Is the SEC on the upswing in 2018? Certainly the West is. Three weeks in, Auburn, LSU and Mississippi State have all notched wins over P5 non-conference foes and Texas A&M gave a credible showing against Clemson in a loss (let’s see how many ACC teams play Clemson as closely as TAMU did).
The story in the East isn’t as pretty, which isn’t that big a surprise, I suppose. Tennessee and Florida are miles away from what they once were and South Carolina wet the bed in its first true test of the season, but Missouri squeaked past a Big Ten team on the road, Kentucky is showing signs of life behind a dynamic quarterback and Vanderbilt gave Notre Dame all it could handle in its house before falling late. Baby steps, to be sure, but I do think it bears watching.
- Alabama. No, I don’t think the Tide could beat the Browns. But you might could talk me into thinking they could hang with them for a quarter or two.
- Georgia. My impression of this team after a quarter of the season is that’s in the process of figuring itself out, which is probably not good news for the teams on the second half of the schedule.
- LSU. You’ve got to tip your cap to the two big wins, which is why I moved the Tigers up this week. But I have serious doubts this team will beat Mississippi State.
- Mississippi State. Looking at the schedule, it’s not out of the question that the Bulldogs roll into Tuscaloosa undefeated. They get Auburn and TAMU at home and have a bye week before traveling to LSU.
- Auburn. You say Auburn lost a game at home on a last-minute score? Do tell. Gus is frantically looking for that rabbit’s foot he misplaced.
- Texas A&M. Got back on the winning track with a cupcake game.
- Missouri. The Tigers remain undefeated with a last-second road win of their own, but the defense is starting to show cracks. Is Drew Lock good enough to overcome that this week against Georgia?
- Kentucky. Give ’em credit, they didn’t suffer a lapse against a cupcake opponent.
- Florida. The Fightin’ Bobos get two million dollars, but not two SEC wins. Next stop: meteor game.
- South Carolina. Turns out there is rest for the weary.
- Vanderbilt. Had they played a little better in spots, they could have won that sucker.
- Ole Miss. It’s not just that they suffered playing Alabama’s crazy good offense. That defense is atrocious.
- Tennessee. When you’re about to embark on a five-game stretch against conference opponents that includes three highly ranked teams, it’s probably not good to look underwhelming against UTEP.
- Arkansas. If anything, the Hogs are worse than you think. They have a losing record, despite being one of only seven P5 schools that haven’t faced a P5 opponent yet.
Get The Picture 
I think UGA is scary good. When have we ever seen a UGA team begin to pull starters in the 2nd and 3rd quarters on a REGULAR BASIS and use backups to complete the dismantling of the other team?
It’s not without its faults of course on D, but as many points as UGA has the potential to score every game, it may not matter.
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Defense always matters.
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True, but Georgia appears to be good at defense. They just may not be great, at least not until the end of the year.
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Worse unit, GTU kickoff coverage or Arkansas punt coverage?
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Wow. You put South Carolina 5th in the East despite Sandstorm!
Interesting. I realize you list by how each team has performed through 9/17/18 but I am still surprised.
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When you get down to it, the difference between the four contenders for second in the East is how the ball bounces on any given day, more or less. Though I’m leaning towards Kentucky being slightly better than the others at this point.
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That’s a pretty good way of describing those four. It’s hard to say how good or bad any of them are right now..and Vandy may be better than any of them. It’s going to be an interesting season, that’s for sure.
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To be fair to the Senator, it is cooling off a lot in Columbia as the season proceeds. And some of their road trips will be played in places that are even cooler! Also they haven’t had all summer to gamecplan for those other games, because, well…. You know.
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The top half seems easier to sort out than the bottom half. It’s hard to tell who is suckiest. I did gain some respect for Vandy after their showing against ND. UK is doing better than I expected also. I think the rest of the East not named Georgia, better bring their A game against those two.
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I’d flip Kentucky and Mizzou, and flip South Carolina and Florida. But when they’re all also-rans, it’s just picking nits.
Missouri won by a FG at Purdue? Boy, are they in for a world of hurt this Saturday…
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Mizzou gave up record-setting passing yards against Purdue as well. I know we won’t fling it all over the place, but it sure would be fun to work out any passing kinks we may have against them.
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I was curious about this very thing after seeing how Purdue passed for 570 yards against ’em. The only career game in which Fromm has tossed for >300 was against Missouri last season. I believe the door is gaping wide for the same results high noon Saturday.
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Kentucky is the 2nd best team in the East, again, and they have a dangerous QB. That’s an away game for us sandwiched between Florida and Auburn… better not be sleeping on that one.
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Kentucky wasn’t the second best team in the East last year by either record or advanced metrics. They may be the second best team this year, though. It’ll be a marginal difference between them and either South Carolina or Missouri if they aren’t.
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They were the second best team last year. The only thing that kept them from finishing 2nd in the standings was that flukey blown coverage against Florida, in a game where they had the Gators whipped. They handled South Carolina. They have possibly the best running back in the SEC, a dual threat QB with a cannon, and a pretty good defense. The difference isn’t all that marginal – they’ve beaten SCU 4 years in a row.
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Okay. I mean, I still think you’re wrong, but it doesn’t seem worth getting into a massive debate over which middling SEC team was better.
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I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL
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I’m talking about drawing a line in the sand, dude.
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…also, Dude, that’s not the preferred nomenclature — Asian Americans, please.
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Walter, this isn’t a guy who built the railroads here.
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I think Chili just gave good reasons for his belief here. He’s probably right about Kentucky, but they will not hold up season long the way some of the deepest teams (woof!) will be able to.
Georgia’s biggest challenge is going to be staying focused and hungry..and that’s harder to do than we might think.
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Notre Dame isn’t that good, but Vandy seems a bit low here. There’s a tight bunching between us at the top to UT at the bottom, so I don’t know how you’d rearrange it. But I think Vandy is in that mix, not outside it.
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