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Saturday’s slate of games began with a couple of snoozers, but those were offset by some phenomenal games later in the day. It was a week that seemed to separate the contenders from the pretenders. This is helpful when report card time rolls around again. As per our tradition, we’ll give each team a grade and then pick a couple of teams for hall passes (good work) or detention (bad work) on offense, defense, special teams, and coaching.
Overall grades
SEC West
Texas A&M: A
Every week, we give the Aggies a good grade and talk about how they could be the No. 2 team in the West. A performance like the 45-24 win over Arkansas begs the insane though of whether No. 2 is high enough.
Ole Miss: A
The Rebels needed a big performance and they delivered with a 45-14 crushing of UGA that pulls them back into the SEC West race. Kudos to the defense, which seemed like an unlikely sentence to write here.
Auburn: A-
Much like Ole Miss, this was a game that Auburn couldn’t really afford to lose. And they didn’t lose it, by a half second. It was sloppy, but special teams, Sean White and the defense did enough to win the game.
Alabama: B+
Nothing wrong with Alabama’s performance, but against a pitifully outmatched Kent State team, it’s hard to rank their win with the three above. Somehow, I think the Tide will be OK next week against Kentucky even if Damien Harris can’t play.
Mississippi State: C+
It was a win and a nice game for Nick Fitzgerald, but this game was a one-point margin at halftime and was competitive into the late fourth quarter, which is unacceptable against a woeful UMass team. State looked like the weakest team in the West.
Arkansas: C
Some things to like offensively, particularly in the passing game, as Austin Allen put up a big day. The run defense has to be concerning, because Alabama and even LSU have the potential to put up huge days against the Hogs.
LSU: C-
It’s getting harder and harder to envision a good end to this season for the Tigers. Those last four SEC games against Ole Miss, Bama, at Arkansas, and at A&M look like a 1-3 grouping at this point, and not sure about the win. At least Tigers fans won’t have Les Miles or Cam Cameron to blame anymore. Of course, that’s of little consequence now that this season’s championship hopes are gone.
SEC East
Tennessee: A-
Hey, the minus is for falling behind 21-0 in the first place. Otherwise, nothing to NOT like about the day for the Vol Nation. UT is the big dog in the East again.
Kentucky: B+
Admittedly, last night’s 17-10 win over South Carolina was a battle of two of the worst teams in the league — maybe the two worst. But Kentucky looked like a real football team, which was a new development.
Missouri: B+
Much like Alabama, it’s hard to give too much praise for dismantling a team that you lead by 58 at halftime. That said, Mizzou looks like a bowl team.
Vanderbilt: B
Thumbs up to Vandy for grit, and for the development of a passing game. That said, needing a last play of regulation TD to tie and being in position to lose to a C-USA team in overtime isn’t exactly that bright of a highlight.
South Carolina: C-
The Gamecocks just didn’t quite have the offensive firepower to get a win. They’re young and this season won’t really be held against Will Muschamp. That said, there’s definitely not four more wins on this schedule.
Florida: D+
The only reason Florida doesn’t fail was jumping out to a 21-0 lead. After that, well, this was the Austin Appleby that Vol fans expected to see. It wasn’t really the Florida defense that had shown up thus far.
Georgia: F
Pretty much total systems failure in Oxford. It feels like Georgia is better than this, but this could easily be a 2-2 team and 1-3 wasn’t that far away. Lots of holes, particularly the offensive line and special teams.
Offense
Hall Pass
Texas A&M: Everybody knew Trevor Knight would have some good days in this offense, but what everybody didn’t foresee was having two 100-yard rushers in gashing Arkansas for 366 yards on the ground. Disregard the A&M run game at your own peril.
Vanderbilt: Sure, I’m passing on Mizzou’s 79 points and 7 trillion yards, but Vandy had generally looked hopeless in the air, but they came up with 279 yards passing to actually help overworked Ralph Webb out a bit.
Detention
Georgia: They did total almost 400 yards, but Jacob Eason looked very human with sub 50 percent passing, 137 yards in the air and a pick six. Nick Chubb has essentially been a non-factor since Week 1.
LSU: Auburn is a legitimate defense, but how on earth you parlay having the most talented running back in America and gaining 6.9 yards per carry on the ground into 13 points is a riddle I’m not prepared to solve. But I think the answer has to do with Cam Cameron.
Defense
Hall Pass
Ole Miss: Hall passes on defense to two of the shakiest units in the league before this week. The Rebels harassed Jacob Eason and kept Georgia from running wild on the ground. Any week when you manage to almost create as many scores (1) as you allow (2) will be a good week.
Kentucky: Say what? Yes, holding even a bad — no, even an awful — SEC offense to under 270 yards, one TD and a field goal was amazing for the Wildcats, who almost halved their yards per game total from the season’s first three games.
Detention
Florida: Sure, Tennessee (finally) looked like who we thought they were, but the Gators got incredibly sloppy against the UT passing game and helped Joshua Dobbs set a career high in yardage. They seemed so good against UMass and North Texas.
Mississippi State: For a team in the SEC West to allow 35 points isn’t surprising. But to allow it to UMass? On a weekend when the stars in the West shone bright, the Bulldog defense didn’t join that party.
Special Teams
Hall Pass
Auburn: Daniel Carlson goes 6-for-6, including a 51-yarder, to account for every Auburn point and win a battle of field goals game. Carlson also became the most accurate kicker in SEC history during the game.
Detention
Georgia: Georgia probably has the worst kicking game in the league. While they have some weapons in the return game, they haven’t gotten much use yet.
Coaching
Hall Pass
Ole Miss: Ole Miss served notice that they still are the most potent offense not named Alabama in the league, and much of the credit goes to Hugh Freeze for keeping them focused on this game.
Auburn: The Gus Bus bought a couple new tires on the strength of beating LSU — may have been a job-saver last night.
Detention
Georgia: Kirby Smart doesn’t even need to start thinking about a hot seat, but that kind of disappointing performance will only pass with the locals for so long. Smart simply has to get more production from his best players.
LSU: When Les Miles starts losing the kind of game that he used to win, it just doesn’t bode well for his team or his coaching tenure.
Joe Cox is a columnist for Saturday Down South. He has also written or assisted in writing five books, and his most recent, Almost Perfect (a study of baseball pitchers’ near-miss attempts at perfect games), is available on Amazon or at many local bookstores.
