Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
By Chris Marler
It was an eventful day in the SEC. The marquee matchups delivered starting with Ole Miss and Oklahoma all the way to Texas A&M’s impressive win in Tiger Stadium Saturday night. If you were tailgating, traveling, or doing anything in between you may have missed some of the action.
Here’s the SEC Week nine in case you missed it.
Vanderbilt wins showdown in Nashville
Defense wins championships. While we’re not sure if that age old cliche will come true for Vanderbilt, it definitely got them one step closer to potentially playing for one this season.
Vanderbilt and Missouri played in a massive game with huge implications Saturday. College Gameday was on campus for the battle of former afterthoughts. The game didn’t disappoint.
Despite a subpar performance from star QB Diego Pavia, and just 265 yards of offense, the Commodores were able to win 17-10. The game winning touchdown came with 1:52 left in the fourth quarter.
The winner of Saturday isn’t guaranteed a playoff spot, but they would have an inside track to getting there come December. According to ESPN analytics, Vanderbilt now has a 53 percent chance to reach the College Football Playoff. Missouri’s hopes dropped to 15 percent after the loss.
Vanderbilt takes down Mizzou to earn their best start since 1941 💪🔥 pic.twitter.com/M4J1kpbJnV
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 25, 2025
Alabama hangs on for dear life, escapes South Carolina
After four straight wins against top 25 opponents, Alabama appeared to have run out of steam in Columbia, South Carolina.
In front of a sellout crowd on homecoming weekend, South Carolina fought their way to an eight point lead late in the fourth quarter with a chance to get yet another huge upset win over a top five Alabama team visiting Williams-Brice Stadium. But, thanks to a few miracles, an inexplicable turnover, and above all else, Germie Bernard, Alabama was able to leave Columbia and get to the bye week with just one loss still on their record.
GERMIE BERNARD PUTS THE TIDE ON TOP WITH A 25-YARD TOUCHDOWN 🔥 pic.twitter.com/hcAgIp1rZW
— ESPN (@espn) October 25, 2025
Alabama struggled all afternoon. They were held to five three-and-outs including three straight in the second half. They had just six three-and-outs in their four previous wins combined. Ty Simpson saved his best for last and led a 14 play, 79 yard drive that took near eight minutes to tie the game with 2:16 left.
On the second play of the ensuing South Carolina drive, LaNorris Sellers fumbled at the Gamecocks 38 yard line. leading to a game winning score for Alabama with 34 seconds left.
Alabama’s Deontae Lawson and Tim Keenan may have just made the defensive play of the day to rip this away from LaNorris Sellers. Wowza pic.twitter.com/cDDRYBmieM
— Bobby Football (@Rob__Paul) October 25, 2025
Mississippi State snatches defeat from the jaws of victory
Mississippi State held a 17 point lead with just over 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter. With 11 minutes and 40 seconds left in the game, the Bulldogs had a 98.6 percent chance to win against Texas. On top of that, Arch Manning left the game early because of an injury.
The Bulldogs still lost 45-38, giving up 31 points in the final 15 minutes of regulation and overtime.
Despite going down, Manning had arguably the best game of his young career with 352 yards of offense and four touchdowns. He was outdueled for most of the day by Blake Shapen who put up 381 yards passing and four touchdowns without an interception.
Bulldogs’ RB Davon Booth had an incredible game with 184 total yards including 99 on the ground. None of that mattered in the end. Ryan Niblett returned a punt for 79 yards and a touchdown with less than two minutes left to tie it up, and the Longhorns won it in overtime to improve to 6-2 on the season and 3-1 in conference play.
Y’all should know… don’t punt to @ryan_niblett 💨 pic.twitter.com/BMMGuLFZCI
— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) October 25, 2025
Multiple QBs go down
Arch Manning left the game early against Mississippi State. There’s no word on the specifics of the injury nor the severity of it. But, it did appear to be a head injury after a run during their opening possession in overtime.
Arch Manning gets his head RUNG on the first play of OT.
He’s in the medical tent and is OUT the rest of the game 🚨
pic.twitter.com/QM8dFhKt88— Kalshi CFB (@KalshiCFB) October 26, 2025
No team got worse news on Saturday than Missouri. A team that has gone relatively unharmed for most of the season injury wise, had their luck run out Saturday in Nashville. On a play near the goal line, quarterback Beau Pribula suffered an injury to his lower leg and was carted off the field in an aircast.
Losing a starting quarterback is always a difficult situation for any team, but the loss to Pribula means that Missouri’s first and second string signal callers are both out for the foreseeable future. Former blue chip recruit Matt Zollers finished the game, and the true freshman will likely be the Tigers’ starter the rest of the regular season.
Missouri starting QB Beau Pribula will miss at the very least the rest of the regular season due to an ankle injury he suffered today against Vanderbilt, sources tell @cbssports.
Set to undergo further testing tomorrow. Terrible development for Pribula and the No. 15 Tigers. pic.twitter.com/zkIle7Ejqs
— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) October 25, 2025
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