Auburn plummets to the bottom as QB (and coaching) woes continue: SEC vibes rankings
Perhaps the red flag of the Hugh Freeze hire at Auburn came last year when he was trying to make a point about patience by claiming that it took Kirby Smart until his third or fourth year at Georgia to make the national championship game.
It was Smart's second year, someone replied. Freeze, perhaps because he was a bit distracted in 2017, couldn't believe it.
"I don't know that that's accurate," Freeze said.
It was accurate, and while situations are very different — Smart inherited a better program — let's check in on how things are going for Freeze in his second year at Auburn :
He just lost at home to Arkansas in a compellingly bad football game, two weeks after losing at home to Cal. He doesn't have a good quarterback. And the quarterback who started for him from 2012 through 2014 at Ole Miss , Bo Wallace, spent Saturday night ripping Freeze on social media for how he treats his quarterbacks and how "it was always someone else's fault."
When Auburn looked past Freeze's baggage and made the deal to hire him, surely it thought it would at least get a winning program out of it. Maybe eventually it will. But right now, how's it looking?
A reminder that these are not a pure ranking of how good each team is, but the feelings around each program, taking into account wins and losses, expectations, momentum and just ... the vibes.
Spoiler alert: We have a new last-place team.
The final score was deceiving and at the same time telling: As good as Nico Iamaleava and the offense are, Tennessee doesn't have to win shootouts because James Pearce Jr. and the defense are also good. Tennessee looks very much like a College Football Playoff team . The Vols will be favored in all but two of their remaining games, Alabama at home and at Georgia, and could be favored against Alabama. Split one of those two, don't lose one of the others, and they're 11-1, perhaps in the SEC Championship Game but certainly dancing. (Are we saying that for this tournament? Probably not. But whatever.)
The Longhorns jumped into the top spot last week — here and, for those who care about such things, in the Associated Press poll — but cede the No. 1 ranking to Tennessee here after the Vols' dominant win over Texas' rival. But, really, the two could be flip-flopped because the vibes are great with both. Texas was even helped by a game it didn't play in: Michigan 's win over USC . (Let's see if we can talk about Texas and not mention the backup quarterback. Well, he started this week and may start next week against Mississippi State . Anyway, he's famous, look it up.)
The opponents haven't been great, but the Rebels just keep steamrolling teams. Even with SEC play finally starting this week, the steamrolling may continue — Kentucky , at South Carolina, maybe even at LSU — given Ole Miss' defensive spending this offseason.
Ah, here we are. The first huge conference matchup of the new SEC era, between ... well, two teams that have played each other in two national championship games and four SEC title games. Still, these teams have played each other only twice in the regular season since 2008, so this is a reminder that the end of divisions and the new SEC scheduling format are good things. Or at least we think they are. We'll ask Smart and Kalen Deboer what they think about it after they've played this game and still have to play a bunch of other top-10 opponents.
Georgia, fresh off a one-point win at Kentucky, has been installed as a slight road favorite — both by books and by some bettors putting early money on the Bulldogs — against a team Georgia lost to in December and has beaten just once since 2008. You may say this is a great early indication for Georgia. I may answer that by saying nine years ago I spoke to oddsmakers who were big on Georgia beating Alabama in a regular-season showdown, then Georgia got clobbered. You may say that was Nick Saban vs. Mark Richt. I may say ... (my editor
Win your clunkers. Win your clunkers. Win your clunkers. Win your ...
OK, the problem is Missouri has won two consecutive one-possession games at home. You get only so many of these until it just becomes a sign of a team not being as good as it was supposed to be.
OK, so Vanderbilt lost in painful fashion. Nothing to add there. But looking at Clark Lea in overtime, it was notable that he always seems to have the same facial expression: stoic, expressionless. That goes for media interactions too. And maybe it's working. The way things are trending for this program — up, clearly — it may be that Lea's steady approach is paying off. He may not be exciting, but maybe he knows what he's doing?
This looked like a very worrisome score until you realize Bowling Green also kept it close at Penn State a few weeks ago. Between that, Marcel Reed looking exciting and Mike Elko still having that new coach smell, the Aggies' vibes are just fine. Not great, but fine.
The Gamecocks are off next week, then here are their next six games: Ole Miss, at Alabama, at Oklahoma, Texas A&M, at Vanderbilt (not a gimme this year) and Missouri. Yeah, time to spend the off week getting some more Beamer Ball specials ready.
After doing what they should have, the Wildcats get the privilege of seeing if they can look as good against one very good team (Ole Miss) as they did in nearly knocking off another (Georgia). The big difference is that this one will not be at home, but two years ago, Kentucky went into Oxford and lost by only three points. This Ole Miss team is better than that one. That Kentucky team finished 7-6, and we're still waiting to see if this Wildcats team is better.
OK, so it was ugly and helped by turnovers and overall Auburn ineptitude. Nevertheless, Arkansas stands 3-1 with the one loss on the road against a ranked team in overtime. Sam Pittman is off to a good start in keeping the wolves at bay. But this next stretch — Texas A&M in Dallas and then Tennessee and LSU in Fayetteville — is critical. One win out of those is vital. Two would take even more of the pressure off. The vibes are definitely better in Fayetteville but still on a stay-tuned basis.
Another less-than-impressive win. Tied at halftime with a three-touchdown underdog. UCLA entered the game ranked 124th nationally in total offense (290.5 yards per game) and 125th in scoring (14.5 points per game) but had 206 yards and 17 points in the first half.
The record and the name on the jersey say this team is still in the CFP hunt. The eyeballs say it will not be for much longer.
After Lincoln Riley absconded for USC, it's easy to understand why Oklahoma went with a defensive-minded coach, hoping to achieve a balance that would lead to championships. The danger, of course, is going too far backward in the area you were good at, and clearly that has happened. You could tell early on that Oklahoma's defense would make it seem close for a while, but the Sooners just didn't have the offense to keep up with Tennessee.
Brent Venables has put his defensive imprint on the program. But OU will not compete at a high level in the SEC until this offense can move the ball much better.
This result did not change the fundamentals of the situation. It did show, well, that there's some life in the Gators, that they haven't packed it in despite the noise about the seemingly inevitable. Maybe it says something about Billy Napier, his staff and his players. Or maybe it just says something about the team they beat. Either way, let's push the vibes up in Gainesville because while change may be inevitable — and change is exciting — the present isn't one to write off just yet.
Mississippi State could have flown under the radar as a bad team this year, forgiven for having a new coach, one most fans couldn't name even if spotted the Jeff and the L. But then in back-to-back weeks the Bulldogs: a) were routed by Toledo and b) had Florida and all its bad vibes come to town and made the Gators look like a competent team. Now everyone sees this Mississippi State team, which is a long way from the days of Dan Mullen and Mike Leach, with the current coach — Jeff Lebby, by the way — not having shown much reason for hope yet.
Maybe this was just going to be a bigger rebuild than expected after the Bryan Harsin debacle. But consider this and whether it makes you feel optimistic:
Your next four games are Oklahoma at home and then at Georgia, Missouri and Kentucky. You appear to not have a good quarterback, but your defense isn't perfect either. On Arkansas' go-ahead touchdown drive, the Hogs converted on third-and-13, third-and-10 and third-and-19.
Yeah, things aren't pretty on the Plains these days. Welcome to the vibes basement.
(Photo of Hugh Freeze: Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
