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The good ship SEC is taking on water in the lower decks.
Sure, Missouri deserves credit for putting together its best game of the year in thumping Florida on Saturday. But the Gators looked like a team that has mailed it in.
So, yet another team falls completely out of our projections. Sorry, UF. (And this year’s Florida-Florida State game is going to wind up being the least meaningful in the history of the rivalry.) Is Will Muschamp going to let on how much he enjoys the heck out of his South Carolina team beating the school that fired him so it could hire Jim McElwain? Maybe a little?
Anyway, for now the Birmingham Bowl meets the same fate as the Independence Bowl: A party invitation to send out and no bowl-eligible SEC team to take it. Remember last year when the SEC sent 12 teams to bowls? Good times. And no, Arkansas does not work its way back in after a one-point win over a Coastal Carolina team that entered the FBS about eight minutes ago.
Again, somebody could defy these projections (it has happened often enough this season) and “surge” to a 6-6 finish. Or 6-5 in Florida’s case because the Gators lost a sure win (right?) over Northern Colorado thanks to Hurricane Irma. If that happens, Birmingham and Shreveport will appear on our travel itinerary again.
At the top, little changes. Alabama and Georgia are still projected to make the College Football Playoff. Neither team blew out its first opponent after the CFP rankings were released, with Georgia No. 1 and Alabama No. 2, but they were playing good teams (South Carolina and LSU, respectively) so no damage to them. None for the losing teams either.
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a copy editor and writer with SaturdayDownSouth.com.
