Last week’s record: 5-1 (83.3%)
Season record: 55-7 (88.7%)
Last week was one of those weeks where the Predictions Dept. failed to go undefeated – and loved every minute of it. The only loss on the board was in our erroneous picking of Texas A&M to defeat Alabama. This week, it’s another all-intraconference slate of games, with Texas A&M-Tennessee probably the most intriguing.
FLORIDA at SOUTH CAROLINA
There probably isn’t a more unpredictable SEC team than Florida, which can look either wholly competent or completely out of its league depending on the week, sometimes even depending on the quarter. Florida started slow against Vanderbilt last week before putting the Commodores away nicely, but in the three weeks prior, the Gators upset Tennessee (and looked quite potent doing it), then followed that up with a listless win over Charlotte and a blowout loss to Kentucky. South Carolina is probably second to Florida on the can’t-figure-them-out meter, beating Mississippi State but then getting trounced by the Volunteers. Now these two face off, with the loser probably out of the SEC East race for good in 2023.
South Carolina 33
Florida 27
ARKANSAS at ALABAMA
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GEORGIA at VANDERBILT
If Georgia is really beginning to put things together, as seems to be the case following a 51-13 smacking of Kentucky, then Vanderbilt has no chance. The Commodores’ defense isn’t athletic enough to get enough stops to make this game close, and Georgia’s defense may not be what it used to be, but it’s still good enough to limit a Commodore offensive unit that relies heavily on a quarterback (or pair of quarterbacks, as the ‘Dores are in between two options there) and a single receiver to make things go. Vanderbilt has upset Georgia in the relatively recent past, but it did so on the back of a defense that was a legitimate problem for a lot of teams. This year’s Vandy defense is only a problem for Vandy.
Georgia 48
Vanderbilt 10
MISSOURI at KENTUCKY
This is a matchup of two teams that had the opportunity to do big things last week, but both fell flat. Kentucky was flattened to a much larger degree by Georgia than Missouri was by LSU; indeed, the Tigers had a chance very late to beat the Bayou Bengals, but LSU’s offense just puts too much pressure on other teams, even good ones. Now we get to see how (or if) Missouri can get up off the canvas, because in prior years, one Mizzou loss tends to trigger several other ones in the weeks that follow. Kentucky is better than it looked against Georgia, a game in which the Wildcats suffered from their all-too-commonplace mental meltdown under Mark Stoops and completely lost their composure. Missouri shouldn’t cause as much stress as Georgia did, and the game is in Lexington.
Kentucky 30
Missouri 24
TEXAS A&M at TENNESSEE
Alabama gave the rest of the league the playbook on how to beat Texas A&M: overwhelm a young Aggie offensive line, keep QB Max Johnson from getting comfortable, and throw over a middling secondary. Now we’ll see if Tennessee is up to the challenge of doing that. The Vols were expected to have one of the best quarterbacks in the conference in 2023, but Joe Milton has been more of a useful part than a deciding factor. Tennessee probably isn’t as good overall as Alabama is – and certainly not from the standpoint of being able to bring defensive pressure – but Jimbo Fisher handled the Alabama loss with his customary mixture of denial and frustration in his postgame remarks, and with the game on the road and A&M now basically out of the SEC West race, we’ll see just how motivated his team is to bounce back from the loss.
Tennessee 37
Texas A&M 35
AUBURN at LOUISIANA STATE
Auburn’s defense has been much better than expected, and it would be nice to see some team figure out how to slow down LSU’s high-flying offensive attack. But Auburn can’t trade scores with LSU, even if those scores are less frequent in this game than what LSU has grown accustomed to putting up. The biggest point of concern for LSU in this game is its secondary – it’s absolutely terrible, and sometimes even a good offensive team can pressure itself into an upset loss by continually breaking down. The best thing for LSU, outside of the fact that it is the host team, is that neither Auburn quarterback – Payton Thorne nor Robby Ashford – are good enough to make big-time throws against the Tiger secondary with any kind of regularity.
LSU 41
Auburn 20
IDLE: Ole Miss, Mississippi State
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN