By Carter Byrd
Now here is Part 2. Time to lay out where I think things stand with bottom seven teams in the SEC.
8. Arkansas:
– Look, don’t get me wrong, Arkansas is better than they should be in year two under Sam Pittman, but they are not what the national media has made them out to be. This is a team that beat a Texas team that started the wrong quarterback and is now sitting with three losses and a Texas A&M team that could not score with its backup quarterback at the time.
Yet, because Sam Pittman and his story gave everyone the warm and fuzzies, we built Arkansas into a fraudulent top-10 team. Arkansas was never a top-10 team. They are a physical team that can run the ball and has an elite receiver. They played very positive game scripts in their first two big games of the season.
Now? The Hogs are reeling, losers of three straight. This thing could crater fast. Matchups with Mississippi State, at LSU and at Alabama could have the once magical Arkansas season limping to a 3-5 finish after its scorching 4-0 start.
Look, I don’t believe in Arkansas. The only games I believed in them this season were actually Texas and Texas A&M, and that had a lot more to do with the opponents than it did the Razorbacks.
9. LSU:
– What do you want me to say about LSU? Turns out losing the locker room in 2020 doesn’t magically get better in 2021. They are bad. They are without their best four NFL prospects and multiple starters on defense. Players have started to hit the portal. The coach has been fired.
The win against Florida is a band-aid on a bullet hole. It just makes the fans feel a little better about what is going to be a really, really awful season. The only saving grace is this week, Ole Miss will have a MASH unit on the sidelines to deal with all of its injured players, including quarterback Matt Corral.
Even if LSU beats a wounded Rebel squad, Alabama is waiting on the other side of the bye week to fire a cannon through that bullet hole that is held together by that band-aid of a Florida win.
10. Tennessee:
– Remember that whole part about how Kentucky beat a bunch of bad teams? Yeah, copy and paste that one in here. Congrats, Tennessee. You beat South Carolina and Missouri. Your third most impressive win is against Scott Loeffler’s Bowling Green Falcons. Ew, that’s just pitiful.
I’ll spare you the niceties, Tennessee. This thing is about to get a hell of a lot worse. You’re about to lose three straight before your back gets broken by a solid South Alabama team after Georgia kicks your teeth in the week before.
But hey, look on the bright side. At least you get to play a glorified high school team in Vanderbilt to finish the season.
P.S. Alabama is going to beat you by 40 this weekend because your defense is totally gassed, and Nick Saban won’t let your program come up for air after a brutal loss to Ole Miss.
11. Mississippi State:
– Honestly, I wanted to put Mississippi State higher, but I just can’t. This team isn’t good despite beating A&M in College Station.
State gets its second and final SEC win against Vandy this weekend, but that will be the last happy moment of the season.
In all honesty, I respect Mississippi State because I think they really fight hard. They’re just so outmatched athletically with the entire SEC West that it is a really hard place to keep getting off the mat week after week.
12. Missouri:
– Missouri is just horrid. Sure, they can score a little bit, but it doesn’t matter when everyone has a season-high offensive performance on the way to splattering you on the walls by 30.
I’d probably put my money on Missouri in the basement fight between them, Vandy and South Carolina, but I’m not super sure that they are that much better. They could beat Vandy and South Carolina and the best win on the schedule might still be North Texas.
Also, your coach needs to quit talking crap in the media (see his comments about Texas and OU joining the SEC and his comments about Boston College and Massachusetts) if you’re going to be this god awful. If not, he can expect his buyout in the mail soon.
13. South Carolina:
– I mean, they beat Vandy? So they aren’t last. Do you remember in Moneyball when Brad Pitt is talking to the Oakland A’s scouts about how to replace Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon?
Well, same goes here…there are great SEC teams, then there are good SEC teams, then there are average SEC teams, then there are bad SEC teams…Then there’s 50 feet of crap, and then, there’s South Carolina right now. But hey, South Carolina fans…at least you aren’t the worst.
14. Vanderbilt:
– A couple feet of crap lower is Vanderbilt. They are awful. They may always be awful. I, personally, don’t see the path out of the basement.
The room is full of water. There is no way out. The Commodores are trapped. Doomed to suffocate and drown in cellar of the SEC.
They’re the sacrificial lamb. They are everyone’s “get-right game.” Clark Lea is going to have to pull a miracle and maybe some charged up AED paddles to get some life—any life—back in this program.
There you have it. That is where I think things stand in the country’s best football conference. There is still half a season to go. A lot can change in a few weeks time.
Sure, this will likely end with a Georgia-Alabama SEC Championship/“College Football Playoff Quarterfinal,” but there is plenty of room for chaos. And we have seen plenty of chaos this season. After all, by transitive property, the SEC is basically a snake eating its tail. Texas A&M beat Alabama. Alabama beat Ole Miss. Ole Miss beat Arkansas. Arkansas beat Texas A&M.
This conference will continue to beat up on itself as teams vie for the right to take on big bad Georgia in the SEC Championship game because that is the only thing that I can see for certain.
Very well said and very entertaining. Nice job.