LSU football is on a three-game winning streak after dropping the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff to Florida State, 24-23. The Tigers have racked up wins over Southern, Mississippi State and now, New Mexico. They thrashed the visiting Lobos at the weekend, 38-0, behind a complete team performance in all three phases. Brian Kelly’s team is far from where it needs to be, but it’s also come a long way since the crushing Week 1 defeat.
The Bayou Bengals can only beat the opponents put in front of them, after all. While the two non-conference wins were nothing more than glorified practices for LSU, it gave the team a chance to perfect some of its plans for SEC play. The win over the Bulldogs has fans feeling good about the state of the program at this moment in time though.
The fact remains that the Tigers boast one of the nation’s top defenses at this moment in time. That ranking should only continue to rise this weekend as they travel to take on Auburn. Bryan Harsin’s squad boasts a terrible offense, so LSU should be sitting pretty at 4-1 this time next week. Nevertheless, there’s a reason games aren’t played on paper.
Where does LSU football sit in the SEC Week 4 power rankings?
Nothing can be taken for granted, especially in the Southeastern Conference. A majority of the SEC has played just one game against other conference opposition. However, it’s now where things start to get good. Intraconference play begins now and fans are about to really find out which teams are the contenders and which are the pretenders.
There are some schools (ex: No. 14-11) on this list that’re already undoubted frauds. The same goes for the teams at the top and being legitimate threats. What about the programs in the middle of the standings though? Time will tell, but for now, here is what we know about the SEC.
Let’s take a look at Death Valley Voice’s Week 4 SEC power rankings.
As Count von Count from Sesame Street would say, “one ah ah ah.” Last week, in this same article, I said the Commodores would go on to lose their next three games. This is not a bold prediction, nor is it something to celebrate. Rather, I’m just pointing out the fact that Vanderbilt’s 55-3 humiliation at the hands of Alabama is going to start a losing streak. The skid is just getting started in Nashville.
The Commodores are still the SEC’s worst team—frankly, it’s not close either.
The decision to slide Auburn down two spots to No. 13 in these power rankings might be the most unpopular one I will make throughout this whole piece. I’m going to stand by my beliefs though.
Harsin is a walking corpse on the Plains at the moment as the Auburn administration is just counting down the days until it can remove him from campus. The Tigers won at the weekend, but not because of anything positive that they did. No team who parades itself around as a decent one should even come close to losing to Missouri at home. It’s inexplicable, especially this year.
Auburn is a bad football team with an even worse offense. LSU fans are thanking the heavens that Harsin hasn’t already been given the boot as an interim coach would give the Tigers (blue and orange, not purple and gold) at least a shot to win this weekend. Honestly, it’s a miracle the head coach wasn’t relieved of his duties after the whole debacle last offseason.
Mizzou did Mizzou things last Saturday. Some would even go as far as to say they “Mizzoued” more than Auburn “Auburned.” The Tigers had a chance to walk it off at Jordan-Hare Stadium over the weekend. Any competent kicker in the country would have sent Missouri home with a 3-1 record—not one of the thicker variety though.
The Tigers inexplicably missed a 26-yard field goal and fumbled the ball on the goal line in overtime as they wound up losing an excruciatingly bad game of football. Nevertheless, they’ll get brownie points here for setting themselves up to beat Auburn.
Mizzou wins that game 99 times out of 100.
The 1-3 (now 1-4) visiting Charlotte 49ers gave South Carolina quite the scare for about a quarter and a half on Saturday. However, the Gamecocks regrouped after a heavy defeat to Georgia and took care of business in the 56-20 win.
Mississippi State bounced back nicely after a loss to LSU in Week 3. The Bulldogs wasted no time taking their emotions out on Bowling Green. Mike Leach’s men scored 31 points in the first half before letting up on the poor Falcons after the halftime talks.
Mississippi State would go on to win 45-14.
Starkvegas is set to be loud next weekend as the cowbells will come out in full force for the first SEC home game of the season. Texas A&M is coming to town and the Bulldogs will finally get a chance to correct the mistakes they made in the second half against the Tigers.
I feel bad not allowing Florida to jump up in the rankings after their performance at Neyland Stadium. The Gators hung around with Tennessee all game and they looked like a very good football team for most of that game. Unfortunately, they didn’t do enough to jump any of the teams above them.
If Billy Napier’s men start to figure it out, they can make some noise this season. Florida won’t be contending for a spot in the SEC Championship after already dropping games to SEC East foes Kentucky and Tennessee. Regardless, that doesn’t mean the Gators can’t play spoiler sometime down the line.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, Texas A&M was the luckiest team in the country last weekend. Jimbo Fisher’s squad showed some good heart to remain in the game down early. The Aggies don’t control the refereeing decisions, but they just seemed to get break after break after break.
Truth be told, the talent gap between No. 9 (Florida) and No. 6 (LSU) is about as thin as they come. Texas A&M just falls somewhere in the middle because it has yet to convince anybody in any game this season. The Aggies struggled for a while against Sam Houston State (FCS), they lost to Appalachian State, they edged out a win over a mediocre Miami squad and they caught some lucky breaks against Arkansas.
Let’s see how they perform against Mississippi State before we reevaluate their position in the rankings. The talent is there, but can Fisher get the best out of Texas A&M?
Similar to Missouri, Arkansas should have won their game last weekend. I’m not usually one to dwell on the ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’s in sports, but it’s hard to ignore the blatant officiating error on the scoop-and-score touchdown for the Aggies. If forward progress is correctly called, Arkansas likely holds on to win the game.
Even after the bad luck, the Razorbacks put themselves in a position to win before the most bizarre doink you’ll ever witness. Arkansas is going to need some serious help if it wants any chance of competing in the SEC West from here on out.
The Tigers took care of business once again, this time in blow-out fashion over New Mexico. LSU has looked excellent this season aside from the first half against a good Florida State squad. If they can improve to 4-1 with a convincing win over Auburn, people will likely start talking about how Brian Kelly’s rebuild is off to a fast start.
Fans need to temper their expectations though. LSU has a gauntlet to go through with the remainder of its schedule. The Tigers have what it takes to become a very formidable squad.
Unlike the three teams listed below it, it’s hard to imagine the Bayou Bengals elevating themselves into the SEC’s upper echelons this season. LSU has played the best amongst these teams this season. It just also has one of the lowest ceilings at this moment in time given the fact it’s Year 1 of Kelly’s rebuilding of the program.
On one hand, Kentucky is 4-0 heading into October. This is a huge positive for a Wildcats program looking to turn itself into one of the perennial powerhouses in the SEC East. On the other hand, Kentucky struggled to put away Northern Illinois at the weekend. This is the same Huskies team that was beaten by double digits by Vanderbilt at home. This is also the same Wildcats team that went into the Swamp and beat Florida by 10.
Kentucky cannot afford to take anything for granted right now. The Wildcats remain amongst the SEC’s top dogs at the moment, but they need to be careful going forward.
Similar to Kentucky, Ole Miss struggled against a non-conference opponent it should’ve easily taken care of by the time the fourth quarter rolled around. I praised the Rebels defense last week for giving up just 13 points through three games. How do they repay me for my generosity? You know, by giving up 27 points to Tulsa.
Ole Miss failed to score a single point in the second half, which should be incredibly worrying for fans as the Wildcats stroll into town this weekend. The Rebels have what it takes to be one of the best teams in the country under Lane Kiffin, they need to play with some consistency though if they want to come out of the SEC West relatively unscathed in a few weeks.
Tennessee squeaked out a win over Florida in the mid-day CBS featured game last Saturday. The Volunteers’ offense looks to be one of the best in the country so far. They’re only continuing to climb the polls, despite being a questionable defensive unit.
Tennessee now has a bye week to prepare for a trip to Baton Rouge before it takes on the Alabama Crimson Tide. The next two weeks could make or break the Volunteers’ season.
Alabama tossed aside Vanderbilt last weekend—as if anybody expected anything different. The Crimson Tide is still waiting to be tested this season by an SEC opponent. Texas gave Nick Saban and Co. all it could handle, but the Tide managed to escape Austin unharmed. The team from Tuscaloosa is on a collision course with the Georgia Bulldogs for the SEC title in a few months barring some upset losses.
Georgia is the biggest benefactor of the power rankings not allowing for a “1A” and “1B.” If so, the Bulldogs would have shared the top spot with the Crimson Tide. Kirby Smart’s crew looked less than convincing last weekend against a bad Kent State squad. Luckily for Georgia, it faces some of the SEC’s bottom dwellers before Florida and Tennessee face off against the Bulldogs.
Georgia will be just fine, it just can’t afford to have sluggish performances if it wants to fend off Alabama for the top spot in these power rankings or the real rankings.