POWER RANKINGS
Breaking down the SEC
1. Alabama: Nick Saban doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t matter what it is. It’s October and he is on Full Distraction Alert for Tennessee.
2. LSU: Explosive. Exciting. Electric. No, that’s not just the tailgate scene at Tiger Stadium. It’s the LSU offense, scoring points like never before.
3. Florida: With one quarter to go, the Gators had the lead at Tiger Stadium on Saturday night. They couldn’t hang on but it’s hard to drop them after that effort.
4. Auburn: Yes, AU needed an off-week but coming out of it without running back Boobie Whitlow could leave Auburn in worse shape than they were two weeks ago.
5. Georgia: On the one hand, a loss is survivable for Georgia. On the other hand, if Jake Fromm doesn’t snap back quickly, there could be another loss or two on that schedule.
6. Missouri: Realistically, Missouri probably can’t get the split it needs with Florida and Georgia. But no team has a better schedule setup in the East.
7. Texas A&M: Kindly put, the schedule has been daunting but the Aggies continue to look like a team that has the parts but needs to have its bolts tightened.
8. South Carolina: You didn’t see it coming. I certainly didn’t see it coming. But thanks to havoc-wreaking defender Javon Kinlaw, South Carolina found a way in Athens.
9. Mississippi State: A season that seemed promising in August is about to go down the tubes after a loss to Tennessee. Hosting LSU probably isn’t the best way to stop it.
10. Ole Miss: No team can go on the road and give up over 500 yards on defense and feel confident about its chances.
11. Kentucky: Kentucky’s coaches took the best option available for their decimated QB position, simply putting their best athlete (WR Lynn Bowden) under center and letting him run wild.
12. Tennessee: Easy to say it now, but the Power Poll hinted that UT might sneak up on Mississippi State last Saturday — and they did. The Vols won’t sneak up on Alabama, though.
13. Arkansas: Every week, the Razorbacks seem to play hard and still find a creative and painful way not to win.
14. Vanderbilt: Somewhere in a dank downstairs coffee house in Nashville’s West End, one of the city’s 231,828 aspiring musicians strums an acoustic guitar to a Simon and Garfunkel tune, softly singing “Hello, Vandy, my old friend/You’re at the bottom once again…”