Week 1 SEC Power Rankings

What did we learn after one week of football with half the conference playing FCS games? Not a whole lot! But Power Rankings are always fun. So let’s power rank.

14. Tennessee

13 teams in the SEC got a win this weekend. Tennessee did not.

13. Kentucky

Kentucky trailed Central Michigan for large portions of the first half and struggled through four turnovers before winning. Now will Gunnar Hoak keep the starting job?

12. Vanderbilt

The Commodores kept Brent Stockstill, one of the most dangerous G5 QB’s, in check for just about the entire game. But their defense looked outstanding in the first few games of 2017 before finding out that they did not, in fact, want Bama. I’ll wait until seeing this defense against an SEC opponent before calling them actually good.

11. Arkansas

A comfortable win over an FCS school but still plenty of questions remain. Will Ty Storey look that good against an FBS defense? Can the run game get going? How fast can the defense improve?

10. Florida

The Gators jumped all over their paycheck game opponent Charleston Southern early and often. Could Dan Mullen get a good year out of Feleipe Franks?

9. Missouri

Drew Lock led Mizzou to a rout over UT-Martin. There are still questions on how Derek Dooley can get the most out of his QB, but they got down the field plenty in their first game together.

8. Texas A&M

Trayveon Williams looks good. Real good. 240 yards on 20 carries and 3 touchdowns are some video game numbers, even against Northwestern State. Clemson is going to be a little bit of a stiffer test this upcoming Saturday. Just a bit.

7. Ole Miss

Texas Tech claimed all offseason they had a better defense, and Ole Miss just laughed and hung 47 on them. They still aren’t bowl eligible but will cause some problems for a couple SEC contenders this year.

6. South Carolina

Jake Bentley looked fine against inferior competition. So did Rico Dowdle and Deebo Samuel. There was nothing there to not think South Carolina is right there for the second best team in the east.

5. LSU

Might have created the biggest week one overreaction by putting it on the U in Dallas. Their defense looks like an LSU defense, which is to say fast and mean as hell. Still Joe Burrow just looked okay (11/24 and 140 yards won’t win you tougher games), and they still aren’t quite ready to crack the top-4 of the conference.

4. Mississippi State

Joe Moorhead’s debut featured a backup QB hanging 63 on the scoreboard. They’re going to be even better with Nick Fitzgerald.

3. Auburn

This defensive line might be the nastiest in the country outside of Clemson. Their red zone defense won the game after the offense completely sputtered in the second half. It was a key win against a good team, but it wasn’t very pretty.

2. Georgia

Georgia just bullied the Governors for an entire game and the stats are just mean. Outgained Austin Peay 508 to 152, they allowed just seven first downs, and averaged 8.6 yards per carry.

1. Alabama

Yup.