Monday Down South: Horns cruise, Tide confuse, Rebels sing the blues in the Midseason Vibes Index

Takeaways, trends and technicalities from Week 7 in the SEC.

We’ve officially hit the turn in the 2024 regular season: 7 Saturdays down, 7 Saturdays to go. How y’all feeling so far? Here’s where all 16 SEC teams stand at the halfway point according to the semiannual Monday Down South Vibes Index, from grooviest to grimmest:

Cruising at Altitude

⬆ Texas. It’s been a bloody year in the polls, one in which nearly every would-be contender has either crashed head-first into a surprise L or swerved just in time to avoid it at the last second. Only 4 of the 25 teams in the preseason AP poll are still unscathed, and 3 of those 4 — Oregon, Penn State and Miami — have each survived upset bids from unranked opponents decided on the last play of the game. (Miami, in fact, has survived 2 upset bids from unranked opponents decided on the last play of the game, after trailing by double digits in the 4th quarter in both.) Eight of the preseason top 15 have actually lost to an unranked opponent, including 3 SEC teams in the past 3 weeks.

Then there’s Texas, the only team in America that has yet to break a sweat.

The Longhorns have dispatched all 6 opponents to date by at least 3 touchdowns, including the defending national champ and a blood rival in games that were over by halftime. Their average margin of victory, 35.6 points per game, is the widest in the country. On one side of the ball, they lead the nation in total and scoring defense; on the other, they have the luxury of 2 top-flight quarterbacks at a moment when most of the competition is just keeping its fingers crossed that it has one. They’re comfortably atop the major polls this week by wide margins, and boast easily the best odds of both making the Playoff and winning it all, per ESPN’s Football Power Index. The vibes haven’t been this good in Austin since Colt McCoy’s shoulder exploded in the Rose Bowl.

Now, how much of the preceding paragraph remains intact at this time next week, on the other side of this weekend’s gauntlet entry against Georgia? TBD. But what a time to be a fan. Is anyone out there still trying to argue the expanded Playoff somehow makes the regular season feel smaller?

New Lease On Life

⬆ Vanderbilt. If Vandy doesn’t win another game this season, 2024 will still go down as a monumental year in school history simply for being the year the Commodores beat Bama. To anyone who doubted it could be more than that — that is, to anyone who’s paid much attention to Vandy over the years — Saturday’s 20-13 win at Kentucky as 2-touchdown underdogs was a statement that they have no intention of going back where they came from.

Cautiously Optimistic

⬆ LSU. There was a point Saturday night when the Tigers trailed Ole Miss 10-0 on the scoreboard, the margin on the field felt a lot worse, and the crowd in Tiger Stadium was on the verge of mentally simming ahead to the arrival of massively hyped QB recruit Bryce Underwood in 2025. Instead, their come-from-behind, 29-26 win in overtime salvaged their chance to wring a meaningful finish out of what was shaping up as a rebuilding year. They’ve won 5 straight since Brian Kelly pounded the table following their opening-night loss to USC; if they continue to win the ones they should over the second half, they only need to take 1 of 2 against Texas A&M and/or Alabama to make crashing the SEC Championship Game and CFP bracket a very real possibility.

⬆ Texas A&M. The Aggies also are on a 5-game winning streak since their opening-night flop against Notre Dame, and are also coming off a top-10 win that they hope serves as a catalyst for higher expectations. LSU and A&M both have tests to pass this week against Arkansas and Mississippi State, respectively, but the Tigers’ trip to College Station in Week 9 looks like another major checkpoint in the Playoff race that only the winner can pass.

Flawed But Fine (For Now)

⬌ Georgia. The Dawgs have played 1 complete game, a 34-3 romp over Clemson in Week 1, and even that one might be more accurately described as a complete second half. It’s been uneven since: A defensively-driven win at Kentucky; a frantic, high-scoring loss at Alabama; a standard-issue slugfest over Auburn; and, on Saturday, a sloppy, 41-31 win over Mississippi State that was never in doubt but didn’t offer much reassurance about the state of the defense heading into this weekend’s season-defining trip to Texas. It’s not literally a must-win game for Georgia’s Playoff chances, but if this is a championship-caliber team, now is the time to start putting it all together. Besides reducing their margin for error to zero with Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee on deck in November, a second strike would cast serious doubt on the Dogs’ ceiling even if they go on to make the cut.

⬌ Tennessee. The Nico Iamaleava bandwagon has lost a lot of steam over the past couple of weeks, if not necessarily all that many passengers given his enormous potential. Iamaleava looked every bit the fledgling starter in the Vols’ 23-17, overtime win over Florida, finishing 16-for-26 for 169 yards, 2 turnovers (1 fumble, 1 interception) and a dismal 17.5 QBR score, easily the worst of the weekend among SEC starters. The fact that the Vols managed to eke out a win anyway is a testament to a) how solid they are in the other phases, and b) Florida’s capacity to match any opponent gaffe for gaffe. Still, if they stand a chance this weekend against Alabama, or against Georgia just down the line, they need their precocious young QB back on the breakout track.

⬌ Arkansas. The Hogs’ upset win over Tennessee in Week 6 was arguably the biggest win of Sam Pittman’s tenure in Fayetteville and cooled his seat considerably heading into an open date. The coming month against LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Texas could determine his fate, but for now the fact that there’s still a fate to be determined is enough to count the first half of the season as a qualified success, or a wash at worst. The specter of “interim head coach Bobby Petrino” still looms.

Under Construction

⬌ Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are as bad as advertised under first-year coach Jeff Lebby, but things could be worse: This could be the same team that got blown out at home by Toledo in Week 3. Instead, an outfit resigned to the basement has been feistier in its past 2 games, road trips to Texas and Georgia, than it had any right to be against 2 of the conference’s heavy hitters, especially with a true freshman quarterback just getting his feet wet. If nothing else, Michael Van Buren Jr. looks like a keeper after throwing for 306 yards and 3 touchdowns against UGA, offering a glimmer of hope for the rebuilding project that opening-day starter Blake Shapen (out for the season with a shoulder injury) was never going to give them. Cracking the win column in SEC play remains a long shot, but as long as they’re playing competitive, four-quarter games the record is an afterthought.

Losing Their Edge?

⬇ Alabama. Let’s start by pointing out that, yes, at 5-1 the Crimson Tide still have everything in front of them, including a certain degree of margin for error. They also have (for the time being, anyway) the single best win of the season at the top of their résumé. But almost all of the goodwill they bought in their epic triumph over Georgia has been squandered the past 2 weeks in an equally historic flop against Vanderbilt and now a razor-thin escape against South Carolina, in a game the Tide trailed at the start of the 4th quarter. The Vandy loss was traumatic enough, but at least it could be filed away as a random, “any given Saturday” kind of lapse. Following it up with a legitimate nail-biter against the Gamecocks the very next Saturday, in Tuscaloosa, is a crisis.

Neither outcome was a fluke on the field. Vanderbilt outgained Bama overall, converted 12 3rd downs, and racked up a 25-minute advantage in time of possession. South Carolina also outgained Bama, and caused big problems in the pocket for Jalen Milroe, who committed 2 killer turnovers for the second week in a row. Carolina committed 4 giveaways itself, finishing with a -2 turnover margin, and also missed a key go-ahead field goal attempt late in the 4th quarter; if any one of those plays breaks the Gamecocks’ way, the conversation surrounding Alabama heading into the Third Saturday in October is being conducted in a register a couple of octaves higher than it is right now.

The truth is, Bama is still a supremely talented team with the potential to win it all, which was on full display against Georgia. What really set the Tide apart in the Saban years, though, was unwavering consistency in the routine games, which they never lost and rarely even came close to losing. As much as anything else, the program has been defined for 15 years by its refusal to play down to the competition, to an extent that the rest of the country has never managed to emulate. Eventually, it was probably inevitable that the post-Saban Tide would struggle to emulate it, too. The real surprise is that that moment has apparently arrived much sooner than anyone bargained for.

⬇ Ole Miss. The Rebels’ overtime loss at LSU was deflating in its own right, for the sheer number of missed opportunities alone. Six red-zone possessions on offense yielded just 13 points; the most productive receiver in the country dropped a certain touchdown on the first possession; the offense failed to cash in either of 2 takeaways, including its only possession in regulation that started in LSU territory; and finally, with a chance to put the game on ice, the defense allowed 2 4th-down conversions in the final 2 minutes, including the game-tying touchdown pass with seconds to go. Ole Miss never trailed until the Tigers connected on the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

But that fit the broader theme of the season, which is also shaping up as an enormous missed opportunity. Ole Miss invested as heavily as any team in America in upgrading its talent level for a Playoff run, only to find itself on the wrong side of the CFP bubble at midseason. The Rebels might not be eliminated, strictly speaking, but they almost certainly can’t afford to lose again, a tall order with Georgia still on the schedule, among other hurdles. And for a team built to win now, there is no next year. Jaxson Dart, Tre Harris and the vast majority of the highly-rated portal hauls of the past couple seasons will all be moving on. So might Lane Kiffin, who’s already being sized up to fill the potential vacancy at Florida. Does Ole Miss have deep enough pockets to keep going all-in on big-ticket transfer classes on an annual basis? If this team can’t fill that void, suddenly footing the bill for one that can starts to look like a tougher sell.

⬇ Missouri. The Tigers rebounded from their Week 6 flop at Texas A&M Saturday with a 45-3 win at UMass, but the sting of the wake-up call in College Station still lingers as they face down a crucial conference street against Auburn, Alabama and Oklahoma. A favorable schedule can be a blessing in certain ways, leaving a viable Playoff path open for a 5-1 team that just climbed back into the top 20 in both polls. But there’s no realistic path that doesn’t involve winning in Tuscaloosa, which considering how Mizzou’s last big conference road trip went over seems just as likely to be a curse.

Adrift

⬇ Oklahoma. More on the Sooners’ quarterback woes below. Suffice to say that the transition from Lincoln Riley to Brent Venables is proof that, as a rule, an offensive team with no defense is not nearly as depressing as a defensive team with no offense.

⬇ South Carolina. The Gamecocks have been all over the map in conference play, blowing out Kentucky, getting blown out by Ole Miss, and pushing Alabama and LSU to the brink in down-to-the-wire losses. At the end of the day, they’re 1-3 in SEC play despite being outscored by just 4 points, 96 to 92. The pass rush shows up on a weekly basis; the rest, TBD.

⬇ Kentucky. Most of what you need to know about Kentucky is that the most important stat in many Wildcat games is time of possession. When they win it, as the did by a big margin against Ole Miss, the Wildcats tend to win. (As they did at Ole Miss.) When they get out-possessed, as they did in Saturday’s 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt, they lack the firepower to make up the difference. If you zoned out of this entry at “time of possession,” I don’t blame you. After 12 years under Mike Stoops, slow and boring is what they do best.

Wake Us in December

⬇ Florida. Graham Mertz reportedly will miss the rest of the season, which is a shame. Mertz recovered from his miserable start in losses to Miami and Texas A&M to take a firmer grip on the job the past few weeks despite sharing snaps with freshman DJ Lagway. Zooming out, though, even with Lagway’s prodigious upside, the outlook for the rest of the season has never changed: Once the calendar turns to November, the gauntlet of Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss on consecutive Saturdays all but ensures a losing record for the 4th year in a row, which likely spells the end for Billy Napier. It’s to Napier’s credit that his beleaguered team can still go to Tennessee and put up a credible fight, but unless a couple of those fights end up in some very surprising Ws down the stretch, his fate appears sealed.

⬇ Auburn. The Tigers (0-4 vs. Power 4 opponents) have a favorable stretch of schedule ahead to get on the board against Missouri, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. But then, all of those teams certainly consider playing Auburn favorable at this point, too. The trajectory of the Hugh Freeze project isn’t changing until he figures out a solution at quarterback.

Oklahoma: The Road to QB Purgatory

Oklahoma fans must be sick by now of re-litigating the decision to allow starting QB Dillon Gabriel to portal out last December, to the extent that it was a decision at all. For what it’s worth, Brent Venables has suggested otherwise, telling reporters a few weeks back that when Gabriel informed him he was opting out of the Sooners’ bowl game, Venables was initially under the impression that he was leaving for the NFL Draft, not the portal, adding, “I didn’t realize he was even considering coming back (to school)” and “you can’t make a guy stay.” (Gabriel has juked the question altogether.)

Even if it had been a decision, though, it would hardly have been a slam dunk: Given the choice between Gabriel, an established but limited talent in his final year of eligibility, and heir apparent Jackson Arnold, the 5-star gem of the Sooners’ 2023 recruiting class, opting for the latter was a straightforward bet on the future. The reason Venables hadn’t felt compelled to address it until recently was because, prior to Arnold’s meltdown and subsequent benching against Tennessee in Week 4, nobody was asking.

Still, with the benefit of hindsight, it has to be difficult to square the Sooners’ foundering offense with Gabriel’s reemergence at Oregon, especially after watching him account for 373 total yards and 3 touchdowns in a landmark win over Ohio State on Saturday night. There’s always a chicken-or-egg quality to these sorts of hypotheticals: If Gabriel had stayed at Oklahoma, would he have kept the offense afloat despite the rash of injuries and myriad other issues that have plunged it to the bottom of the conference rankings — the Sooners rank last in the SEC in total offense, scoring offense, yards per play, rushing offense, passing offense, pass efficiency, 3rd-down conversions, first downs and plays of 20+ yards — or would he have gone down with the ship while the locals lamented letting a prized talent like Arnold get away instead?

In the timeline we’re actually living through, though, the fact remains: The quarterback who left is a star, and the attack he left behind is about as explosive as a firecracker without a fuse. The contrast between what they watched against Texas on Saturday afternoon and what they saw in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday night was too stark to ignore.

Does it matter what choice Venables makes now? He stuck with overmatched freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. for the duration against Texas, long after it was clear that Hawkins posed no threat to the Longhorns with his arm. The Sooners managed 1 sustained drive in the competitive portion of the game, on a first-quarter march that covered 38 yards in 11 plays to set up their lone points of the day via a field goal; otherwise, the Sooners didn’t cross midfield again until a late garbage-time drive that petered out as time expired. By halftime, even Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit in the TV booth were openly wondering when Arnold would get the call to come off the bench.

But the idea that Arnold might supply a spark required amnesia about why he was on the bench in the first place. (Just a few weeks ago, Herbstreit was on the call in Norman proclaiming Hawkins the Sooners’ new quarterback of the future after he replaced Arnold and led a couple of late, futile touchdown drives in the Sooners’ loss to Tennessee.) They can commit to one or the other and accept the growing pains against a steep schedule over the second half of the season, or they can play musical chairs in a vain hope that the light suddenly comes on. Either way, it seems at least as likely at this point that the actual quarterback of the future is not yet on campus.

Superlatives

The week’s best individual performances.

1. Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr. On a dominant afternoon for the Texas defense, Hill was the most dominant player, turning in arguably the best performance of his young career on a big stage against Oklahoma: 11 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, a forced fumble that set up a touchdown just before halftime, and 1 planted flag at midfield, for good measure.

2. LSU LB Whit Weeks. LSU was left with an enormous void at the second level after Harold Perkins Jr. suffered a torn ACL in Week 4, and Weeks has risen to the occasion to fill it. He was impossible to miss in the Tigers’ overtime win over Ole Miss, finishing with a career-high 18 tackles, 2 TFLs and a forced fumble; 9 of those tackles qualified for PFF’s “stops” metric, defined as tackles that represent a failure for the offense based on down and distance — the most of any FBS player in Week 7.

3. South Carolina edge Kyle Kennard. Kennard turned in another money-making afternoon in a money-making senior season, turning up the heat on Alabama’s Jalen Milroe in relentless and versatile fashion. Officially, he finished with 7 tackles, 4 QB pressures and 2 sacks, including a takedown in Milroe’s own end zone that resulted in a safety after Milroe was flagged for intentional grounding. Unofficially, he was often creating havoc in ways that didn’t show up in the box score. For the season, Kennard’s 11.5 TFLs through 6 games ranks No. 2 nationally and tied for No. 1 among Power 4 defenders.

4. Georgia QB Carson Beck. Georgia turned Beck lose against an extremely vulnerable Mississippi State secondary, and responded by setting career highs for completions (36) and yards (459) in a wild game by Georgia standards. As usual, he was extraordinarily well-protected, facing pressure on just seven of 49 drop-backs (14.3%); unusually, he was also aggressive downfield in a game where he didn’t necessarily need to be, connecting on 4-of-8 attempts of 20+ air yards with 2 touchdowns.

5. Tennessee RB Dylan Sampson. At 5-11, 200 pounds, Sampson is not exactly built like a stereotypical SEC workhorse, but he filled the role against Florida, churning out 112 yards and 3 touchdowns on a career-high 27 carries; he also set a career high with 10 missed tackles forced, per PFF, most of any SEC back on the weekend. The vast majority of that production (18 carries for 96) came after halftime, including all 3 TDs. Sampson’s game-winning plunge from a yard out in OT was his 15th rushing TD of the year in just 6 games, second nationally behind on Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty.

Fat Guy of the Week: Texas OL Hayden Conner

Quinn Ewers got the screen time against Oklahoma, and sophomore RB Quintrevion Wisner got the stat line, running for a career-high 118 yards on 9.1 per carry. But both have a veteran o-line to thank, beginning with Conner, a senior mainstay who has started all 33 games since he arrived on campus at left guard. He turned in a clean sheet Saturday in pass protection (zero pressures, hits or sacks allowed, per PFF) and made key blocks on both of Wisner’s breakaway, door-slamming touchdown runs off the left side late in the first half.

Catch of the Year of the Week: Ole Miss WR Tre Harris

https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1845271895647904230/

Honorable Mention: Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, who was a model of efficiency in a 15-for-18, 2-touchdown performance against Kentucky while adding 82 yards rushing (excluding sacks). … Alabama LB Jihaad Campbell, who had 7 tackles as well as 4 QB pressures and a strip sack in the Tide’s win over South Carolina. … LSU WR Kyren Lacy, who caught 5 passes for 111 yards against Ole Miss, capped by the game-winner in overtime. … LSU CB Zy Alexander, who notched an interception, a PBU and the game ball from his head coach after facing 10 targets against Ole Miss. … LSU edge Bradyn Swinson, who led the Tigers’ pass rush with 6 QB pressures and 2 sacks. … And Ole Miss’ starting d-line rotation of Walter Nolen, JJ Pegues, Jared Ivey and Suntarine Perkins, whose combined 22 QB pressures against LSU produced disruptive results despite their failure to record a sack.

– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? Standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.

SEC Power Rankings

Updating the food chain.

1. Texas (6-0) | LW: 1⬌

2. Georgia (5-1) | LW: 2⬌

3. Alabama (5-1) | LW: 3⬌

4. LSU (5-1) | LW: 6⬆

5. Texas A&M (5-1) | LW: 5⬌

6. Tennessee (4-1) | LW: 7⬆

7. Ole Miss (5-2) | LW: 4⬇

8. Missouri (5-1) | LW: 9⬆

9. Vanderbilt (4-2) | LW: 10⬆

10. Arkansas (4-2) | LW: 11⬆

11. Oklahoma (4-2) | LW: 8⬇

12. Florida (3-3) | LW: 12⬌

13. South Carolina (3-3) | LW: 13⬌

14. Kentucky (3-3) | LW: 14⬌

15. Auburn (2-4) | LW: 15⬌

16. Mississippi State (1-5) | LW: 16⬌

Moment of Zen of the Week

https://twitter.com/GeorgiaFootball/status/1845230311820624168

Matt Hinton

Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.