Week Eleven SEC Power Poll Ballot: Home is Where the W Is

The Commodores are playing over the heads, and Miss State has a brutal schedule. The only team they’ve lost to that they should have beat is Auburn, and they were literally inches away from taking that game. I expect them to limp to 6-6 and pound someone in a bowl once again.

I think you have to grade Tennessee and Florida on a curve. The Vols weren’t very good to start with, they’ve been hit hard by injuries, and they have an anchor around their neck in Little Dooley. Florida has a broken offense (and would have had the same had Meyer returned), and an unproven and inexperienced head coach. I don’t think they’ve quit either. They just aren’t very good.

Just to make sure we remind them in CST.

Heck, let’s have someone from each timezone chime it at 6:15!

As Alan Jackson once said, and I’m paraphrasing, it’s 6:15 O’Clock Somewhere!

. . . and I’ll tell you what I told him: LSU is the consensus No. 1 team in the nation for a very good reason, and the Tigers deservedly would be favored against any opponent in any game. The smart money would have to be on Louisiana State.

However, Georgia appears to be peaking, and these two defenses are ranked second (LSU) and fourth (Georgia) in the land in total defense. The Bayou Bengals’ defense is better than the Bulldogs’, but only by a little, and Georgia’s offense is better than LSU’s.

It is not unreasonable to believe a team that beat Auburn, 45-7, has at least a halfway decent shot at beating a team that beat Auburn, 45-10. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time there was an upset in the SEC Championship Game involving LSU . . . or even the first time there was an upset in the SEC Championship Game involving LSU and Georgia.

In short, the Tigers would probably win, but it wouldn’t be a shock if the Bulldogs pulled off the upset, even though it would be a surprise.

. . . for all your hard work on the anagram! :)

Sure, we’re above SCAR mostly because we actually control our destiny in the SEC East (and aren’t riddled with injuries). Something has to be said for Arkansas having only one loss right now to the #3 team in the land.

Since this is a power poll, though, and, therefore, is at least partly dependent upon projections of what might happen in the future (in addition, obviously, to what has happened in the past), I had to give weight to the totality of the Hogs’ dismantling of the Vols, a team the ’Dawgs beat by eight points.

That said, if the Arkansas team that obliterated Tennessee faced the Georgia team that annihilated Auburn, it’d be a heck of a ballgame. The Arkansas team that struggled with Vanderbilt against the Georgia team that struggled with Vanderbilt? Maybe not so much.

I forget during which game it occurred, but Todd Grantham was lip-read on the sideline exhorting his players, “Knock their mothers and fathers down!” Of course, I was lip-reading, so those may not have been his exact words.