Happy Monday, everyone. Things are much happier around here this week, after Alabama properly dismantled its cupcake on Saturday night. The Tide moved up to 19th in the AP poll, where the SEC is represented in historic fashion.
The SEC had been the only conference to have 10 teams ranked and matched that record to start this season. That’s not quite as impressive a feat with 16 teams these days, but now the league has taken it a step further with No. 24 Missouri and No. 25 Auburn joining No. 11 South
Carolina, No. 13 Oklahoma, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 17 Ole Miss and No. 19 Alabama, on top of the three top-10 teams. Florida, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Arkansas are the only unranked SEC teams.
The SEC has a strong middle class
The top of the league might have some cracks. We’ve already seen No. 21 Alabama lose, and No. 4 Georgia didn’t look too impressive in a 28-6 win over Austin Peay. No. 7 Texas got on the board with a 38-7 win over San Jose State but looked shaky early there as well.
The middle class of the league, though, the teams that could be playoff contenders but aren’t assumed contenders, have looked very strong through two weeks. It’s not simply that the SEC has picked up eight P4 wins already, it’s that it’s teams like Auburn, Oklahoma, Missouri, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State picking up five of them.
The 11 SEC teams ranked in the top 25 are an all time record for any conference, but they had to play a ninth conference game in order to make things fair. The Big Ten has six ranked, including three of the top four, and a fourth top ten team in Illinois that is fraudulent but will likely stay up in the rankings thanks to a pathetic schedule.
In any case, Alabama needs to take care of its business and Saturday’s game was a step in that direction. Ty Simpson and Germie Bernard seem to understand that it was nothing more than that. The
“We’re going to keep going and make sure we understand this means nothing and play our brand of football,” quarterback Ty Simpson said.
The offense needs to keep clicking and sustaining drive after drive against Power Four opponents. The defense needs to keep forcing takeaways and playing physical football. Alabama won’t score points on every single drive the rest of the season like it did against ULM, and the defense won’t shut out every team. But elements such as effort, efficiency and physicality can be replicated.
“Just staying on the gas pedal man,” receiver Germie Bernard said. “We had a players meeting last week after the game. We talked about what we needed to do and how we’re going to sustain all that energy. We’re going to meet tomorrow again, and we’re going to re-harp on the same things we harped on last weekend. We have to continue to go hard each day at practice.”
The goal for any team should be to reach its full potential, and this one has plenty of it. Hopefully they take another step this weekend.
This isn’t necessarily the best thing, but I get it.
In fact, at first, members of Alabama’s sidelines were excited to see Kirkpatrick’s physicality on full display. Sabb recalled “everybody” being “enthused for the big hit.”
Then, they realized it was a targeting call.
“Just got to understand that we’ve got to lower our target and make safer plays,” Sabb said.
Given defensive backs coach Maurice Linguist’s offseason approach to building what he hopes to be the “deepest secondary in the United States of America,” his players shouldn’t be fazed by the loss of Kirkpatrick. Linguist likes “having guys that are multiple and guys that can do multiple things,” knowing that if his group starts there and works its way back, they’ll know who they can rely on when they have to adjust the gameplan.
You don’t want players leading with their heads, as they can hurt themselves and others. But we do need to see more Alabama defenders flying around on a consistent basis, and it’s good to see that part celebrated.
The SEC QB rankings after two weeks are just as everyone would have predicted.
6. Garrett Nussmeier, LSU. He was solid against a good Clemson defense and wholly mediocre, with an interception and three sacks, in a 23-7 win over Louisiana Tech on Saturday. He gets the benefit of the doubt because he has a stronger track record than most on this list, but it’s time to pick it up.
7. Arch Manning, Texas. Hey, he’s higher than he would have been a week ago, and he has two more nonconference tune-ups before SEC play begins.
8. Gunner Stockton, Georgia. Georgia has sleepwalked through the early season, and we’ve learned little about Stockton to date. That will change with Saturday’s trip to Tennessee.
9. Ty Simpson, Alabama. He was overwhelmed against Florida State and virtually perfect against Louisiana-Monroe (17-for-17 for 226 yards). We’ll learn what we need to in his next two games (Wisconsin, at Georgia).
Everyone had Mizzou, Oklahoma, and Arkansas with the best passers in the conference, right?
Right?
Last, King Henry made some more history last night in a crushing last second defeat.
Henry ran all over Buffalo to the tune of 9.4 yards per carry and two scores, but sadly had a critical fumble late in the game that contributed to the 41-40 loss. That was one of the more entertaining football games in a few seasons.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
