Every SEC team’s record against ranked teams last 10 years

The old saying goes that you can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs. Well, in college football, you can’t win a title without beating some ranked teams.

The SEC is loaded with teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll every week during the fall. Last year, 10 of the conference’s 14 teams were in the poll at one point in the season. All those ranked schools means that that teams will square off with several ranked opponents every year.

In the last decade, every SEC school has played at least three ranked opponents every season, and each school in the conference today has played at least 40 games against ranked opponents in the last 10 years except for Vanderbilt, which clocks in at 37. Even Missouri and Texas A&M, both of which had seasons in which they played just two ranked opponents while in the Big 12, have racked up 40 and 42 such contests, respectively.

No school has fared better in those games than LSU. The Tigers have played a league-high 60 games against ranked opponents in the last 10 seasons, dating back to when Les Miles took over in 2005, and they have the highest winning percentage (.650) in the conference to show for it. In that span, LSU has played seasons with eight and nine ranked opponents, in 2007 and 2011, respectively, and in those two years the Tigers went an astounding 15-2 in those games; LSU made it to the national title game in both those years, winning in 2007.

Alabama (.635) and Georgia (.531) are the only other programs in the conference with winning records against ranked competition. The rest of the division clocks in below .500, although Auburn and Florida are both one game under in the last 10 years. Four of those five team mentioned in the last two paragraphs have won national titles in the last decade, which isn’t a coincidence.

Four of the SEC’s 14 teams — Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tenenssee and Vanderbilt — have all won one-sixth or fewer of their games against ranked opponents. Kentucky finishes dead last with a 3-38 record in such games, half the win total of the next-worst team, Vanderbilt. The Wildcats’ last win against a ranked opponent came in 2010 at home against South Carolina.

Since the two schools joined the SEC in 2012, Mizzou and Texas A&M have both gone 6-9 (.400) against ranked teams.

Take a look below at the records of all 14 SEC schools against ranked teams from 2005-14.

Brett Weisband

A former freelance journalist from Philadelphia, Brett has made the trek down to SEC country to cover the greatest conference in college football.