The SEC could be facing another recently familiar situation in 2025.
The SEC is facing a familiar problem heading into the second year of the 12-team College Football Playoff. The conference is very, very deep. It has a lot of very good teams. But does it have any truly great teams?
As October is just days away, five teams remain undefeated in the SEC thanks to Alabama’s win over Georgia. Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and Missouri are all still unblemished.
The highest-ranked of those teams — No. 7 Oklahoma — is missing its QB for the next few weeks after hand surgery. The other top-10 team — No. 9 Texas A&M — sweated way too hard at home against an Auburn team that couldn’t convert a single third down on Saturday.
The No. 13 Rebels took down No. 4 LSU at home as the Tigers’ offense continues to struggle so far this season. The Ole Miss defense held LSU to just 197 total yards but the Tigers haven’t scored more than 23 points against an FBS opponent all season.
A year ago, the Big Ten put four teams in the newly-expanded playoff to the SEC’s three as the SEC’s depth played against it. The Big Ten had a clear top tier of teams in Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State and Indiana with Illinois as the only other team to finish the season with at least nine wins.
The SEC, meanwhile, had eight teams that ended the season with nine wins as Alabama infamously found itself as the first team out of the playoff thanks to a 24-3 loss at a mediocre Oklahoma team in the penultimate week of the season.
During the offseason, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian openly wondered if there would ever be an undefeated national champion in college football again thanks to the rise of superconferences and the expanded playoff. After all, Ohio State lost to both Oregon and Michigan before reeling off four convincing wins on the way to the national title.
Right now, Sarkisian looks very prescient. Especially if that national champion is going to come to the SEC. Can you make a convincing case for any of the remaining undefeated teams to go through the season without a loss? We certainly can’t. Ole Miss has road games at Georgia and Oklahoma in October. The Sooners may face Texas without John Mateer in two weeks. Alabama plays Vanderbilt and Missouri in Weeks 6 and 7.
LSU and Georgia entered the weekend as the only two SEC teams in the top five of the AP poll but each team had some clear flaws. LSU coach Brian Kelly has said that QB Garrett Nussmeier is dealing with a torso injury as the offense looks to get on track. Georgia’s offense didn’t throw downfield much in either of the first two weeks of the season before the defense gave up 41 points in an overtime win over Tennessee. That same Tennessee team needed overtime to escape with a 40-34 win at Mississippi State on Saturday.
Mississippi State went 2-10 in 2024.
The SEC's overall strength is a big reason why there were successful pushes for the CFP committee to publicly announce it was changing the way it evaluates teams and their respective schedules. But that criteria change can only go so far if the SEC has a host of 9-3 teams at the end of the regular season again while there are ohter teams at 11-1 or 10-2 in other power conferences across the country.
It's inevitable that a 9-3 team will get into the playoff sooner rather than later. Heck, it could happen as soon as this season. But it's also not scenario the SEC wants to be in, especially if there are four or more teams in the Big Ten with 10 or more wins. However, given how even the SEC appears to be once again, it's not going to be long until each of its 16 teams has at least one defeat.
Here are the rest of this week's winners and losers.
Winners
Virginia: The Cavaliers are showing some serious progress in year four of the Tony Elliott era. Virginia made a statement with a 46-38 double-overtime win over No. 8 Florida State on Friday night. Virginia has been an afterthought in the ACC since making the Orange Bowl after the 2019 season and Elliott entered 2025 in a possible make-or-break season.
So far, the results have been great. Virginia doesn’t have any other ranked teams remaining on its schedule and the ACC is about as open as it’s been in years. An appearance in the conference title game still seems unlikely, but Virginia could easily finish near the top of the standings.
Arizona State: The defending Big 12 champions moved to 4-1 with a 27-24 win over No. 24 TCU on Friday night. ASU scored 10 points in the final two minutes of the game as Jesus Gomez’s 23-yard field goal provided the go-ahead score with 1:14 to go. Gomez struggled on Friday night with two missed kicks earlier in the game. But he’s been an otherwise stabilizing force for a Sun Devils team that was desperate for reliable kicking on the way to the Big 12 title in 2024.
Duke: The Blue Devils moved to 3-2 with a 38-3 win over a Syracuse team that beat Clemson in Week 4. Darian Mensah was 22-of-28 passing for 268 yards and two touchdowns while Nate Sheppard had 15 carries for 168 yards and two rushing TDs. Syracuse turned the ball over three times as Duke led 27-3 at halftime on the way to the easy win.
Losers
Oregon State: The Beavers are going to win a game at some point, right? Oregon State dropped to 0-5 with a 27-24 overtime loss to Houston at home late Friday night. The Cougars scored 17 straight points after trailing 24-10 with 12:34 to go in regulation. Oregon State travels to App State in Week 6 and could be favored despite their terrible start.
UCLA: We’re way more confident in Oregon State’s chances of getting a win than UCLA’s. The first game of the post-DeShaun Foster era was a 17-14 loss at Northwestern on Saturday. UCLA may not be favored in a game at all the rest of the season either. The Bruins host No. 3 Penn State in Week 6 before traveling to Michigan State. This could get a lot worse before it gets better in Westwood.
Auburn: Nothing says a lack of faith in your offense when punting on 4th and 10 trailing 16-10 with 2:26 to go. Though, to be fair, Auburn’s offense didn’t inspire any confidence on Saturday. Hugh Freeze chose to give Texas A&M the ball back in that situation and it paid off. Sort of. Auburn’s defense got the stop, but the offense had less time and two fewer timeouts to work with before Jackson Arnold got enveloped on a fourth down to seal the Aggies’ six-point win.
Auburn finished the game 0-of-13 on third down conversions and had just 177 total yards to Texas A&M’s 414. Had Marcel Reed not turned the ball over and Texas A&M committed 13 penalties, the final score would have been a lot worse.
Touchdowns in San Diego State’s win over Northern Illinois: The lowest-scoring game of the 2025 season (so far) happened in DeKalb, Illinois on Saturday. The Aztecs beat the Huskies 6-3 in a game that featured three field goals. But there was some drama. San Diego State went 49 yards in seven plays before Gabriel Plascencia hit a 25-yard field goal as time expired for the win. The two teams combined to average fewer than four yards per play and were 9-of-30 on third downs. There have been prettier football games.
Category: General Sports
