SEC Power Rankings Week 9

Greetings, BBN!

This year in the SEC differs from the past couple in that the bottom has some pretty underperforming teams. Vandy, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Auburn have been either floundering or tail-spinning or both, and we’ll probably see a couple fewer SEC teams bowling than usual.

Week 8 didn’t cause a whole lot of movement in the rankings—Missouri heads into their bye with one of the best 8-game starts in years, Mississippi State won a rare single-digits game in a 7-3 slop at Arkansas to dramatically boost bowl hopes, LSU shut out our military 62-0, and Alabama smoked a bunch of cigars.

This week will feature a huge opportunity for the winner of Mississippi State-Auburn to feel good about their bowl hopes heading into November and an SEC East rivalry battle between Tennessee and Kentucky at Kroger Field.

Let’s take a look at the rankings:

SEC Football Power Rankings Week 9

Win of the Week: Mississippi State

Very little has been easy for the Bulldogs post Mike Leach, but one game at a time, they are finding a way to put a season together, even if means winning with just one touchdown. Playing on the road, Mississippi State played four quarters of defense and won 7-3 to get their fourth win of the year, their first SEC win, and let me tell you—there’s a world of difference between 4-3 and 3-4.

Gold Stars: LSU

LSU is really good at winning with style points, adding another impressive margin of victory to their collection with a 62-0 shutout of the Army.

Rotten Eggs: Arkansas

Taking a home loss like that to fall to 2-6 and 0-5 in the conference is hitting a pretty low point. Things haven’t always been amazing during the Sam Pittman Era, but never this bad. They might be staring down a 3-9 finish at this rate.

Achievement Unlocked: Top 25

Six teams cracked the AP Top 25 after Week 8: Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, Missouri, and Tennessee, while Florida and Kentucky received votes. That’s almost 25% of the top 25 represented by three-sevenths of the conference, and all those teams listed above have only taken losses to each other except for LSU against Florida State.