It’s time for our weekly stock report from the SEC. Who saw their stock soar who needs to sell their shares after Week 1 in the SEC? Let’s take a look.
Stock Down: Auburn
Maybe this is a glass half empty, to be honest.
Auburn is 1-0, and that’s what matters. They were also one final drive away from covering the 6.5-point spread, and one yard away from starting 0-1 after a brutal blown lead.
Auburn still has one of the most manageable schedules in the Southeastern Conference, so eight wins doesn’t feel far-fetched. At least, it didn’t in the preseason.
After watching Byrum Brown against Baylor, it’s hard to feel super high on the Tigers getting to eight wins, but that’s not the end of the world. The baseline of success for this season was always to get to a bowl game.
Auburn hasn’t finished with a winning record in the last five seasons, and getting above .500, and playing postseason, would be a great step forward. Still, it’s hard to feel super confident in them winning some of the coin-flip games that are on their schedule after watching teams like Florida annihilate teams on opening weekend.
Stock Up: Auburn Jesus
Don’t laugh. ‘Auburn Jesus’ is a very real thing. And, he was back in action in Atlanta this weekend.
Case in point? Auburn lined up with 12 men on the field during Baylor’s two-point conversion to try and win the game. Then, Baylor’s head coach Dave Aranda called a timeout.
Coincidence? Probably. But, let’s call it the return of Auburn Jesus who Auburn fans have desperately missed since heathens like when former head coaces Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze patrolled the sidelines.
Stock Up: New faces
The new faces at coordinator, quarterback, head coach and from the transfer portal all seemed to have really good opening weeks in the SEC.
There were a ton of question marks at quarterback around the league, and the new guys proved themselves and then some. Nearly every starter in the league accounted for three touchdowns or more and several had upwards of 300 andm 400 yards of offense.
It’s hard to say which performance was most impressive, but as a whole the starting quarterbacks around the league combined for 47 touchdowns and just eight interceptions.
Stock Down: SEC Haters
The SEC went 16-0 in Week 1. Not only that, but they won 12 games by an average of 37.6 points per game.
They were not only the only Power Four conference to finish undefeated on opening weekend, but they were the only conference in FBS to do so, as well.
There were two squeakers against Power Four competition with Auburn and Ole Miss beating Baylor and Louisville, respectively, by just four combined points.
However, nothing in the SEC came close to the embarrassment we saw in the Big Ten. Michigan was essentially gifted an undeserved win over Western Michigan, then its fans rushed the field to celebrate a 13-12 victory. Yikes.
Stock Up: Week 2
As much fun as Week 1 was in the SEC, the Week 2 slate is one of the best of the entire season.
There are marquee matchups between four blue bloods with Oklahoma heading to Michigan and Texas hosting Ohio State. There are also two very sneaky good games with Alabama facing an upstart Kentucky team on the road, and Minnesota hosting Kamario Taylor and Mississippi State.
The optics of the conference may be impacted way more by the last two games than the first two next Saturday.
