Is the SEC back? Don’t read too much into the conference’s perfect Week 1

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The SEC went 16-0 in college football‘s Week 1, the first time the conference has won every game in the same week since 1997. The margin of victory averaged 36.6 points, and only two of the 16 games finished within a single score.

Social media reacted the way it always does to a clean sweep, treating the weekend as proof of conference supremacy before a single snap of true competition had been played. That reaction skips over the schedule. Fourteen of the SEC’s 16 winners faced Group of Five, FCS, or rebuilding Power Four opponents they were favored to beat by multiple touchdowns. A perfect record against that slate says less than the record itself suggests.

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SEC teams dominate overmatched Week 1 opponents

Georgia beat Tennessee State 63-3. Texas A&M shut out Missouri State 50-0. Oklahoma blanked UTEP 51-0. South Carolina put up 57 points on Kent State, and Mississippi State scored 62 on Louisiana-Monroe.

Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Kentucky all won by at least 35 points, and Missouri and Vanderbilt cleared their own overmatched opponents without much resistance. None of those nine programs faced a team that finished last season with a winning Power Four resume.

Blowouts against that caliber of competition happen most years in the SEC, since the conference builds its openers around confidence and health rather than tests. The 16-0 mark reflects scheduling as much as it reflects strength, and it will not tell anyone which SEC teams belong in the College Football Playoff conversation.

Two games required a fourth-quarter answer

Auburn and Ole Miss were the exceptions, and both are worth a closer look.

Auburn needed a goal-line stop with nine seconds left to hold off Baylor 17-16 in Atlanta, a game in which quarterback Byrum Brown threw three interceptions before scrambling for the winning score. Alex Golesh survived his debut without answers to several first-half problems, and Baylor outgained Auburn for long stretches before the finish.

Ole Miss needed a 48-yard field goal from Lucas Carneiro as time expired to beat Louisville 41-38 in Nashville, a game the ninth-ranked Rebels trailed in the fourth quarter after Louisville tied it with 1:28 left. Trinidad Chambliss threw an interception and lost a fumble before rallying the offense in the second half.

Both results count as wins, but they came against a rebuilding Power Four program and a ranked opponent respectively, and neither Auburn nor Ole Miss looked like the better team for extended stretches. Those two games offer more information about where the SEC actually stands than the 14 lopsided ones combined.

A more valid question is whether the preseason narrative that the SEC has broader talent and more competitive teams that could win the conference is up for debate. We can’t read too closely into any of the results. Perhaps the SEC is top-heavy with LSU, Georgia and Texas at the top. That’s the case made with the Big Ten, with Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State at the top. Though the Ducks’ narrow win against Boise State complicates that narrative.

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Bigger tests loom for SEC teams over the next two weeks

The conference will learn far more about itself starting this week. Texas hosts No. 1 Ohio State on Saturday in the first real measuring-stick game for any SEC program this season, a rematch of last year’s win over the Longhorns in Week 1.

Alabama travels to Kentucky the same day to open SEC play three weeks ahead of the rest of the conference, giving Kentucky a chance to open a new coaching era with a signature win and bring one of the top SEC teams down a peg.

Speaking of a team or coach that many want brought down a peg, the following week brings the game the entire league has circled since the schedule release. LSU travels to Oxford on Sept. 19 for Lane Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss, the program he left to take the LSU job. The result will shape the SEC race far more than anything that happened this weekend.

Until games like these get played, a 16-0 Week 1 is a nice talking point and not much more.

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