The slate was incredible. The results, at least for the Southeastern Conference, were not. Fans, pundits, and analysts spend nine months every offseason talking themselves into what they want to believe about the upcoming season. For some, Week 1 delivered quite a bit of confirmation bias, but as we often learn from week to week college football is unpredictable. Beliefs that we knew were concrete truths a week ago can be fractured and shaken in just seven days.
That was the theme for Week 2 in the SEC.
What’s the return policy for Oklahoma and Texas?
The last two weeks featured a lot of talk about kicking LSU out of the league. A lot of fans have said the same about Vanderbilt and Missouri over the last decade or so too. But, maybe it’s time to check the kitchen drawer or our jean pockets for the receipt from purchasing Texas and Oklahoma.
These two blue bloods came into the conference with a ton of hype, and to an extent they’ve each had a lot of success in their infancy stages of league membership. However, Saturday was a reminder to everyone that these two blue bloods are not the same programs of old. Time after time each has fallen flat on their face on the biggest stages. That was especially the case Saturday with both teams losing in marquee games against the two biggest blue bloods of the hated Big Ten.
Oklahoma went to Ann Arbor to play a Michigan team that needed a gift from God, and the Big Ten officials, to beat Western Michigan by one point a week ago. Fast forward a week, and the Sooners made Michigan look like Connor Stalions and Tom Brady were on the sidelines for the Wolverines. Oklahoma looked completely inept offensively, and the notion that quarterback John Mateer’s biceps somehow made him a legitimate Heisman contender were erased almost immediately by Kyle Wittingham’s defense.
Texas took on Ohio State in primetime, and the Longhorns were dominated worse than the grey hairs facing a bottle of Just for Men in Ryan Day’s beard. The Longhorns story has been the same for three years now. Preseason hype and top five rankings, a potential No. 1 draft pick at quarterback, and then the moment the lights get bright and they face a top five team, they crumble. Outside of Joe Biden during that presidential debate in 2024, no one has looked worse on a national stage over the last three years than Texas.
You won’t find most SEC fans cheering for their rivals against other conferences just for the sake of conference pride. The chest beating and postseason S-E-C! chants are fun and all, but most fans in this conference don’t care about the success of any team but their own. That doesn’t make the Oklahoma and Texas losses less embarrassing or impactful for the conference though. It’s not that they lost to two premiere programs. It’s that they lost to the two loudest and obnoxious fan bases and programs in the country.
Besides their own. Hell, even Missouri has beaten Ohio State in the last four years, and they didn’t have anything close to the $50 million roster that Steve Sarkisian was gifted.
LSU looking ahead?
Last week LSU looked like the best team in America. Months of anticipation that continued to build steam almost exponentially during the final weeks of the offseason, culminated with a 51-10 dismantling of Clemson. All the pain and frustration of Joe Sloan and Brian Kelly’s offenses disappeared after Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr’s clinic they put on in Week 1.
This week’s game against Louisiana Tech tried to replicate the same feel before kickoff. Lil Wayne and Boosie escorted the team down Victory Hill, and Kiffin broke out the purple jerseys. However, despite the stat sheet looking impressive, the first half finished with LSU leading just 10-7. Not exactly the same vibes for a team that looked like a national title contender just seven days ago.
Good. Let the overreactions pour in. The lack of offensive fireworks and points on the scoreboard will get most of the headlines for people preying on Kiffin and the Tigers’ downfall. And, way down at the bottom in the fine print they might mention that for the second week in a row defensive coordinator Blake Baker scared the bejeezus out of the opposing offense. Through three quarters LSU held Louisiana Tech to 13 yards on 54 plays including miunus-20 yards rushing on 21 attempts.
Next week can’t get here soon enough. And, now Kiffin can remind his team that the week’s worth of praise they were given after the Clemson game was actually rat poison.
3 Things we aren’t talking enough about…
1. Georgia
That seems insane considering they’ve won three of the last four SEC Championships and are currently ranked in the top five. But, somehow head coach Kirby Smart’s bunch has gone largely unnoticed through two weeks of the season. That may be because of the competition they’ve played, but if you want to sleep on the Bulldogs because “they haven’t played anybody” do it at your own risk.
We’ve seen this story before, and it doesn’t usually end well for anyone not wearing red, black, and silver britches. The Bulldogs have outscored their opponents by 110 points in the first two games of this season. They’ve outgained their opponents by 819 yards. Gunner Stockton twice as many touchdowns (8) as he does incompletions (4).
2. Mississippi State
Not just Kamario Taylor, but Mississippi State as a whole. We should talk more about Taylor, too because he’s showing more and more that he’s not just a good quarterback on a bad team. He’s a really good quarterback on a really underrated team people continue to overlook. The Bulldogs went to Minnesota to face a Power Four non-conference opponent on Saturday. The betting line fluctuated between 1.5 on both sides all week long. It closed in favor of the Bulldogs by a single point.
Ha.
Mississippi State trounced Minnesota from the opening whistle scoring on their first four drives and taking a 28-6 lead to halftime. The offensive trio of Anthony Evans, Taylor, and running back Fluff Bothwell put up video-game numbers once again, but the real story was Zac Arnett’s defense. The Bulldogs held Minnesota to 13 yards rushing on 15 carries, and stifled the Gophers all day. Minnesota’s offense had nine possessions, and seven of those ended in a punt or turnover on downs. The only touchdown State surrendered was after a fumble in the endzone that Minnesota recovered for a touchdown.
3. Alabama’s Defense
Alabama has a lot of concerns, but most of those are on the offensive side of the ball. They did everything a team on the road with a first-year starter at quarterback shouldn’t do in the first 30 minutes at Kentucky. Ryan Grubb, the offensive coordinator, routinely put his quarterback in bad situations, and refused to grasp the concept that his defense was good enough to win a football game if you just give them a chance.
That means not having turnovers, negative plays, and countless procedure penalties.
Alabama played about as bad of a first half as they could have and they still won by 28. That was thanks to a defense that held the Wildcats to 2.38 yards per play, 0.17 rush yards per attempt, and zero third down conversions in the second half. In fact, they held Kentucky to 1-of-14 on third downs all game, and that’s the only conversion they’ve allowed this season (of 23 total). The secondary for Alabama was supposed to be the strength of the unit after returning every key piece from last season. The front seven however, was the opposite losing six of seven starters. Still, this unit has been one of the most dominant in the country through two games, and should be a huge help in bringing along Keelon Rusell until he finds his footing as a starter in this league.
