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The 2015 SEC football regular season was one to remember. Steve Spurrier said goodbye to the SEC — and coaching — for now. Les Miles was apparently this close to being fired, and things hit the boiling point at Missouri, where a boycott by the football team helped expedite the resignation of the school president.
The Gary Pinkel era at Missouri and the Mark Richt one at Georgia ended for very different reasons.
And, oh yeah, what else is new? Alabama won another SEC title and clinched a spot in the College Football Playoff.
On a week-by-week basis, here are the top headlines of the 2015 SEC football regular season:
Week 1: Derrick Henry ran for 147 yards and 3 TDs as Alabama routed Wisconsin 35-17. Robert Nkemdiche scored his first career touchdown and Ole Miss scored its most points in 80 years in its 76-3 win over Tennessee Martin. Florida opened the Jim McElwain era with a 61-13 romp over New Mexico State.
Week 2: Auburn needed a late touchdown and overtime to beat Jacksonville State 27-20. Tennessee blew a 17-point lead before losing to Oklahoma in double overtime 31-24. Chad Kelly threw for 346 yards and 4 TDs as Ole Miss mauled Fresno State 73-21.
Week 3: Ole Miss handed Alabama its only loss, 43-37 behind Kelly’s 341 yards and 3 TDs — and five Bama turnovers. Leonard Fournette rushed for 228 yards on just 19 carries as LSU crushed Auburn 45-21. Greyson Lambert set an NCAA record by completing all but one of his 25 passes in Georgia’s 52-20 win over South Carolina.
Week 4: Fournette rushed for a career-high 244 yards and 2 TDs as LSU beat Syracuse 34-24. Florida overcame a 13-point fourth-quarter lead to beat Tennessee 28-27 in a game that signaled the Gators’ rise. Nick Chubb rushed for 131 yards and accounted for 3 TDs in Georgia’s 48-victory over Southern. South Carolina knocks off UCF 31-14 in what became Spurrier’s final college victory.
Week 5: Fournette became the first player in SEC history to rush for 200-plus yards in three consecutive games with 233 yards in LSU’s 44-22 win over Eastern Michigan. Eddie Jackson’s pick-six spurred Alabama to a 38-10 rout at Georgia. Tennessee blew yet another lead of at least 13 points in a 24-20 loss to Arkansas. Ole Miss suffered its first loss, a 38-10 defeat at Florida in Will Grier’s signature performance.
Week 6: LSU routed South Carolina 45-24 in Spurrier’s last game as the Gamecocks’ head coach. The Head Ball Coach resigned three days later. Nick Chubb suffered a season-ending left knee injury on Georgia’s first offensive play in the Bulldogs’ 38-31 loss at Tennessee. The Volunteers overcame at 24-3 second-quarter deficit.
Week 7: With Grier suspended for PED use, LSU handed Florida its first loss. Trent Domingue’s 16-yard TD run on a fake field-goal attempt proved to be the difference. Ole Miss blew a 14-point lead in a 37-24 loss at Memphis. Henry ran for 236 yards and two scores and Alabama scored on three pick-sixes in its 41-23 win over Texas A&M. Interim coach Shawn Elliott and South Carolina kicked off the post-Spurrier era by beating Vanderbilt 19-10.
Week 8: Henry scored on a 14-yard run with 2:24 left to lift Alabama to a come-from-behind 19-14 win over Tennessee. Arkansas needed four overtimes to beat Auburn 54-46. Ole Miss toppled Texas A&M 23-3.
Week 9: Kelvin Taylor rushed for 121 yards in Florida’s 27-3 victory over Georgia, which strangely started Faton Bauta at QB. Kyler Murray accounted for 379 total yards and two scores in his first career start as Texas A&M topped South Carolina 35-28. Ole Miss kept its SEC West title hopes alive with a 27-19 win at Auburn.
Week 10: Alabama held Fournette to just 31 yards on 19 carries in a 30-16 rout of LSU. Henry ran 38 times for 210 yards and 3 TDs to supplant Fournette as the Heisman frontrunner. Florida held off Vanderbilt 9-7 to clinch the SEC East and its first berth in the SEC Championship Game since 2009. Arkansas beat Ole Miss 53-52 in overtime. The Razorbacks kept their hopes alive with an improbable conversion on a 4th-and-25 play. Auburn upset Texas A&M 26-10 in College Station.
Week 11: Missouri, which earlier in the week was part of a boycott that helped lead to the resignation of school president Tim Wolfe, rallied with two fourth-quarter TDs to beat BYU 20-16 — and give Gary Pinkel a victory one day after announcing he was resigning for health reasons. Henry ran for 204 yards and two scores and Alabama used a season-high nine sacks to beat Mississippi State 31-6. Alex Collins ran for 141 yards and two touchdowns as Arkansas handed LSU its second straight loss, 31-14 in Baton Rouge.
Week 12: The roughest day for the SEC East. South Carolina was stunned at home by the Citadel 23-22. It was the Gamecocks’ first loss to an FCS team since Citadel beat them in 1990. Florida needed overtime to outlast visiting FAU 20-14. Georgia also needed OT to beat Georgia Southern 23-17 between the hedges. LSU’s free-fall continued with a 38-17 loss at Ole Miss. Dak Prescott threw for 508 yards and accounted for a school-record 7 TDs in Mississippi State’s come-from-behind win over Arkansas. Brandon Allen threw a school-record 7 TD passes to set become Arkansas’ all-time leader in scoring strikes.
Week 13: Henry rushed a school-record 46 times for 271 yards and a TD as Alabama beat Auburn 29-13 in the Iron Bowl to clinch the SEC West and a spot in the SEC Championship Game. Minutes after LSU closed its regular season with a 19-7 victory over Texas A&M, athletic director Joe Alleva said Les Miles will remain the coach. The announcement capped more than a week of speculation that Miles would lose his job after 11 seasons with the Tigers. South Carolina got within a field goal before losing 37-32 to top-ranked Clemson. Georgia won 13-7 at Georgia Tech in what would be Richt’s final game as the Bulldogs’ head coach. Richt was fired the next day before eventually replacing Al Golden as Miami’s head coach. Ole Miss beat Mississippi State 38-27 in the Egg Bowl. Florida State routed Florida 27-2 in Gainesville.
Week 14: Henry carried 44 more times for 189 yards and a TD as Alabama won its second straight SEC Championship with a 29-15 victory over Florida. The next day, Georgia announced that Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was replacing Richt, and South Carolina tabbed Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to replace Spurrier. Earlier in the week, Missouri hired Tigers defensive coordinator Barry Odom to take over for Pinkel.
Week 15: Henry took home the Heisman Trophy to become the second Alabama player — and first since Mark Ingram won it in 2009.
Stan Chrapowicki is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers SEC football, Alabama and Auburn.
