The SEC’s top shelf has changed again, and Florida is the team crashing the party.
When the season opened Labor Day weekend, seven league teams were viewed as College Football Playoff contenders. A month later, Texas A&M and Oklahoma have fallen out after both were beaten by nearly 30 points on Saturday, while Florida and Mississippi State have moved into the mix.
Florida made the biggest statement of the weekend, rolling past Ole Miss 52-28 to hand the Rebels their first loss of the season. Mississippi State kept climbing too, storming back in the fourth quarter to beat Missouri and collect a fourth straight win. Those two have replaced Texas A&M and Oklahoma among the SEC’s CFP hopefuls.
At the top, Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Florida now make up Tier 1. Texas improved to 4-0 with a 20-17 win over Tennessee and gets an open date next.
Georgia stayed unbeaten by pounding Oklahoma 41-13 and returns home for Vanderbilt. Alabama handled South Carolina 49-18 and now heads to Mississippi State for one of the week’s biggest games.
Florida, also 4-0, owns the most eye-catching SEC win of September and now has to prove it can handle the next step when it visits Missouri.
That trip to Columbia carries extra weight because Florida’s surge is the headline of the league right now. The Gators’ win over Ole Miss was the most impressive SEC result of the month, but the challenge now is following it up on the road.
LSU holds the top spot in Tier 2 after beating Texas A&M 35-6. The Tigers jumped ahead of Ole Miss, which slides behind Florida after suffering that lopsided loss.
Mississippi State also sits in this group after beating Missouri 31-24, while Tennessee rounds it out after a narrow 20-17 defeat to Texas. LSU has a much easier start to October with McNeese coming to town, while Ole Miss gets a needed open week.
Tennessee, meanwhile, has to respond against Auburn after coming up short against Texas.
Mississippi State’s rise is one of the league’s most interesting storylines entering the fifth week. The Bulldogs are 4-0 and now get Alabama at home, with Kamario Taylor and Keelon Russell set to share the stage in a matchup of two of the SEC’s best young quarterbacks. That game could tell us plenty about where Mississippi State really belongs.
Tier 3 features Missouri, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Auburn. Missouri fell to Mississippi State and now has to regroup quickly for Florida.
Kentucky is 3-1 after a 45-21 win over South Alabama and visits South Carolina. Auburn beat Vanderbilt 21-15 and goes to Tennessee.
Texas A&M, now 2-2 after the loss to LSU, faces Arkansas in what looks like a must-win game.
The bottom tier includes Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Arkansas. Oklahoma’s loss to Georgia was brutal - the Sooners trailed 28-0 at halftime - and they now have two weeks to prepare for Texas.
Vanderbilt dropped a 21-15 decision to Auburn and goes to Georgia next. South Carolina was beaten by Alabama and returns home to face Kentucky, while Arkansas, fresh off a 34-6 win over Tulsa, heads to College Station with a chance to grab one of its better SEC opportunities of the season.
There’s no shortage of pressure points across the league this week, but the spotlight belongs to Mississippi State and Alabama. Florida has already made its move. Now the SEC gets to find out whether the Gators can stay there.
In Other News...
LSU Just Turned One Huge Concern Into Real SEC Hope
After the disappointment against Ole Miss, LSU needed a response that looked and felt different, and Saturdays 35-6 rout of Texas A&M delivered exactly that. The Tigers moved the ball at will, piling up more than 500 yards on offense, with quarterback Sam Leavitt throwing for over 300 yards and two touchdowns while the defense set the tone by overwhelming the Aggies up front.
The broader picture matters even more for a team trying to keep its SEC path alive under Lane Kiffin. LSU held Texas A&M to fewer than 200 total yards and repeatedly disrupted the rhythm of the game with sacks and turnovers, a level of control that had been missing in the loss to Ole Miss. Whether it proves to be the reset this season needed will depend on what comes next, but this was the kind of complete performance that can change the conversation quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Just Got An Early Playoff Path Fans Will Study
After four weeks of the college football season, ESPN analysts Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach reshuffled their College Football Playoff and bowl projections, and the SEC remains as crowded as ever in their latest forecast. Their updated outlook has 13 league teams headed to postseason play, with only South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Arkansas left out, underscoring just how little margin there is for anyone trying to climb into the top tier of the conference race.
For LSU, those projections are the kind of thing fans around Baton Rouge will study closely because they help sketch out not just the Tigers own path, but the playoff lane that could open or tighten around them as the season goes on. The full breakdown also maps out projected bowl destinations and playoff matchups for every SEC team, giving a fresh snapshot of where LSU stands in a league where one good stretch can change everything and one bad Saturday can send the conversation in a different direction. [Read more 🡒]
LSU May Have Found A New Defensive Difference Maker
LSU left College Station with plenty of individual performances worth sorting through, but the defensive emergence of true freshman Deuce Geralds stands out as the kind of development that can change the feel of a front seven. After turning in a sack and two tackles for loss against Texas A&M, Geralds was named overall Game MVP and also picked up SEC Freshman of the Week honors, a strong sign that the Tigers may have another disruptive piece to work with as the season moves deeper into conference play.
Geralds was hardly the only Tiger making noise on that side of the ball. Tamarcus Cooley added two tackles, a sack and an interception, while Princewill Umanmielen kept his own pressure streak going with another sack to reach seven on the season. LSUs defense has been looking for a player who can consistently tilt a game, and after this outing, Geralds has at least made himself part of that conversation. [Read more 🡒]