The SEC Power Poll is once again in full force, and I intend to be diligent about casting my vote in the poll this year. I have been hit-and-miss in previous years, and it's particularly ironic that I should choose this year, one in which the Wildcats figure to struggle, to be diligent about voting in the polls. Ah, well, we all have our crosses to bear.
This week's results, which you can find up at Team Speed Kills, as usual, predictably have the Alabama Crimson Tide at the top of the heap, and unlike the Blogpoll, there is complete unanimity among SEC bloggers about who deserves to be at the top of this heap. That could be due to the fact that this is a power poll and therefore somewhat less susceptible to pure resume rankers, but whatever.
If there is a surprise in this poll, it's that voters figure the Missouri Tigers in the top half of the league so early. I kind of expected them to languish in the bottom half a week or two along with Texas A&M Aggies until the voters could get a read on these new SEC entrants, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Other than that, there are few surprises in here. My ballot follows the jump.
| My Rank | Team | cWL | W-L | PF-PA | MoV | Next opponent | Comments |
| 1 | Alabama | 1-0 | 41-14 | 27.0 | Western Kentucky | Impressive. Very impressive. | |
| 2 | LSU | 1-0 | 41-14 | 27.0 | Washington | 10 penalties for 55 yards says little good about your execution, despite the lopsided score. | |
| 3 | Georgia | 1-0 | 45-23 | 22.0 | at Missouri | Are we going to say that the 3 defensive starters held out were the reason Georgia's D looked so ordinary? | |
| 4 | South Carolina | 1-0 | 1-0 | 17-13 | 4.0 | East Carolina | SEC road games for top teams are supposed to be tough – just not at Vanderbilt. |
| 5 | Arkansas | 1-0 | 49-24 | 25.0 | Louisiana-Monroe | The Hawgs ran past the game Gamecocks. | |
| 6 | Tennessee | 1-0 | 35-21 | 14.0 | Georgia State | Not bad. Not too bad at all. | |
| 7 | Florida | 1-0 | 27-14 | 13.0 | at Texas A&M | It's scary to say it, but Florida was lucky. Muschamp's shirt may be a little sweatier than usual, even for Florida weather. | |
| 8 | Mississippi State | 1-0 | 56-9 | 47.0 | Auburn | Cupcake, meet belly. | |
| 9 | Auburn | 0-1 | 19-26 | -7.0 | at Mississippi State | Tough test against Clemson in Death Valley. It's a game that Auburn could have won, but came up short. | |
| 10 | Missouri | 1-0 | 62-10 | 52.0 | Georgia | 62-10 is a fitting score for a newly-minted SEC team when facing a vastly inferior foe. | |
| 11 | Texas A&M | Florida | Game blown away by Hurricane Isaac. | ||||
| 12 | Mississippi | 1-0 | 49-27 | 22.0 | UTEP | None dare call it impressive, but it wasn't a red flag, either. | |
| 13 | Vanderbilt | 0-1 | 0-1 | 13-17 | -4.0 | at Northwestern | Gave The Visor a scare. This might be their last power poll at this low ranking. |
| 14 | Kentucky | 0-1 | 14-32 | -18.0 | Kent State | Can you spell "suck," boys and girls? I knew you could. |
Yes, I ranked the Wildcats dead last. Until their defense proves it can stop somebody, it's hard to justify putting them anywhere else. I really feel bad about putting Vandy 13th, and in retrospect, I think that was an error. They deserve to be no worse than 12th, and arguably could be better than that.
If Kentucky beats Kent St. by 100 points, I don't think they'll move up much unless the get some help by a seriously bad performance from one or more of the bottom four teams, and even then, 12th looks like their ceiling for the near term, until we get into SEC play. An upset in the SEC would make a difference but I think we're going to have to get used to seeing UK near the bottom of the league this year unless we see a defensive turnaround to go along with some offensive improvement.
It will be interesting to see how Vanderbilt and South Carolina do in their next games, as Vandy arguably was robbed of an upset on a bad call last week, and the Gamecocks escaped with their high ranking intact, but bruised.