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Because I asked Juco for help with this and he didn't respond, I'm going to ask y'all for some ideas as to how to rank the Southeastern Conference's football teams after just one week of college football. At this point of the season, so many things are way too early to call or discern. Some teams look uncharacteristically good in their first week of ball, while others look uncharacteristically bad. Furthermore, judging teams while trying to consider who they have played has the same exact pitfalls as judging teams more superficially, namely that we can't know how good or bad their opponents really are until they've played more than one team.
That said, for my first SBNation SEC Power Poll ballot of 2014, I'm going to do my best to do just that while fully understanding that, this week, things are going to look a bit wonky. I don't think a power poll's exercise should be to determine who the best/worst teams are or where everyone will finish the season, but rather it is to determine which teams are more "powerful." No, there isn't a set definition for that, but in football I think it's reasonable to say a "powerful" team is one that has demonstrated the ability to win against what we can only presume is good competition.
Using that as my guideline, here are the SEC teams as I see them, ranked 1-14, after one hardly revealing week of football:
- Texas A&M
- Georgia
- LSU
- Auburn
- Alabama
- Ole Miss
- Tennessee
- Mississippi State
- Missouri
- Kentucky
- Florida
- South Carolina
- Arkansas
- Vanderbilt
"Hey! That's crazy! Alabama isn't the fifth best team in the SEC! And South Carolina certainly isn't that bad! And everything else in there's just a damn mess!" Yes, I agree with every word of that. I do also believe that LSU, Georgia, and Texas A&M deserve credit for wins over teams perceived by many to be top-15 type football programs in week one. That's particularly the case for Aggie because they really showed a lot in Thursday night affair as a visitor against a South Carolina team that was ranked - deserved or otherwise - in the top 10.
Along those same lines, Mississippi State, Missouri, and Kentucky take a hit for playing bad teams, Florida's stuck in football purgatory, and South Carolina is the leader of the losers...
But even then, my argument can be turned around to benefit the Hogs and Cocks. They lost, sure, but they lost to good football teams. Should they be punished more than teams that beat bad teams, simply because they lost? I don't know, and that's where y'all come in. Tell me what you think the SEC should look like from 1-14, and I'll tweak the ballot to best reflect the consensus of the Cup (included in which is the consensus that Vandy sucks - HATE HATE HATE).
Other Links
A lot of people have opinions about the No. 18 Ole Miss Rebels' 35-13 win over Boise State Broncos this past Thursday. Here are some of those opinions:
- SB Nation's CFB mothership has three things they learned from the game, among which is that our defense is probably going to be wanted for murder in a few states after they're done with this season.
- Team Speed Kills notes how dumb we played in the first half, with turnovers and penalties making Ole Miss look like a terribly unprepared team.
- Mountain West Connection comments on how close the game was until the fourth.
- And Sports Illustrated remarks that Bo Wallace is going to have to play better football for the Rebels to keep winning, and that Boise State could use the game as a turnaround moment for their program.
And Finally...