Nick Saban is embarrassed for the rest of you, SEC. Photo by Adam Hagy—USA Today Sports
The first week of the college football season is always supposed to be a showcase for conferences to show their strength. Usually, that means the SEC just beats up on everyone else. Last year, for example, the SEC went 12-1 on opening weekend, with wins over North Carolina, Wisconsin, Louisville, and Arizona State among others.But this year, the mighty SEC looked very, very beatable. The league lost a whopping six games on opening weekend for the first time since 1995, and it still has one very losable game to play, as Ole Miss meets Florida State on Monday.Wins and losses can be flukey, but virtually every SEC team—minus Alabama—showed major flaws.
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- Auburn, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, LSU, Mississippi State, and Missouri all lost. Kentucky, LSU, and Mississippi State's losses were all fairly big upsets.
- Tennessee needed overtime—and an enormously lucky fumble recovery—to beat Appalachian State.
- Florida was pushed by UMass well into the second half, leading just 10-7 at halftime.
- Arkansas needed a late touchdown to rally to beat Louisiana Tech by one.
- South Carolina's offense looked awful against Vanderbilt.
- Texas A&M and Georgia both had good resume-building wins, but the Aggies needed overtime to beat a very lukewarm UCLA team, and the Bulldogs showed that they'll be very reliant on their star running back Nick Chubb in order for the offense to maintain efficiency.