10th according to the Blue-Chip Ratio. There are nearly as many 5-star recruits on hand (7) as the rest of the ACC combined (10), including an incumbent starting quarterback. You can’t argue that this team just doesn’t have the players to compete anymore.

The coaches, on the other hand, are another story.

The stability of Swinney’s staff during the glory years has yielded to churn, with exactly the results Tigers fans feared when several longtime assistants decided to finally say yes to becoming head coaches themselves. Both sides of the ball were under new coordinators in 2022, and the offense underwent another transition in ’23. The Tigers return both coordinators this year for the first time since 2021, the year the dynasty began to unravel. If there’s even a tiny fraction of a glimmer of hope left for getting those years back, this is the stage to prove it.

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The post Georgia vs. Clemson: A preview and prediction appeared first on Saturday Down South.

Game of the Week: Clemson vs. Georgia (-13.5 via FanDuel in Atlanta)

The stakes

Look, it’s a long year. The longest ever, actually, spanning nearly 5 full months. They’re not handing out Playoff tickets on Labor Day, right? Isn’t Opening Day(-ish) a little soon for Playoff Implications?

Folks, it’s never too soon for Playoff Implications.

Yes, the expanded 12-team CFP format takes some of the sting out of an opening-day loss, which has never been a strictly make-or-break affair for teams with national ambitions as much as it has been a tone-setter for the rest of the season, anyway. This year, that’s more true than ever. Not only can the loser Saturday still make the cut but because first-round byes in the new format are reserved for conference champions, the outcome won’t have any bearing on either team’s pursuit of 1 the top 4 seeds either way. No doors are opening or closing as a result of the first game.

Still, some doors might remain more open than others.

For Clemson, especially, it’s a test of whether an at-large bid remains within the realm of possibility for this team, or if the Tigers’ only viable path is through the ACC title. Florida State’s Week Zero loss to Georgia Tech in Ireland did put Clemson back in the driver’s seat in the conference. But an upset over the nation’s No. 1 team would have enormous implications, not the least of which would be proving that Clemson is still a program capable of winning these types of games — the Tigers haven’t beaten an opponent ranked higher than 10th in the AP poll since 2020, Trevor Lawrence’s last year as the starting quarterback.

Reporters might even be compelled to declare a season-long moratorium on asking Dabo Swinney about his rigid opposition to the transfer portal. (Well, for a few weeks, anyway.) Practically speaking it would also ease the margin for error in the conference standings by preserving an at-large route. With a loss on Saturday, that route almost certainly does not exist.

Georgia doesn’t have much more breathing room. The Dawgs are used to spending entire months of the regular season in cruise control, but that will not be the case this year against what is easily the most booby-trapped schedule of Kirby Smart‘s tenure. Beyond Clemson, UGA is facing road top-10 tests at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss, plus a November date against Tennessee. How many wins against that gauntlet can Georgia afford to take for granted? Blow the opener as a double-digit favorite, and suddenly the answer is none.

The stat: 9.8 yards

That was Clemson QB Cade Klubnik‘s average yards per completion in 2023 — not per attempt, but per completion — good for 102nd nationally and dead last among qualifying passers in the ACC. For context, that’s a full yard below what his predecessor, DJ Uiagalelei, managed over the previous 2 seasons (10.9 ypc) in what was widely acknowledged to be a disappointing turn in one of the sport’s most high-profile positions.

Unless you are unusually attuned to Clemson football, the fact that you probably didn’t hear nearly as much about last year’s low-wattage attack as you did the previous 2 is a sign of just how far the bar has dropped. Is this just what Clemson’s offense is now? The post-pandemic malaise has endured across 3 seasons, 3 offensive coordinators and a pair of 5-star quarterbacks with very different skill sets, with no end in sight.

The Tigers averaged a pedestrian 23.6 points per game in ACC play in 2023, a 13-point drop from 2022 and a 21-point drop from their last Playoff appearance in 2020. The teams that played for the CFP title in 2018 and ’19 both averaged roughly twice that number.

If it seems unfair to compare to the current Tigers to the heyday of the Trevor Lawrence years, well, yeah. Exactly. It’s not all about the QB: Altogether, Clemson has had just 3 offensive players at any position taken in the past 3 drafts, none of them higher than the 4th round. Barring a surprise, that trend will continue in 2025. The drop-off at receiver, especially, is inseparable from the frustration behind center. After a decade-long run of next-level wideouts, Clemson hasn’t an individual player crack the top 15 in the ACC in receiving yards in any of the past 3 seasons. The leading target in 2023, true freshman Tyler Brown, ranked 24th in the conference with 531 yards on 10.2 per catch; the resident veteran of the group, junior Antonio Williams, has averaged just 10.6 yards over the past 2 years.

The verdict is still out on Klubnik, the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class, who could always be due for a leap in his second year as a starter. (He is only a rising junior, after all.) But if there’s anyone in the surrounding cast who makes Georgia’s secondary sweat, let’s just say he’s had one heck of an offseason.

The big question: Does Georgia have a dominant individual presence?

The Dawgs boast an abundance of depth at nearly every position, as always, but no one who singlehandedly moves the needle on his own. Who are the dudes? The gotta-have-it receiver now that Brock Bowers is gone? The unblockable interior force a la Jalen Carter? The one-on-one nightmare? The feared pass rusher? There’s a surplus of candidates, but even the headliners are more “first among equals” in a loaded rotation than true stars.

That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker in their bid to go all the way. Under Kirby Smart, Georgia has never put much emphasis on individual star power on either side of the ball, sharing touches liberally on offense and subbing heavily on defense. Incredibly, UGA has not had a first-team All-SEC quarterback, running back or wide receiver on Smart’s watch; over the past 4 years, only 1 player at any those positions has even cracked the second team (Ladd McConkey in 2022; skills aside, Brock Bowers was listed as a tight end, remember). Defensively, no Smart-era defender has recorded more than 4 interceptions or 8.5 sacks in a given season, or 100+ tackles since 2017. They’re just not on the field long enough.

At the same time, though, there’s no denying that Georgia’s success relies on a steady pipeline of dudes: Smart claims 10 consensus All-Americans (8 of them on defense) and 17 first-round picks. One of those All-Americans, junior safety Malaki Starks, is back for what will almost certainly be his final season on campus after recording 3 INTs as a sophomore. Incumbent QB and Heisman hopeful Carson Beck is clearly the face of the program, but Starks is arguably the team’s best player and most bankable first-rounder. He also plays a position where most of his best work occurs off-screen, where he’s typically dissuading opposing quarterbacks from even attempting to challenge him downfield. The next guy who frequently leaps off the screen is TBD.

The key matchup: Clemson OT Tristan Leigh vs. Georgia Edge Mykel Williams

One of leading candidates for a leap year is Williams, whose just-OK production over his first 2 seasons has not reflected his enormous potential. Part of the reason for that is his position — the same hand-in-the-dirt, stack-and-shed role previously manned by No. 1 overall pick Travon Walker — doesn’t lend itself to conventional box scores. (Walker, a borderline extraterrestrial athlete, had notoriously meager college production for a player who was even being considered for that expensive a pick.) But the pass rush was a sore point across the board last year, most obviously in the absence of an every-down edge threat opposite Williams who was capable of routinely putting opposing tackles in a blender.

In Year 3, the Dawgs are hoping Williams can assume that role himself. By all accounts, he’s spent much of his time in both spring and fall camps working at “Jack,” a stand-up outside linebacker role that allows him more freedom to pin back his ears. Against Clemson, the man between Williams and the quarterback will usually be Leigh, a former 5-star who took over as the starting left tackle in 2023 as a redshirt sophomore. At 6-6, 315 pounds, Leigh has the requisite size and then some; the rest remains a work in progress. PFF cited him for 24 QB pressures and 3 sacks allowed in ’23, including a particularly rough outing against Kentucky in the Gator Bowl. Regardless, this is one of those matchups that scouts will pore over with a fine-toothed comb. Whichever guy plays up to his billing will have made himself some money.

The verdict …

It’s too pat to chalk up Clemson’s decline from the national elite to any single factor, but Dabo Swinney’s singular refusal to adapt to the free-transfer era is a pretty good shorthand for the state of affairs. Over the past 5 years, the only incoming transfers he has accepted were a pair of deep-reserve quarterbacks more focused on getting a head start on their transition into coaching careers than ever taking a live snap. He has deflected questions about his anti-transfer stance in various ways, most recently quipping, “most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for us.” True enough.

But some of the guys in the portal are good enough, as the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Texas, et al readily prove on an annual basis. There’s not a single hole on the depth chart that wouldn’t benefit from an upgrade? Five years ago, Swinney could plausibly contend that the answer was no. Today, even a quick glance at the depth chart will tell you that is no longer the case. (That is, if they bothered to publish a depth chart.)

But the fixation on the portal obscures the bigger picture, which is that in terms of raw talent Clemson remains as loaded as ever. Based on the current roster, the Tigers rank No. 5 in 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite and 10th according to the Blue-Chip Ratio. There are nearly as many 5-star recruits on hand (7) as the rest of the ACC combined (10), including an incumbent starting quarterback. You can’t argue that this team just doesn’t have the players to compete anymore.

The coaches, on the other hand, are another story.

The stability of Swinney’s staff during the glory years has yielded to churn, with exactly the results Tigers fans feared when several longtime assistants decided to finally say yes to becoming head coaches themselves. Both sides of the ball were under new coordinators in 2022, and the offense underwent another transition in ’23. The Tigers return both coordinators this year for the first time since 2021, the year the dynasty began to unravel. If there’s even a tiny fraction of a glimmer of hope left for getting those years back, this is the stage to prove it.
–     –     –
• Georgia 29 | Clemson 13

Notre Dame at Texas A&M (-2.5 via FanDuel)

If Notre Dame pulls the (minor) upset here, it has a more or less straight shot to the CFP against a favorable schedule that will likely favor the Irish in every remaining game. So let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: If Notre Dame is anywhere near the top of the polls in November — again, it could happen — brace yourself for a tortured take cycle over the fact that it’s ineligible for a first-round bye. (Remember, byes under the new CFP format are reserved solely for the 4 highest-ranked conference champs, no exceptions.) From Irish fans: It’s so unfair that we have to play this extra game! And from Irish haters: It’s so unfair that they don’t have to play a conference championship game to get in!

Just keep in mind that, obviously, both sides cancel each other out: Just like every other team in the country, advancing to the second round will require Notre Dame to beat a worthy opponent in the 13th game on its schedule. For the Irish, that game will just fall 2 weeks later, in the first round, than it will for teams that punch their ticket via conference title. A pretty neat little compromise, actually.

Thanks in advance to everyone on the Internet and in the CFB take industry at large for agreeing on this basic and uncontroversial point before it becomes A Thing.
–     –     –
• Notre Dame 24 | Texas A&M 20

LSU (-4.5 via FanDuel) vs. USC (in Las Vegas)

Tigers-Trojans is a compelling matchup in any context, but these particular outfits are so similar they could pull off the old Marx Brothers mirror routine. Start on the sidelines: Both teams are led by a third-year head coach who stunned the country by his decision to leave a “destination job” for his current gig. (Memorably, Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley made their respective moves almost simultaneously in a 24-hour period in November 2021; they even share the same agent.)

On the field, both teams are replacing Heisman-winning quarterbacks who went with the No. 1 and No. 2 overall picks in the NFL Draft, as well as the vast majority of their surrounding casts at the skill positions. Behind those quarterbacks, both teams averaged 40+ points per game in 2023, ranking No. 1 and No. 3 nationally in scoring offense. Their replacements, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier and USC’s Miller Moss, are both 4th-year juniors making their first regular-season starts after biding their time as underclassmen. And, yes, both teams are starting over from scratch on defense under new coordinators after fielding two of the most flammable units in America. The average total in an LSU/USC game vs. Power 5 opponents last year was 75 points.

Heisman-caliber quarterbacks don’t grow on trees, but given just how bad these defenses were in ’23, the attrition on offense is the least of the concerns on Sunday night on either side.

In fact, the most intriguing player on the field won’t be either of the new quarterbacks: It will be LSU linebacker/safety/edge Harold Perkins Jr., now in the money year of what has already been a fairly decorated college career.

While the rest of the defense collapsed around him last year, Perkins held up his end of the bargain, leading the team in solo tackles, tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures and forced fumbles en route to a second-team All-SEC nod from league coaches. He was the Tigers’ best pass rusher, by far, and arguably their best player on the back end, too, posting a team-high 81.1 PFF coverage grade. (His lone interception on the year was a clutch one, initiating LSU’s comeback from a double-digit deficit to beat Missouri.) As advertised, there was nothing they could ask him to do that he couldn’t handle in a pinch.

Harold Perkins with a pass breakup and a sack on the next play. The dude is too good. pic.twitter.com/vE5xb0n4hG

— Ian Valentino (@NFLDraftStudy) September 16, 2023

The problem is that, while his free-range versatility is clearly an asset, Perkins has never really looked at home in any station on a full-time basis. One of the common complaints about how he was deployed in 2023 was that he was spending far too much time in coverage rather than rushing the passer, which, fair enough: Per PFF, Perkins only rushed about a third of the time on passing downs, dropping almost twice as often. That ratio is out of whack for a dude who is arguably the best pure speed rusher in the college game, especially given the total lack of juice from the rest of the edge-rushing rotation.

But the notion of parking him on the edge a la Micah Parsons comes with 2 big drawbacks. One is that, at 6-1, 225 pounds, Perkins is simply too light to hold up against the run opposite vastly larger offensive linemen. (To drive this point home, go back and watch the one game in ’23 in which he did line up almost exclusively as an every-down edge defender, against Ole Miss; the Rebels cranked out 317 rushing yards in one of the worst defensive performances in LSU history.) The other is that, when Perkins is rushing the passer, the Tigers leave themselves more vulnerable on the back end by sacrificing one of the few players — possibly the only player, really — they trust in coverage. Against an offense like USC’s, with its fleet of viable targets, that often feels like a no-win dilemma.

It doesn’t help that LSU neglected to upgrade the pass rush or the secondary via the portal. Instead, it’s relying on essentially the same lineup as last year, give or take a leap from 5-star sophomore Da’Shawn Womack up front. Sending much-maligned coordinator Matt House packing might count as addition by subtraction, but new DC Blake Baker faces the same basic challenge: No matter where he assigns his best player on any given snap, it comes at a cost elsewhere. Perkins can do it all, but not all at once.
–     –     –
LSU 37 | • USC 34

Miami (-2.5 via DraftKings) at Florida

This is a big game for Miami, which is poised to make its move after a couple deflating seasons in Mario Cristobal‘s first 2 years as head coach. The ‘Canes are groping toward relevancy the old-fashioned way, cultivating home-grown dudes like sophomores Francis Mauigoa and Rueben Bain Jr. while signing their second top-10 recruiting class in as many years; they also landed one of the portal’s most coveted wild cards, QB Cameron Ward. With Florida State’s Week Zero loss to Georgia Tech and (let’s be real) Clemson’s pending loss to Georgia, there is a definite opening for The U to assert itself as the early frontrunner in the ACC.

But make no mistake: Florida is desperate to win this game.

The implications of starting 0-1 against the nation’s most unforgiving schedule are grim. After Saturday, the Gators still have 7 more games against opponents ranked in the preseason AP poll, including the nightmare November gauntlet against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State in consecutive weeks.

Billy Napier, coming off back-to-back losing records in 2022-23, needs every win he can scrape together, by any means necessary. If there are 6 wins on this schedule, a visit from a still-sketchy Miami outfit in The Swamp has to be one of them. Otherwise, Napier may as well go ahead and start picking out his plot in the coaching graveyard next to the last three guys who had the job before him.
–     –     –
• Miami 31 | Florida 23

Western Kentucky at Alabama (-31.5 via DraftKings)

We’ll have plenty of time to size up the post-Saban Tide in coming weeks. For now, Kalen DeBoer has 6 quarters to make an impression before they literally name the field after the guy he’s replacing at halftime of next week’s game against South Florida. His job between now and then is strictly to make sure nothing happens on said field that turns anxious locals into an inflamed mob bent on coaxing Nick Saban out of retirement during the ceremony. The Hilltoppers must meet a grisly fate, in the name of maintaining public order.
–     –     –
• Alabama 43 | WKU 10

Colorado State at Texas (-31.5 via FanDuel)

Assuming Texas makes quick work of the Rams, it will be interesting to take stock of the pecking order among the Longhorns’ receivers ahead of next week’s trip to Michigan. All 4 of last year’s starters were drafted (including TE Ja’Tavion Sanders, a de facto wideout). Bama transfer Isaiah Bond and 5-star sophomore Johntay Cook have the makings of natural successors, but the depth chart is crowded and their chemistry with QB Quinn Ewers is a significant variable. UT would love to see a couple guys begin to separate from the pack ASAP.
–     –     –
Texas 44 | • Colorado State 17

Southern Miss at Kentucky (-27.5 via FanDuel)

It’s ancient history now, but the nadir of Mark Stoops‘ tenure at Kentucky arguably came in a season opener against Southern Miss, in 2016: The Golden Eagles stormed back from a 35-10 deficit to spring the upset, winning 44-35 behind future NFL journeyman QB Nick Mullens. At the time, that loss combined with a 45-7 debacle at Florida the following week looked the beginning of the end for Stoops, who’d yet to deliver a winning record in any of his first 3 seasons. Instead, the Wildcats rallied to finish the 2016 campaign 7-6, made the first of 8 straight (and counting) bowl appearances, and set Stoops on course to be the winningest and best-paid-by-far coach in school history.

Meanwhile, in the same span Southern Miss is 0-11 vs. Power 5 opponents, the past 7 of those losses coming by 20+ points. On Saturday, it will be USM’s Will Hall coaching for his job coming off a 3-9 flop in 2023, his third year as head coach. The Eagles lost their resident dude, diminutive RB Frank Gore Jr., who accounted for nearly 40% of the team’s total offense over those 3 seasons. The new quarterback, Florida State transfer Tate Rodemaker, should turn out to be an upgrade at a position that has sorely lacked stability, but the second coming of Nick Mullens he is not.
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Kentucky 38 | • Southern Miss 13

Virginia Tech (-13.5 via DraftKings) at Vanderbilt

Virginia Tech’s rebuild under third-year coach Brent Pry is right on schedule: The Hokies finished 5-2 over the back half of 2023, matching their win total over Pry’s first 17 games in the last seven. Vanderbilt’s rebuild under fourth-year coach Clark Lea is, uh, not. The Commodores finished winless in SEC play in 2023 for the third time in the last four years, getting outscored by 20 points per game in the process. There is some distant hope that a new offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, and a new quarterback, Diego Pavia, can repeat their unlikely success at New Mexico State at the NMSU of the SEC. But in Vandy’s case, it’s hard to imagine what that would even look like at this point beyond slightly narrower margins of defeat.
– –  –
• Virginia Tech 33 | Vanderbilt 17

Old Dominion at South Carolina (-20.5 via FanDuel)

This marks South Carolina fans’ first good look at their new quarterback, redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers, who is certifiably huge (6-3/242), rocks a pair of rec specs under his helmet, and has looked the part so far in brief glimpses in garbage time and/or practice. Old Dominion is plainly outgunned by any SEC opponent that isn’t Vandy, but the Monarchs aren’t exactly target practice. All-America linebacker Jason Henderson is a proven disruptor and sounds like he’s full-speed ahead to play on a surgically reconstructed knee that ended his season late in 2023.
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• South Carolina 36 | Old Dominion 14

Temple at Oklahoma (-42 via DraftKings)

Ball security is a concern for the Sooners’ new quarterback, sophomore Jackson Arnold, who served up three interceptions last December in his first career start in the Alamo Bowl. In that sense — and most others — Temple is one of the best tune-up opponents he could face. The Owls had just three interceptions in 2023 across the entire season, tied with Florida for fewest in the country. Meanwhile, they somehow managed to recover only two fumbles, which was also the fewest in the country. The resulting minus-20 turnover margin for the year was, you guessed it, the worst in the country. If the ball is at risk against this group at any point with the starters in the game, it might be time to worry.
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• Oklahoma 51 | Temple 7

Furman at Olę Miss (-42.5 via FanDuel)

Oh my, they’re putting point spreads on the FCS body bag games now. Of course these typically come down to just how willing the host is (or is not) to run up the score. If you enjoy the rush of sweating out whether Ole Miss’ walk-on string will stiffen up to prevent a garbage-time, spread-covering touchdown drive that spans the final eight minutes of the fourth quarter, by all means…
–     –     –
Ole Miss 52 | • Furman 13

Chattanooga at Tennessee (-38.5 via FanDuel)

If you’re wondering, Tennessee and Chattanooga have played 41 times — it was an annual date in the 1950s and ’60s — with the Mocs winning twice: First in 1905, and most recently in 1958. The 1958 Vols were an enigma, going 3-2 vs. ranked opponents and 1-4 vs. everybody else. (The lone win in the “everybody else” column coming against Alabama, naturally.) Has any other team ever beaten Alabama and lost to Chattanooga in the same season? A fun question for someone (not me) to look into.
–     –     –
• Tennessee 48 | Chattanooga 7

Murray State at Missouri (-48.5 via FanDuel)

This game kicks off the season on the SEC Network on Thursday night. Give us one viral highlight of Luther Burden III doing something cool at the expense of future gym teachers and then let him go sign autographs.
–     –     –
Missouri 49 | • Murray State 6

Alabama A&M at Auburn (-46.5 via FanDuel)

Give us 2 viral highlights of Auburn freshman WR Cam Coleman doing something cool, then let him go post on Instagram.
–     –     –
• Auburn 54 | Alabama A&M 3

Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Arkansas (-50.5 via FanDuel)

Arkansas-Pine Bluff was one of the worst outfits in all of Division I last year, finishing 2-9 with both of its wins coming by a single point and 7 of its 9 losses coming by at least 24 points. Kenneth Massey rated the Golden Lions 124th out of 128 teams in the FCS. Can they hang within 50 of the Razorbacks? We’re all rooting for them.
–     –     –
• Arkansas 56 | Arkansas Pine-Bluff 0

Eastern Kentucky at Mississippi State (-24.5 FanDuel)

The oddsmakers don’t think much of the rebuilding Bulldogs, making them mere 24.5-point favorites over an EKU team that finished 5-6 last year in the United Athletic Conference. I don’t think much of the Bulldogs once they get into SEC play, either, but they’ll be out for blood in their first game under Jeff Lebby — one of the very few on the schedule in which they’re actually likely to draw it.
–     –     –

The post Week 1 SEC Primer: Georgia and Clemson come in hot atop a loaded opening-weekend slate appeared first on Saturday Down South.

1. Quinn Ewers, Texas

A blue-chip Texas quarterback who actually lives up to the hype? College football really has changed. After a lost decade in Austin, Ewers arrived with messianic expectations and is on right on schedule to meet them.

That certainly wasn’t the case a year ago, coming off a sobering, injury-riddled debut in 2022 that left Ewers’ status in doubt on the same depth chart as the equally exalted Arch Manning. Up to the challenge, he came back in ’23 looking leaner and more mature, shorn of his trademark mullet, and significantly more in sync with Steve Sarkisian’s offense.

Ewers wasted no time reminding the rest of the country why he was touted as highly as he was in a 349-yard, 3-touchdown ambush of Alabama in Week 2, the catalyst for a vastly improved sophomore campaign across the board. He finished with best single-season passer rating (158.6) and QBR (78.7) for a Texas quarterback since Colt McCoy’s Heisman runner-up campaign in 2008; the Longhorns finished in their first Playoff game. Manning’s name barely came up.

On the scouting side, the jury is still out.

Ewers is not generally considered a no-brainer prospect on the order of Trevor Lawrence or Caleb Williams at the same stage of their careers, or even the top quarterback in a consensus-defying 2025 class. There are lingering questions about his consistency and accuracy, which still has a tendency to come and go. But there is no doubt about his raw tools, or, given the leap from Year 1 to Year 2, his capacity for growth. Another step forward in Year 3 will put him within range of the Heisman, a deep Playoff run, and the top of the draft. If the final product is as good as advertised, it will be well worth the wait.
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(Last week: n/a)

2. Carson Beck, Georgia

Were there ever any doubts about Beck as a worthy successor to Stetson Bennett IV? If there were, they dried up in a hurry. After 3 uneventful seasons as a backup, Beck slid seamlessly into the spotlight in 2023, enjoying all the benefits of being QB1 at Georgia — reliable protection, an arsenal of mostly interchangeable playmakers, a defense that afforded him plenty of margin for error — while putting up a virtually identical stat line to Bennett’s in 2022. UGA finished un the top 5 nationally in total and scoring offense, and the 6-4, 220-pound Beck emerged as the kind of NFL-ready pocket presence that the diminutive Bennett was constantly being compared against.

#Georgia QB Carson Beck (6-4, 220)

On-balance, in-rhythm thrower. Shows anticipation. Decisive and trusts his eyes. pic.twitter.com/I7wU2mSM2h

— Jordan Reid (@Jordan_Reid) May 24, 2024

Bennett, of course, boasts a pair of ace cards that Beck does not: Back-to-back national championship rings. Georgia’s 27-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC title game abruptly ended a 29-game winning streak, a 24-week run at the top of the AP poll, and the bid for a three-peat. It also guaranteed Beck would be back for his final year of eligibility under the banner of “unfinished business.” Georgia remains the safest bet to win it all in the first year of the expanded Playoff, which by default makes Beck the safest bet to win the Heisman. Anything less than a December trip to New York for the award ceremony ahead of a January trip to Atlanta for the CFP title game will go down as another sorely missed opportunity.
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(Last week: n/a)

3. Jalen Milroe, Alabama

In retrospect, the panic over Milroe’s shaky start last September looks faintly ridiculous. At the time, though, it was very real — real enough that Nick Saban briefly decided to his explore his options while Milroe chilled on the bench, and that even after he was restored to QB1 it took roughly half the season for Bama fans to stop holding their breath every time the ball left his hand.

But then, week by week, the wins kept adding up: 11 in a row, all the way through a galvanizing win over LSU, a miracle finish at Auburn, and an SEC Championship upset over Georgia that recast a season on the brink as a triumph over adversity. In the process, Milroe’s arc from scapegoat to MVP of the season’s biggest win confirmed him as a rising star.

A mediocre turn in the Tide’s semifinal loss to Michigan took some of the wind out of his sails entering the offseason. Still, Milroe’s ceiling remains as high as any returning starter in the country, beginning with his singular combination of home-run speed and home-run arm strength at 6-2, 220 pounds.

As a playmaker, he has nothing left to prove. Assuming his early struggles with pocket presence and ball security are behind him, the next step to becoming a complete package is making the routine throws look more … well, routine.
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(Last week: n/a)

4. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss

After a deflating finish in 2022, Lane Kiffin put Dart on notice by bringing in a pair of high-profile transfers to compete for his job in ’23. Dart rose to the occasion: He fended off the competition in the offseason, started every game, improved his production across the board and cut his interceptions in half. Ole Miss set a school record for wins (11) and logged its best finish in the AP poll (9th) since 1969.

Dart’s return and a loaded transfer class have the Rebels thinking Playoff in 2024, but taking the next step will not be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. Their only losses last year were both double-digit defeats against the two best teams on the schedule, Alabama and Georgia — the latter coming in a sobering November blowout — making the gap between Ole Miss and the SEC’s real national contenders all too clear. Not coincidentally, they were also two of Dart’s least efficient games as a passer and lowest-graded outings per PFF. The Rebels avoid Bama this time around, but still face Georgia and LSU while adding Oklahoma, all in a 5-week span in October and November. As it stands, Dart can already take his status as one of the top QBs in school history to the bank. Whether he goes out on top depends largely on those three Saturdays.
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(Last week: n/a)

5. Brady Cook, Missouri

They might be reluctant to admit it now, but Mizzou fans had their doubts about Cook, for perfectly justifiable reasons. I certainly did. (I’m on the record: In last year’s power rankings Cook opened the season ranked 13th out of 14.) At this time last year, he was still in the midst of his second consecutive offseason as the local lightning rod. Eli Drinkwitz publicly tried and failed to land a transfer to bump Cook from the top of the depth chart in 2022, before he had started his first regular-season game. After a mediocre debut that fall, speculation resumed that Cook’s days as QB1 were numbered, whether his replacement came via the portal or from one of the more traditionally touted underclassman already on campus.

Instead, Cook held onto the job and quickly emerged as one of the most improved quarterbacks in the country, starting hot and remaining steady throughout. He accounted for multiple touchdowns in 11 games; a 140+ passer rating in 10 games; and a 70+ QBR score in nine games. Compared to 2022, his overall yards per attempt rose by nealy 2 full yards, from 7.2 to 9.0. He led game-winning drives to beat Kansas State early and Florida late; posted his only subpar stat line in a competitive road loss at Georgia; and capped an 11-2 season by leading a Cotton Bowl win over Ohio State. After 8 consecutive years of thorough mediocrity, Missouri finished No. 8 in the AP poll, and No. 3 in the SEC behind Alabama and Georgia.

None of which implies Cook is suddenly more likely to be mistaken for a next-level specimen in Year 5, even with Luther Burden III — who most certainly is — on the receiving end. But he is well on his way to going out as a Mizzou legend, which is quite the journey.
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(Last week: n/a)

6. Conner Weigman, Texas A&M

Coming off a promising finish in 2022, Weigman opened his sophomore campaign as one of the league’s most intriguing wild cards. Coming off a season-ending injury that cost him most of 2023, he still is. Technically, he remains in the green zone in Year 3 with just 253 attempts across 9 career games. Still, Weigman shown enough in that limited span to keep his blue-chip rep intact.

Prior to his injury last year he was off to a fine start, putting up big numbers in terms of Total QBR (87.5) and overall PFF grade (91.9). Considering A&M’s opening-day starter has failed to make it out of September in any of the past 3 seasons, the prospect of a healthy, productive campaign behind center almost feels like a revelation.
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(Last week: n/a)

7. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU

The blue-chip vet willing to wait his turn at the same school he signed with out of high school is an endangered species, but they’re not dead yet. Last year, long-serving backups Carson Beck and Jalen Milroe were the top quarterbacks in the conference as first-year starters. This year, the mantle falls to Nussmeier, one of the few remnants in Baton Rouge of the Ed Orgeron administration. A 4th-year junior, he’s ceded the stage the past 2 years to Heisman winner Jayden Daniels, who left last winter as the sport’s least enviable act to follow.

No one in their right mind expects Nussmeier to match the absurd statistical bar Daniels set in 2023, especially with chief play-caller Mike Denbrock and a pair of first-round wideouts also leaving town. The question is just how close LSU needs him to come opposite a defense that frequently offset the offense’s best efforts. The Tigers gave up 30+ points in 8 of their 10 games against Power 5 opponents, and 40+ points in all 3 losses. Other than exiled coordinator Matt House, the personnel on defense is essentially the same. If the offense is destined to regress to the mean, they desperately need the need the defense to do the same.
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(Last week: n/a)

8. Nico Iamaleava, Tennessee

The top of this list is too crowded with proven commodities to overrate a guy with 1 career start. But if I had to bet on any player here ending the season ranked significantly higher than he’s starting out, Iamaleava would be a fairly easy choice.

The highest-rated QB recruit at Tennessee since you-know-who, his gap year behind the underachieving Joe Milton III in 2023 only fed the hype as it became clear the present was no match for the anticipation. The soft launch of the Iamaleava era in the Citrus Bowl was a hit, resulting in a 35-0 rout over Iowa and a packed bandwagon entering the offseason.

If you’re looking for excuses to short his stock, start with the fact that the highlight reel of Iamaleava’s 4-touchdown effort against the Hawkeyes was more impressive than his stat line; altogether, he accounted for just 178 total yards, took 6 sacks, and benefited from a pair of rapid-fire takeaways in the second half that led directly to 2 of the Vols’ 5 touchdowns.

Per PFF, he didn’t complete a pass under pressure, only getting off 2 on a dozen pressured drop-backs. Obviously, he remains a project — a multimillion-dollar, golden-armed project with an elite combination of size and speed, but still. It’s a tough league; we’re trying to show some restraint here. Even if it winds up looking quaint.
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(Last week: n/a)

9. Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma

Arnold, like Iamaleava, was a 5-star prospect in the 2023 class. Also like Iamaleava, he spent his first year on campus chilling behind an upperclassman before earning his first career start in a third-tier bowl game. That’s where their tracks begin to diverge.

Unlike Iamaleava, Arnold is stepping into a role that takes elite production for granted: Since the turn of the century, starting quarterback at Oklahoma is the most consistently decorated position in the sport. No one is walking in the door as a would-be messiah. And (more important for our purposes) Arnold’s debut was a mixed bag: While he threw for 361 yards and 2 touchdowns, he was also picked 3 times in a 38-24 loss Arizona in the Alamo Bowl.

Fine, for a true freshman just getting his feet wet in a game sponsored by a gas station. For an entrenched starter assigned with Oklahoma in the Playoff hunt against one of the SEC’s steepest schedules, the giveaways are a concern. The Sooners didn’t let the most experienced returning quarterback in the country, Dillon Gabriel, exit via the portal just to bring along his understudy slowly. In Year 2, it’s Arnold’s show, ready or not.
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(Last week: n/a)

10. Brock Vandagriff, Kentucky

A 5-star prospect who could have hit Georgia’s campus with a Hail Mary from his high school stadium, Vandagriff was born to be a Dawg. Destiny, however, didn’t reckon on three years in the freezer behind Stetson Bennett IV and Carson Beck. With Beck’s decision to return to school, Vandagriff couldn’t afford a fourth. The opportunity to finally be an SEC starter beckoned at Kentucky, and he took it.

If his stock is not as high as it was 4 years ago, it’s easy to chalk that up to simply bad timing. The past 2 starters in Lexington, Will Levis and Devin Leary, also transferred in as upperclassmen, and both left as draft picks despite mediocre production.

The bar for Vandagriff is set a little bit higher: After all, if Beck had opted to go pro, his former understudy would almost certainly be near the top of the preseason Heisman odds right now as the face of the No. 1 team in the country.

His surrounding cast at Kentucky can’t match Georgia’s depth, but the Wildcats’ front-line receivers (Barion Brown, Dane Key and North Texas transfer Ja’Mori Maclin) certainly rival any of the potential combinations Vandagriff would be throwing to in Athens. If the o-line holds up it’s end of the bargain, there’s no reason he should be graded on a curve.
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(Last week: n/a)

11. Graham Mertz, Florida

A beneficiary of the free COVID year, Mertz has played a ton of football at the Power 5 level, and has the veteran’s knack for avoiding the bad play. In his first year as a Gator, he posted both the highest completion percentage and lowest interception percentage of any full-time SEC starter, finishing with 20 touchdowns to just 3 picks before his season was cut short by a fractured collarbone in the next-to-last game.

The flipside, though, was an utter lack of downfield juice.

Per PFF, Mertz averaged just 6.7 air yards per attempt, lowest in the Power 5, with slightly more than 30% of his attempts landing behind the line of scrimmage. Factor in the exit of the resident deep threat, first-rounder Ricky Pearsall, and those numbers look even more alarming.

There’s a lot to be said for the benefits of being risk-averse, especially opposite a reliable defense. Unfortunately for Mertz, he was opposite a defense that was routinely lit up in conference play, allowing at least 33 points in all 5 of Florida’s SEC losses. (The scoreboard was only the tip of the iceberg — the further you drill down into Florida’s defensive stats in 2023, the worse they look.)

The Gators are also facing an absolutely brutal schedule, one that opens with No. 19 Miami, closes with Florida State, and features 6 teams in the conference slate also ranked in the preseason AP poll. The idea of Mertz dinking and dunking his way through that gauntlet in a make-or-break year for coach Billy Napier does not inspire confidence, to put it mildly. Expect 5-star freshman DJ Lagway‘s presence to loom large, whether he actually winds up taking any meaningful snaps or not.
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(Last week: n/a)

12. Taylen Green, Arkansas

The KJ Jefferson era Fayetteville is over after 3 years, 39 starts, and an underwhelming send-off in 2023. Enter Green, a 4th-year junior via Boise State whose profile looks awfully familiar. Like Jefferson, Green is certifiably huge, listed at 6-6, 230 pounds, and alarmingly mobile for his size, running for 1,070 yards (excluding sacks) and 19 touchdowns over the past 2 years.

Also like Jefferson, the initial excitement over his potential at Boise gradually yielded to frustration as he struggled to put it all together as a passer. Although he remained the nominal starter, Green was essentially demoted last year to co-pilot alongside the significantly less imposing Maddux Madsen, who served as the designated passer until he suffered a season-ending knee injury in November.

Ironically, Green’s last game as a Bronco, 44-20 win over UNLV in last December’s Mountain West Championship Game, was arguably his best: He set career highs for efficiency (237.2) and QBR (97.8), as well as season-highs for total yards (316) and touchdowns (4) on just 23 plays.

Taylen Green with an unbelievable run to give Boise State a 28-14 lead

pic.twitter.com/D14QHMCUFJ

— WestCoastCFB (@WestCoastCFB) December 2, 2023

The upside is plain enough. When he looks good, he looks unstoppable. If the Razorbacks’ new offensive coordinator — I still can’t believe I’m typing this — Bobby Petrino can unlock his full skill set, Green has a chance to be a game-changing presence. But Arkansas fans don’t need to be reminded how wide the gulf between if and reality can be.
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(Last week: n/a)

13. Payton Thorne, Auburn

How hard did Auburn try to replace Thorne via the portal this offseason? Not hard to enough to actually do it. The Tigers did briefly appear to be in the running in January to land reigning Conference-USA MVP Kaidon Salter, who played for Hugh Freeze at Liberty in 2021-22, before Salter opted to withdraw his name from the portal. But that was already relatively late in the winter portal window to come by a potential starter; by the time the spring window opened up April, the pickings were even slimmer.

So, Thorne it is.

It could be worse. Although Thorne ranked near the bottom of the SEC statistically, he was steady enough to preside over a 6-win regular season with legitimately competitive losses against Georgia, Ole Miss, and, of course, Alabama. He was more effective in the zone-read game than anyone anticipated, especially in the nail-biters against UGA and Bama. And Auburn did work to improve a dire outlook at wide receiver, importing an entirely new two-deep headlined by 5-star freshman Cam Coleman, who stole the show in the spring.

At the end of the day, though, barring an unlikely leap as a passer in Thorne’s 6th and final college season that’s all lipstick on a pig. If the situation reaches the “looking to the future” stage, freshmen Hank Brown and Walker “Don’t Call Me Walter” White are waiting for their audition.
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(Last week: n/a)

14. Blake Shapen, Mississippi State

Shapen comes to Starkville from Baylor, where he started 23 games over 3 years to little fanfare. He regressed from 2022 to ’23, when he missed 4 games due to knee and hand injuries and ranked last among Big 12 starters in Total QBR. The Bears finished 3-9 while averaging a league-low 23.1 points; Shapen’s name appeared in the portal immediately following the finale as part of a general house-cleaning.

He’s resetting in Year 5 along with the rest of the Mississippi State offense, which barely resembles the unit that finished last in the SEC in scoring offense last year in the wake of Mike Leach’s sudden death in December 2022.

The Bulldogs were unmoored, enduring key injuries — most notably to long-tenured QB Will Rogers, who missed a month — and never looking like a team with a coherent identity.

Enter Jeff Lebby, a respected play-caller from the Baylor family tree (literally: Art Briles is his father-in-law) with previous stops as offensive coordinator at UCF under Josh Heupel, Ole Miss under Lane Kiffin, and most recently Oklahoma under Brent Venables. In addition to landing Shapen, Lebby also upgraded a juiceless receiving corps with transfers Kelly Akharaiyi, a first-team All-Conference-USA pick in 2023 at UTEP, and Kevin Coleman, a former top-100 recruit who spent his first 2 college seasons at Jackson State and Louisville. The new system is not the Air Raid, exactly, but it is a system, which is a step in the right direction.
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(Last week: n/a)

15. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt

Up to this point, it’s been a pretty blue-chip list, full of specimens who have been honed and camped and touted since before they stared shaving. Then there’s Pavia, who arrives in the SEC from about as far off the beaten path as they come in this league.

A 5-foot-[inaudible] high school wrestling champ from Albuquerque, NM, Pavia was ignored by recruiters, ultimately landing in the JUCO ranks at the New Mexico Military Institute. (That’s in Roswell, spiritual home of little green men.) There, he won the starting job as a freshman and led NMMI to an improbable national championship as a sophomore. Still, Pavia couldn’t get a sniff from outside the Land of Enchantment, going unranked by most of the recruiting sites and landing in the forsaken outpost that is New Mexico State.

He just kept winning. In 2 years at NMSU, Pavia posted an eye-opening 14-9 record as a starter, overseeing just the second 10-win season in school history in 2023. (The previous one having come in 1960.)

His big break came last November in a 31-10 beatdown at Auburn that put the Aggies and their feisty, sawed-off QB on the national radar. When Vanderbilt hired his offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, to revive its flat-lining attack, Pavia hitched a ride, arriving in Nashville in the spring as the presumptive starter — and, not for nothing, with 1 more SEC win under his belt than either guy he’s replacing managed in their entire Vandy careers. The long-suffering tandem of Ken Seals and AJ Swann portaled out last December with a combined 0-25 record in conference play.

Whatever else there was to say about them, Seals and Swann could both pass for SEC starters when they walked out for the coin toss, which Pavia — already voted a team captain — does not. (Vandy lists him at 6-feet even, which is about as believable as a guy who lists himself as 6-feet on Tinder.) Any conference win the Commodores might pull off in his final year of eligibility will still go down as a significant upset, and he has viable competition from Utah transfer Nate Johnson if/when the season goes sideways. Clark Lea does not have the luxury of sitting tight through another winless slog in league play. But at the bare minimum Pavia is unlikely to inspire coach Clark Lea at any point to utter the words “he gave us a chance to punt,” and for that alone he is an upgrade.
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(Last week: n/a)

16. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina

No offense to Sellers, who I do not actually expect to finish the season … well, in the cellar. He just hasn’t played. What brief glimpses the locals have seen of him so far, they like.

For one thing, Sellers is huge, cutting a KJ Jefferson-esque figure at 6-3, 242 pounds. In limited action last year, he accounted for 3 garbage-time touchdowns on just 17 snaps while biding his time behind Spencer Rattler.

He fended off a token challenge in the spring from Auburn transfer Robby Ashford, and looked the part in the spring game, as spring games go. Fans are going to quickly rally around the trademark specs he wears under his helmet. He has a chance to move the needle. We’ll revisit his standing here after he’s attempted his first pass against a live opponent that isn’t Furman.
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(Last week: n/a)

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The post 2024 SEC QB Power Rankings, Week 1: Quinn Ewers arrives right on schedule appeared first on Saturday Down South.

When we talk about distinct eras, it’s usually in the past tense. One day you stop, take a look around, and realize everything that was once familiar has changed so slowly you barely noticed. Not so for SEC football, or for college football in general. Instead, the 2024 season arrives less like the uncanny result of a series of vague, subtle shifts over time than the hazy aftermath of a meteor strike. Quakes, fissures and extinctions have convulsed the sport, culminating in a dramatically altered landscape that has rapidly taken shape before our eyes. It feels palpably different: The beginning of a new era that everyone has seen coming, with varying levels of dread, from a hundred miles away.

Consider how much has changed since 2023. Divisions: Gone. For the first time since 1991 the wall that separated the East from the West no longer exists. Longstanding scheduling formats have been scrapped, and the SEC Championship Game will simply match the two teams with the best conference records, period. Nick Saban: Gone. The GOAT hung it up in January, leaving the most entrenched dynasty in college football history in limbo. The SEC On CBS: Gone. The conference’s new media deal grants exclusive rights to ABC/ESPN, ending nearly three decades of its biggest games unfolding against the backdrop of late-autumn Saturday afternoons turning into Saturday evenings on CBS. The original, 4-team version of the College Football Playoff: Gone. On the heels of its first true controversy, the decade-old CFP has expanded to an even dozen, with 5 guaranteed slots reserved for conference champs and an undefined approach to filling out the rest that’s guaranteed to cultivate a new generation of angst.

Meanwhile, the existing pack has finally, officially added two new apex predators, Oklahoma and Texas, raising the culture of dog-eat-dog competition to an even more unforgiving level of intensity. Look at these schedules. In a league where at least 9 or 10 teams figure to harbor legitimate Playoff ambitions in any given year, even the definition of what qualifies as a “good” season is suddenly up for debate.

How many of the 7 at-large CFP slots will typically go to SEC also-rans? Three? Four? How many wins will it typically take to secure one? Ten? Eleven? Somebody with elite tastes has gotta finish in 9th or 10th place; is a coach who puts a nationally competitive product on the field and still winds up in the Liberty Bowl due to a brutal schedule automatically on the hot seat? (Get ready for that question to come up early and often.) And just how committed is the Playoff committee to weighing strength of schedule across conferences, anyway? What kind of consideration will they give the loser of the conference championship game for having endured an additional test that other 1- or 2-loss teams didn’t? We’re all going to find out together, the committee included.

Whether all of that strikes you as exciting or disorienting, or both, is up to you. New expectations and new rhythms on the calendar are going to take some getting used to. (And, of course, by the time we all do the suits will be ready to shake it all up again.) But there is no going back. At the end of the day — or the end of an era, as it were — it’s still college football, being played at a higher level than ever before. Saturdays are not going anywhere: They’re just getting more packed.

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The Teams: Projected Order of Finish

Before we get started, let’s make clear up front that these projections take schedules into account in an effort to forecast the order at the end of the regular season. They are not pure power rankings. In a league with 16 teams and varying strengths of schedule, the distinction matters, as we’ll see.

1. Georgia

Predictable? Yes. Boring? Fine. Inevitable? No. In an era defined by rapid upheaval, the one eternal sure-fire bet in college football is that there is no such thing as “inevitable,” a point reinforced again last December when Georgia’s bid for a three-peat came to an abrupt end in the SEC Championship Game. That glitch deleted a 29-game winning streak, a 24-week run at the top of the AP poll, and a long-running aura of invincibility. The Dawgs looked like shoo-ins, right up until they didn’t.

In retrospect, it’s tempting to make the case that they spent too long in cruise control against a middling regular-season schedule that never presented them with a real, Playoff-caliber test. In that context, at least, it’s slightly less surprising that they failed the first one they faced. But that definitely will not be the case in 2024: There’s the main-event opener against Clemson (in Atlanta), followed by big-ticket road trips in September (at Alabama), October (at Texas) and November (at Ole Miss). As usual, you don’t need to know anything about who the Dawgs have got coming back to know who they are: Stacked at every position, unfazed by attrition, well-acquainted with high stakes, rarely in danger of getting caught with their pants down against random underdogs, better than the sum of their parts. They’re the default pick in this spot for a reason. But this time they’re actually going to have to put some skins on the wall to keep it.

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Bulldogs at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 13-1 (8-1 SEC; Won Orange Bowl; 4th in final AP poll)
Best Player: QB Carson Beck
Best Pro Prospect: Edge Mykel Williams
Best Addition: RB Trevor Etienne (Florida)
Best Names: DL Nazir Stackhouse … WR NiTareon “Nitro” Tuggle
Most Grizzled: OL Xavier Truss (6th year; 28 career starts at OG/OT)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore DB Joenel Aguero

Biggest strength: Tenured QB, seasoned o-line, standard-issue Kirby Smart defense, abundance of dudes at every position, high-stakes experience … I don’t think I need to go on.

Nagging concern: Blah pass rush. Coaches experimented in the spring with moving Mykel Williams from a hand-in-the-dirt d-line role to outside linebacker in an effort to generate more juice, but ideally they’d love to see an underclassman rise to the occasion.

Looming question: Who’s the dominant individual presence? The gotta-have-it receiver now that Brock Bowers is gone? The 1-on-1 nightmare? The feared pass rusher? No shortage of candidates, but even the headliners are more “first among equals” in a loaded rotation than true stars.

The schedule: Easily the most booby-trapped slate of Smart’s tenure, and that’s before you even consider the possibility of an upset bid from Auburn, Florida, or Tennessee.

The upshot: The expanded Playoff lowers the bar for entry but raises the bar for winning it all once you’re in. Georgia benefits both ways: Stepping on a land mine or two in the regular season isn’t a deal-breaker, and if there’s any team in the country built to win 4 straight against top competition when it counts, it’s the Dawgs.

2. Texas

The Longhorns are officially back coming off their first Playoff appearance and best overall season since Colt McCoy’s shoulder exploded in the Rose Bowl. Next: Ending a 19-year title drought. The vibes are good, the talent is better, and crown-jewel quarterback Quinn Ewers is on schedule to fulfill messianic expectations in his third year as the starter. It’s not exactly now or never, considering crown-jewel-in-waiting Arch Manning is still on deck to extend the championship window into 2025, at least. But you know, now would be nice, before the vibe shifts into defining Steve Sarkisian’s tenure by the one big looming box he hasn’t checked rather than the ones he has.

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Longhorns at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 12-2 (9-1 Big 12; Lost Sugar Bowl; 3rd AP)
Best Player: QB Quinn Ewers
Best Pro Prospect: OT Kelvin Banks Jr.
Best Addition: WR Isaiah Bond (Alabama)
Best Name: Edge Justice Finkley
Most Grizzled: OL Jake Majors (5th year; 41 career starts at center)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore CB Malik Muhammad

Biggest strength: Ewers made a big leap from Year 1 as a starter to Year 2 and there’s no reason to believe his ceiling is within sight.

Nagging concern: Edge rushers were nonentities in ’23. Instead, the pass rush came primarily from the interior, via departed All-Americans Byron Murphy II and T’Vondre Sweat. Both starting bookends are back, but hopes are higher for UTSA transfer Trey Moore and 5-star freshman Colin Simmons.

Looming question: Is there a big dog at the skill positions? Last year’s top 4 receivers all left for the draft (most notably first-rounder Xavier Worthy and his record-breaking speed), as did leading rusher Jonathon Brooks, the first RB taken in the draft. Their heir apparent in the backfield, 5-star sophomore CJ Baxter, is likely out for the season due to a knee injury. Someone from a touted but mostly unproven group of transfers and underclassmen needs to emerge.

The schedule: Love the trip to Michigan in Week 2, a chance to bank a high-profile road W against a rebuilding outfit battling a championship hangover. Back-to-back October dates against Oklahoma and Georgia, on the other hand, woof. Texas will be a clear favorite in every other game, although the long-awaited renewal of the blood feud with Texas A&M isn’t being taken for granted by anyone, trust me.

The upshot: The baseline talent level, the trajectory under Sarkisian, and the presence of a maxed-out Ewers all point to a deep Playoff run. There will be more chances to win it all in the future, but probably none better.

3. Alabama

No. 3? We out here disrespecting the Tide? Like what, like they’re some token dark horse? Or, considering how much has fundamentally changed since the last time this outfit took the field, maybe the assumption that it’s still an obvious Playoff contender by default feels more like an exercise in ranking the logo? Either way … feels weird, right? Bama watchers speculated for years about life on the other side of the post-Saban divide, but now that the time has come, it really could go either way.

The roster is not exactly a blank slate. There’s still gifted QB Jalen Milroe, a legitimate Heisman candidate on his good days, and a depth chart loaded with the typical backlog of blue-chip recruits. But the mystique or inertia or je ne sais quoi that defined the dynasty for the better part of the past two decades was at low ebb even before Saban called it a career. From 2009-17 Alabama won 5 national titles in 9 years; since 2018, it’s claimed just 1 in 6 years, in a bizarro season conducted amid the chaos of a pandemic. There was certainly none of the old sense of inevitability during last year’s Playoff run, which felt more like a miracle than a birthright and ended with a thud in the semis.

Attrition hit the lineup hard (10 draft picks, 5 of them in the first two rounds, plus key portal departures on both sides of the ball), leaving more up-and-coming talent in its wake than recognizable stars. And the heir to the throne, 49-year-old Kalen DeBoer, has no experience in the SEC, the South, or any nationally relevant program anywhere else prior to the past 2 seasons at Washington.

Wildly successful seasons, yes; still, even for an obviously competent coach the cutthroat recruiting culture of the SEC is a whole different ball of wax. This campaign is the first one in ages that isn’t necessarily a championship-or-bust proposition. Unless DeBoer rekindles some sense of forward momentum ASAP, it’s not going to be the last.

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Crimson Tide at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 12-2 (9-0 SEC; Lost Rose Bowl; 5th AP)
Best Player: QB Jalen Milroe
Best Pro Prospect: OL Tyler Booker
Best Addition: OL Parker Brailsford (Washington)
Best Names: DB King Mack … OL Wilkin Formby
Most Grizzled: DB Malachi Moore (5th year; 33 career starts)
Emerging Dude: Junior Edge Quandarrius Robinson

Biggest strength: Enormous, experienced o-line featuring three returning starters and a veteran transfer (Brailsford) who will all play at the next level.

Nagging concern: Complete turnover at the skill positions. The top 5 players in rushing/receiving yards in 2023 all left; their replacements are all potential with little proven production.

Looming question: How high does Milroe’s ceiling go? His rapid improvement in ’23 had a lot of people (ahem) ready to anoint him a Heisman frontrunner in ’24; an underwhelming outing in the CFP semifinal loss to Michigan took some wind out of those sails, but there’s still no denying his raw talent. Unlike last year, there’s also no pretense that he can count on the defense to reliably bail him out when he’s gone cold. This time around it is undeniably Milroe’s team.

The schedule: The era of spending entire months at a time in cruise control is over. In addition to a Sept. 28 visit from Georgia, road trips include Wisconsin, Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma, the latter coming the Saturday before the Iron Bowl. For a team that survived several close calls in ’23, that’s a lot of opportunities to make even a minor regression on the field look like a five-alarm fire in the standings.

The upshot: Replacing the GOAT is a humbling assignment under any circumstances, but personally, at least, I always assumed that whoever followed Saban at Bama would at least have the luxury of coasting to a couple of reasonably Saban-esque seasons purely on inertia. Instead, the combination of attrition and a steep schedule makes an immediate drop-off a very real possibility. One way or the other, by December the fan base’s initial verdict on DeBoer should be abundantly clear.

4. LSU

Jayden Daniels delivered one of the most statistically elite seasons of all-time in 2023, but this is a rare instance when replacing the Heisman Trophy winner is among the least of his former team’s concerns. Even an offense operating at a pace worthy of the 2019 national championship team could not overcome a defense that got LSU relegated to the ReliaQuest Bowl. Excluding Vanderbilt (because Vandy), the Tigers finished dead last in the SEC in total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense, passing defense, and third-down defense, and near the bottom in everything else. In 3 losses, they allowed 45, 55 and 42 points to the 3 best opponents on the schedule, while also allowing 30+ points in 5 of their 10 wins. With Daniels, play-caller Mike Denbrock, and a pair of first-round wideouts gone, the offense is doomed to regress to the mean. It can only pray that the defense under first-year coordinator Blake Baker is able to say the same.

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Tigers at a Glance…
2023 Recap: 10-3 (6-2 SEC; Won Outback ReliaQuest Bowl; 12th AP)
Best Player: LB/DB/Edge Harold Perkins Jr.
Best Pro Prospect: OT Will Howard
Best Addition: WR CJ Daniels (Liberty)
Best Names: TE Ka’Morreun Pimpton … DB Major Burns
Most Grizzled: OL Miles Frazier (5th year; 37 career starts at LSU and Fla. International)
Emerging Dude: Sophomore Edge Da’Shawn Womack

Biggest strength: Rising QB Garrett Nussmeier is a wild card, but he will be well-protected. Four-fifths of the starting o-line is intact, including a first-round lock at one tackle (Howard) and an aspiring first-rounder at the other (third-year starter Emery Jones).

Nagging concern: The defense was set aflame in ’23 by every opposing offense with a pulse and failed to add any notable reinforcements via the portal. It’s essentially the same personnel in ’24, just one year older and with a fresh layer of scars.

Looming question: What’s the plan for Harold Perkins? He was the team’s best defender, by far, but the free-range versatility that made him an instant star as a freshman left the impression that maaaaybe he was being spread a little bit too thin in Year 2. The fact that he was arguably the most reliable playmaker on all three levels definitely didn’t help. The man can do it all, but not all at once.

The schedule: Among the friendlier conference slate in the league, if only because the 3 toughest games — Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma — are in Baton Rouge. The Tigers miss Georgia and Texas altogether. The opening-day collision with USC in Las Vegas will determine whether they’re on the CFP track out of the chute or behind the 8-ball.

The upshot: A lot is riding on Nussmeier, who has shown enough in spot duty over his first 3 years in the program to earn the benefit of the doubt as Daniels’ successor. Plan B behind center is a transfer from Vanderbilt with an 0-12 record as a starter in SEC play, so realistically it’s Nuss or bust. At least he can take consolation in the fact that the defense has nowhere to go but up.

5. Ole Miss

Listen, I never imagined the day when I would honestly be citing “depth” as a strength at Ole Miss, either, but here we are. Arguably no coach has exploited the transfer portal more effectively than Lane Kiffin, who has not only improved the Rebels’ front-line talent but also succeeded in stacking it, at nearly every position. By my reckoning, of the 50 or so two-deep players who are in line for regular snaps on offense and defense, only a dozen signed with Ole Miss out of high school, half of whom are offensive linemen.

Importantly, we’re not talking about a Colorado-style, “tear it all down and start over from scratch out of sheer desperation” rebuild here, either — Kiffin has made Oxford a destination for established vets, not second- and third-chance projects off the scrap heap. Transfers formed the core of the 2023 team that set the school record for wins (11) and earned Ole Miss’ highest finish in the AP poll (9th) since 1969. The most indispensable piece of that outfit, senior QB Jaxson Dart (originally at USC), is back in ’24 for his third year as a starter. I don’t know that any of that necessarily justifies Playoff-or-bust expectations in a league where at least 8 other teams with equally stacked rosters are thinking the same thing. But the fact that it’s even in the air at a program that has rarely thought in terms of national relevance speaks for itself.