X post<\/a> from ESPN\u2019s Pete Thamel provided the following statement from a \u201cveteran administrator,\u201d which effectively sums up the recent events surrounding those three national powerhouses.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cTwo weeks ago Texas, Bama and Georgia were the three best teams in SEC, the conventional wisdom would have suspected that the only losses they might take is when they played one another,\u201d Thamel\u2019s post reads. \u201cSince then they are a combined 1\u20135, and their only win in that group came because two of them played each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last weekend\u2019s results made the SEC\u2019s unpredictability clear. And it also displayed the success first-year head coaches Alex Golesh of Auburn and Jon Sumrall of Florida are already bringing to their programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plus, perhaps the most surprising team in the SEC is the Kentucky Wildcats, under first-year head coach Will Stein. After Oklahoma seemed to be turning its season around with a Red River Rivalry win over the Longhorns, the Sooners returned to Norman, Oklahoma, and fell to the Wildcats. Stein\u2019s team, now 6\u20131 and ranked No. 12 in the nation, is riding a five-game win streak into its home matchup against Vanderbilt, who sits 0\u20134 in the SEC after a home loss to Arkansas.<\/p>\n
But, especially with last week\u2019s outcomes in mind, Stein is not overlooking the matchup against the Commodores.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s another tough test this Saturday,\u201d Stein said on Tuesday. \u201cThe SEC has no gimmies, and we got to continue to fight and continue to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, there were seven SEC teams that finished with two or fewer losses in conference play. Entering this Saturday, 12 of the 16 SEC teams already have two or more SEC losses. On top of that, there are no undefeated SEC teams remaining after Georgia\u2019s loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This reality sets up a second half of the regular season with the conference championship spots truly up for grabs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The coming weeks will likely reveal the contenders from the pretenders and establish greater disparity in the conference. Still, there is no doubt that the conference is as balanced and talented as ever.<\/p>\n
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian explained the state of the conference bluntly on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of football left to be played,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a game on a Saturday in the SEC where any team can\u2019t beat the other team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Southeastern Conference boasted nine ranked teams in the preseason Associated Press poll, the most out of any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-474260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}