LSU football has consistently been regarded as one of the SEC’s worst teams since its letdown of a 2020 season. The Tigers have posted their worst records of the 2000s over the last two years, which led to a head coaching change. Brian Kelly is no miracle worker though. Even after the Notre Dame legend arrived in Baton Rouge, many saw the Bayou Bengals as nothing more than a rebuilding team. Thus, they were picked to be one of the SEC’s bottom dwellers once again.
After just three games, nobody’s really sure what to think of Kelly’s squad just yet. LSU lost a close game to Florida State on the opening weekend of the season. The Tigers followed up that sub-par performance with a dominating win over FCS neighbor, Southern. The true measure of how far the purple and gold had come over the last couple of months came over the weekend when Mississippi State came over to the Louisiana capital.
Where does LSU football sit in the SEC Week 3 power rankings?
LSU made a statement to the rest of the Southeastern Conference in its opening game of SEC play. While the Tigers may not be competing with the likes of Alabama and Georgia this season, that doesn’t mean they can’t compete with the best of the rest.
Kelly’s team thrashed a squad that many believed could be amongst the SEC West’s best this season in Mississippi State. LSU sent the Bulldogs home packing with a 31-16 loss added to their resume. It was a complete performance from the Tigers—especially Defensive Coordinator Matt House’s defense—as they dispatched one of the country’s top offenses.
A 1-0 start in conference play is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Bayou Bengals. However, the larger question still looms: where does LSU rank regarding its fellow SEC foes?
Let’s take a look at Death Valley Voice’s Week 3 SEC power rankings.
This is not your dad’s Vanderbilt team. The Commodores have started the season off hot, coming out the gates with a 3-1 record. However, that doesn’t mean Vanderbilt is necessarily a good football team. The Commodores have picked up wins over Hawaii, Elon and Northern Illinois with a lone loss to a ranked team in Wake Forest.
In a few weeks, we’ll be talking about 3-4 Vanderbilt after it inevitably loses to Alabama, Ole Miss and Georgia. The real tests as to how far the Commodores have come this season come against Missouri and South Carolina at the end of October and the beginning of November.
Similar to Vanderbilt, Missouri sits at the bottom of the SEC with a winning record. The Tigers have a couple of wins to their name, but they haven’t necessarily been entirely convincing. Mizzou also looked horrendous in its only loss of the year to Kansas State. There was a lot of buzz around Columbia before the season, it now seems as if that was all for nothing.
Speaking of teams that had a lot of unjustified preseason hype: South Carolina comes in at No. 12 on this list. Shane Beamer is an exciting coach and I believe he’ll turn the Gamecocks around at some point. That time is not this season though.
Spencer Rattler was supposed to reinvigorate a South Carolina program that has failed to win eight games in half a decade. The Oklahoma transfer has been a huge let down though. Nobody is going to blame the Gamecocks for their performance against Georgia—the Dawgs are on another level right now—but Rattler needs to be held to a higher standard.
South Carolina probably has the highest upside of any team in the SEC’s bottom four. Luckily, Beamer and his men will have a couple of cupcake opponents in Charlotte and South Carolina State before a match-up with a Top 10 team in Kentucky.
There’s no sugarcoating it at this point, Auburn is a bad football team. A week after struggling against San Jose State, the Tigers were embarrassed in front of a ruckus crowd at Jordan-Hare Stadium by Penn State. Bo Nix leaving the program somehow seems to have hurt the team more than it helped. T.J. Finley has struggled to get anything going on offense.
If Bryan Harsin doesn’t make some changes soon, it’ll be his head rolling when Auburn inevitably doesn’t turn things around. Things don’t get any easier from here.
Mike Leach’s team can hang with the best of them when it’s playing flawless football. The problem is that it likely won’t happen often. Mississippi State’s defense is not as good as previously advertised. Furthermore, the Bulldogs’ offense showed that it can be contained against LSU in last weekend’s 31-16 loss.
The Tigers aren’t the best defense that Mississippi State will face this season, so the question now becomes “how will Will Rogers and Co. respond to adversity?” Alabama and Georgia will probably prove to be too much down the road. There are opportunities for wins against Arkansas, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Texas A&M on the schedule. The Bulldogs will have to play lights out if they want to win those games, it’s not an impossible task for a talented team though.
It was very hard not to place Florida at No. 10 in all honesty. The Gators’ narrow win over a ranked Utah team in Week 1 saves their resume for now though. A loss to Kentucky and a close call against South Florida aren’t exactly how Billy Napier wanted to start his tenure in Gainesville.
It’s been a mixed bag for Florida up to this point in the season. College football fans are going to see what the Gators are made of when they take on Tennessee with College Gameday in attendance this weekend. All of the blunders of the past two games can be overlooked if Florida leaves Knoxville a 3-1 team.
Texas A&M has been the SEC’s most disappointing team this season. The Aggies and their “No. 1 recruiting class in history” had National Championship aspirations to begin the year. Now? They’re struggling for large parts of the game against Sam Houston State, losing to Appalachian State at home and scraping by an overrated Miami team.
The early loss to the Mountaineers will put a huge dent in Jimbo Fisher’s team’s College Football Playoff resume early. Luckily, the SEC provides programs with a chance at redemption week in and week out. Texas A&M will need to improve offensively if it wants to continue to climb this list.
LSU continues to bounce back from a Week 1 loss to Florida State. The Tigers put on a defensive clinic against the air raid offense of Mississippi State last weekend to start SEC play off on the right foot. Jayden Daniels can still take strides to improve. If he does continue to find his footing consistently, the Bayou Bengals can be a dangerous squad with all the weapons that they have on both sides of the ball.
A one-point defeat to the Seminoles (3-0) isn’t looking so bad after LSU comfortably dispatched the Bulldogs, who were favorited inside Death Valley.
Arkansas is an anomaly. The Razorbacks are supposed to be improving in Sam Pittman’s third year in charge. However, it seems as if they’re taking a step backward after two consecutive close calls against South Carolina and Missouri State. Perhaps Arkansas was looking ahead to Texas A&M and Alabama (who could blame it for that?), which would explain the lackluster outings recently. The Razorbacks need to win four of their next five if they’re to be viewed as a serious contender for a New Year’s Six bowl game.
Arkansas has had a couple of close calls in recent weeks, which hugely benefits Ole Miss. The Rebels slide into the top five of Week 3’s SEC power rankings after shutting out Georgia Tech in Atlanta over the weekend.
There is going to be a lot of talk about the dynamic offense of any Lane Kiffin-coached team. Rightfully so too; Ole Miss has scored a whopping 129 points in three games. Equally as impressive is the fact that the Rebels have allowed just 13 points in that span. Ole Miss looks like one of the conference’s most complete teams thus far, although they have yet to be truly tested. The next couple of weeks will reveal a lot about the Rebels.
Has Josh Heupel returned Tennessee to its glory days? That much remains to be seen, but the Volunteers are flying high after starting the season 3-0. Tennessee has scored 156 points through three games. If the Volunteers can keep the ball rolling over the next three weeks, they will continue to climb the SEC rankings.
We’ll find out whether or not Heupel’s team is legitimate over the next three weeks. Tennessee may have the toughest three-game stretch in the country coming up with Florida at home, a trip to Baton Rouge and Alabama at home. The Volunteers have numerous chances to make a real statement in the SEC, and perhaps jump their neighbors.
Contrary to popular belief, these are not basketball rankings. John Calipari must be fuming with the way Mark Stoops’ squad has started the season. One of Kentucky’s toughest annual tests in Florida is already out of the way and the Wildcats have emerged unscathed.
Kentucky will be heading into the thick of the SEC schedule with all of the confidence in the world after starting the season 4-0. Georgia is still in the picture, so the Wildcats aren’t the favorites in the SEC East. That being said, Kentucky is slowly improving and becoming one of the best programs in the conference. No. 3 is likely the Wildcats’ ceiling in these rankings though.
Alabama is still one of the best teams in the country, despite coming in at No. 2 on this list. The Crimson Tide can hang with any team in the country as they proved against Texas. Alabama would have to do a lot—and get some additional help, likely from the SEC East—in order to jump the Bulldogs for the top spot in the SEC power rankings.
This ranking needs no justification. Georgia is far and away the best team in the country, nobody looks capable of even slowing down the Bulldogs at this rate.