With Mississippi State’s win over Kentucky, Alabama’s win over Tennessee and Auburn’s win over South Carolina, the SEC West is now 32-1 against teams outside of the SEC West, with the only loss when the division’s worst team, Arkansas, lost to the SEC East’s best team, Georgia.
Take that in for a moment.
Try to poke holes all you want, but we’re about to head into November and the division has just one loss outside of its own seven teams mini-league.
The rankings that don’t matter – the AP and USA Today – have taken notice with three West teams – Mississippi State, Alabama and Auburn – all in the top four, and if they were being forced to bet their kids’ juice money, every single voter would take No. 7 Ole Miss in the AP – No. 9 in the USA Today – over Oregon, Notre Dame and Michigan State on a neutral field tomorrow.
Ole Miss still controls its own destiny – it’ll win the SEC title and go to the playoff if it wins out – but can anyone survive in this division? Mississippi State still has to go to Alabama and Ole Miss, and now LSU is back in the picture despite losses to Auburn and Mississippi State, meaning, in theory, this could be one of the five best teams in America.
What’s wrong with Texas A&M? Losses to Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Alabama. What about poor Arkansas? Its four losses came to Georgia, Texas A&M, Alabama and Auburn – no shame there.
Auburn and Mississippi State might have been a bit shaky in their wins, and it took a little bit for Alabama to put away Tennessee, but an SEC win is still an SEC win, and after this weekend, it’s still the SEC West’s world and we’re all just paying taxes.