Jess Nicholas, TideFans.com Editor-In-Chief

t took about two carries from Tank Bigsby to know Auburn didn't have the running game it needed to challenge Alabama. It took one third-down pass rush to confirm it didn't have the offensive line for the job, either.

Covid-19 waited in the wings to make its biggest sports-related impact in the state of Alabama until the moment when the spotlight was the brightest, throwing back its cloak, twitching its mustache and stealing the spotlight of Alabama-Auburn week by kidnapping Nick Saban and rushing from the stage, cackling as it departed. Given all of what has transpired during this season, was anyone surprised?

This is not an official University of Alabama document. The depth chart is taken from individual practice and game observations, and is color-coded.

A second good week in a row for the Predictions Dept., with only the LSU-Arkansas toss-up going against us. This week, there is really only one game that should be hotly contested, the Alabama-Auburn contest we preview in a separate article.

At some point, Kentucky is going to have to decide what it wants to be in football. Does it want to contend in an SEC East that, in most years, will flow through Georgia and Florida because of the inherent recruiting advantages there? Or is it content to be a mid-level opponent, good enough to beat bad teams but never good enough to advance into the upper threshold of the division? The assumption, if Kentucky picks the second option, is that it will be good enough to both put modest scares into the hearts of the division leaders, while at the same time avoid embarrassing beatdowns. But on Saturday against Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Kentucky couldn't even pull that off.

As the modern college football game has moved more from a defense-based sport to one of offense, invariably there will be teams left behind for awhile that continue to play tough defense yet lack the transformative offensive players necessary to challenge for championships.

This is not an official University of Alabama document. The depth chart is taken from individual practice and game observations, and is color-coded.

The Predictions Dept. is slowly getting back to its typical success rate in SEC games, no thanks to Covid-19, and finally has a somewhat full slate of games to work with in Week 9. There isn't really a headliner, though, as none of the games on the SEC slate are particularly meaningful. The best of the bunch may be the LSU-Arkansas matchup due to the controversy boiling in Baton Rouge.

Because of how the SEC is handling contact tracing and other Covid-related issues – that is to say, hamhandedly – we're down to three...

This week, it's a thin slate of games, headlined by Florida squaring off against Georgia.