MARLER: Championship Week SEC Power Rankings

By Chris Marler

In the blink of an eye, an entire 14-week regular season of college football passed us by. What a damn year. The 2024 SEC regular season was undoubtedly the wildest year this conference has seen in over a decade.

We had new teams, unfathomable upsets, and 14 weeks of incredible football. It sucks that it’s over, but there are still plenty of postseasons left for over half the league. This brings us to the end of the regular season power rankings.

Here are the parameters for this week’s rankings: who had the best year-long resumé, and most importantly, who are the best teams in the conference right now. Here we go.

1. South Carolina

It’s taken well over a month for most of the country to find out what we’ve known for a while, and that’s why South Carolina is legitimate. No one in the conference is playing better right now than the Gamecocks. They managed to get through the regular season with three wins over currently ranked teams in the CFP Rankings and did so in their last five games.

The defense has been one of the best in the country all season long, and LaNorris Sellers will be a Heisman frontrunner going into next season.

2. Georgia

I almost put Georgia at No. 3 this week behind Texas. However, let’s not forget what the Dawgs did to Texas on their home field back in October. Plus, I didn’t want Dan Jackson lowering the crown of his helmet into my sternum for targeting that would never be called as he did to Haynes King in the Georgia Tech game. Georgia is 10-2, and despite showing obvious flaws and not being on par with the standard of their last three seasons, they are still very dangerous.

3. Texas

I’ll admit I was probably a little too harsh on Texas over the last few weeks. They were given a joke of a schedule, and four of their seven wins were to backup quarterbacks. However, considering what they were walking into, what Texas did in College Station was very impressive. The defense is elite, and if Quinn Ewers can protect the football, they can make a run in the postseason.

4. Tennessee

Tennessee’s resumé isn’t as impressive as some other teams in the conference. Still, the Vols allowed only two teams to score over 20 points all season, and Nico Iamaleava has eight touchdowns and only one interception in the last two games. They’re slightly banged up but could be in line to host a playoff game.

5. Alabama

This is where the rankings get tricky: spots Nos. 5-8. I think Alabama and Ole Miss are the two best teams, but how do we reward Ole Miss by putting them ahead of LSU or Florida? Florida ended the season on a really impressive three-game winning streak, but I do think they’d lose to Alabama.

This season, Alabama is tough to judge because of how Jekyll & Hyde they’ve been all year. They have three losses, and at least one, if not two, are embarrassing losses. However, they also beat a Georgia team that may end up as conference champions and an outstanding South Carolina team.

6. Florida

I was admittedly nervous that Billy Napier would ruin all the positive momentum he built with an inexplicable loss to Florida State. There was no reason to ever believe in the Seminoles, but that would have been the most 2024-college-football-seasony thing to happen this 2024 college football season. Florida closes the year on a three-game winning streak, winning over two rivals.

7. LSU

LSU gets off the schneid with back-to-back wins over upset-minded Vanderbilt and Oklahoma. Garrett Nussmeier was incredible in the regular season finale in Death Valley. It was a disappointing season, but let me once again try to be the voice of reason for LSU fans.

This team lost an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator, lost a Heisman trophy quarterback, lost two first-round draft picks at wide receiver, made five coaching changes on defense, and God knows what else—the expectation to win double-digit games and make the CFP may have needed to be revised.

Some key pieces may end up elsewhere or in the NFL next season, but if Nussmeier comes back, this team will compete for a spot in the playoffs. Take the chip on your shoulder from this year and get after it all offseason.

8. Ole Miss

Ole Miss ends the season 9-3 and hands down the most disappointing season of any team in the conference. The Rebels came into the season with a 58.3 percent chance and -130 odds to make the Playoff. They end the season on the outside looking in. I know they beat the brakes off South Carolina, and that’s great, but they also lost to a 4-8 Kentucky team at home. Neither South Carolina nor Alabama lost to an unranked team.

9. Missouri

Another team with College Football Playoff hopes and expectations going into the season. Missouri’s season may be disappointing to some, but you have to wonder what this team would’ve been without any injuries to senior quarterback Brady Cook. Missouri ended the year 9-3 with a come-from-behind win over Arkansas. Now the fun begins for Eli Drinkwitz, who has to find a replacement for a quarterback who started nearly 40 games and is the most talented wide receiver ever to come through the program.

10. Texas A&M

Like my boss, I will never understand why coaches seem to loathe taking points in pivotal moments of football games. I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference, considering how good Texas was against the Aggies all night. But going for it on 4th and 1 instead of making it a one-score game on the goal line will haunt Mike Elko and Aggie fans all offseason.

Regardless, Mike Elko’s first year in College Station was phenomenal, and the program is surely only headed up from here on out.

Bottom Six

11. Oklahoma
12. Vanderbilt
13. Auburn
14. Arkansas
15. Kentucky
16. Mississippi State