Lane Kiffin wasn’t ready to talk about his own game yet. The Mississippi coach fixated instead on the final moments of Vanderbilt’s stunning upset of then-No. 1 Alabama.
“Sorry, I mean this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing going on,” Kiffin told reporters after the Rebels’ win over South Carolina. “Better watch, you’re probably not ever going to see this again.”
The Southeastern Conference’s biggest shakeups haven’t come courtesy of newcomers Oklahoma and Texas so far, but from more unlikely culprits.
Think Kentucky over Mississippi, Arkansas over Tennessee, Texas A&M over Missouri. And the ultimate shocker: Vanderbilt toppling the mighty Crimson Tide for the first time in 40 years. Three Top 10 SEC teams fell last weekend, two of them to unranked league brethren, and the Rebels had lost to Kentucky a week earlier.
Arkansas and Vandy took down SEC powers, and their fans stormed the field. Chances are, both schools will deem the six-figure fines from the league worth it.
All these upsets — coupled with the seventh-ranked Tide’s win over No. 5 Georgia — have left Texas sitting pretty at No. 1 heading into Saturday’s Red River Rivalry with fellow Big 12 defector No. 18 Oklahoma. Pretty, but hardly comfortably given how things have been going in the SEC.
The Longhorns are already the only unbeaten SEC team, winning their lone league game — as has LSU (4-1 overall).
No. 15 Texas A&M is 3-0 in the SEC, including that 41-10 romp over then-No. 9 Missouri. Everyone else has at least one league loss.
Aggies running back Le’Veon Moss isn’t shying away from talk that based on the standings, at least, they’re the current front-runners.
“You can say that,” Moss said, “but there’s plenty more to come.”
That’s true of SEC play in general since all this has happened before it’s even mid-October.
The SEC just means more … upsets?
Any time there are upsets, coaches can polish off the well-worn cliches about not overlooking anybody and tout the strength of the SEC. Or talk about the impact of the transfer portal as the ultimate quick fix.
All could be valid explanations taken on a case-by-case basis. After all, look at Vandy’s transfer quarterback Diego Pavia taking it to Alabama’s defense. Arkansas shutting down Tennessee’s high-powered offense. The Aggies racing to a 24-0 halftime lead over Missouri.
“It’s too easy to kind of just have a sweeping generalization of what happened this weekend,” said LSU coach Brian Kelly, whose 13th-ranked Tigers host No. 9 Ole Miss on Saturday. “But I will say this, that each weekend is a different weekend in college football and doing it for as long as I have done it, I come at it each week with that vision of: You can’t assume anything when you’re dealing with young men that can be easily distracted today.”
Kelly also cites “the investment in college football across the board” as another factor.
Parity, anyone? Maybe, but Alabama’s loss was pretty good timing for Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian, who opines that “anybody can beat anybody” in the SEC and “you have to prepare every week like it’s a championship game every Saturday.”
Now, he can just point to the recent outcomes to make that case to his team.
“The value for me was being able to reinforce a lot of the things we’ve been talking about as a team,” Sarkisian said. “And anytime you have living examples for young people especially, I think it’s helpful that they can see and understand why our messaging is what it is.”
The season approaches its midpoint with few things certain, including how many SEC teams could wind up in the playoffs. Five remain in the Top 10 even with the upsets.
The early outcomes mean teams like Alabama and Georgia seem less like sure things, though they’re still likely playoff bets.
Now, the Longhorns need to avoid overlooking Oklahoma for Georgia or Georgia for the giant-killing Commodores. Vandy is 3-2 with wins over Virginia Tech and Alabama.
“This climb only gets more challenging because we’re not going to sneak up on anybody anymore,” Commodores coach Clark Lea said.
It all makes the rest of the regular season worth watching.
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AP Sports Writers Pete Iacobelli, Teresa Walker, Mark Long, Jim Vertuno, Brett Martel and Kristie Rieken contributed to this report.
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