Georgia enjoyed a much-needed bye week, allowing Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs to regroup before the final stretch of the SEC schedule. But while Georgia was taking a breather, the rest of the conference continued to provide plenty of reasons to reevaluate the league's head coaches and where they stand in the SEC pecking order.
Coaching in the SEC has never been for the faint of heart. Every Saturday brings enormous expectations, unforgiving fan bases, and opponents capable of turning a promising season into a disaster in the span of four quarters.
Any given Saturday is absolutely a real thing in the SEC.
Winning games is obviously the name of the game, but how coaches handle adversity, develop their rosters, and perform against elite competition can be just as revealing.
With the annual showdown with Florida looming, it's the perfect time to take stock of the SEC's coaching landscape. These updated power rankings weigh recent results, overall program direction, player development, and the ability to deliver when the stakes are highest. So where does Smart land, and which SEC coaches are rising or falling as the season enters its most important stretch?
These SEC head coach rankings may not necessarily refelct the conference standings.
Mike Elko's Texas A&M Aggies have been the most massive disappointment in the conference this season and are one of the biggest letdowns in the country. This was a team everyone expected to take the next step from their playoff berth last season. The Aggies have spent the money, but haven't assembled the talent.
South Carolina was another team with aspirations and expectations that haven't been met. This was supposed to be a bounce-back season for Beamer and the Gamecocks. Outside of a couple of shining moments, it's been largely a disappointment. Kudos for the upset of Tennessee, but that's the outlier.
Preseason national champion favorite in the eyes of many, the Longhorns' season has now become reduced to a playoff hopeful, with questions at quarterback and the head coach looking over his shoulder behind him at an approaching hot seat. The gap between expectations and reality is ever-widening for Sark.
Venables gets the nod over Sark by virtue of the Red River Rivalry victory. Beyond that, it's been a mess of a season for the Sooners. Venables is hanging on by the skin of his buyout, and if he doesn't make some staff changes, even that may not save him. His biggest mistake: betting the farm on John Mateer.
While it's true Arkansas is practically unwatchable right now. We'll give a little credit to Ryan Silverfield for having won three games with this roster. Nobody expected the Hogs to win three all year (although they may have hit their limit). He could actually be higher, but his preseason bravado gave us a reason to dock some points.
Like Silverfield, you might expect to see Clark Lea a little lower on this list. Truthfully, the expectations for Vanderbilt were probably somewhat overblown. There was no way they'd repeat the success of the last two seasons without Diego Pavia on the roster. That said, not even being close to winning a conference game this late in the season is reason enough to have Lea in the bottom half of the rankings.
Much like his program, Eli Drinkwitz is in the middle of the pack. Missouri constantly gets undue attention from the AP pollsters, and for whatever reason, the Tigers just find new ways to lose games they shouldn't. This year, the loss to Mississippi State is right up there.
Congrats on having a winning record after the first half of the season, Jeff Lebby. However, your team is clearly not the same without Karmario Taylor. Any hopes the Bulldogs had of being a surprise entrant into anything noteworthy in the postseason went down with Taylor's injury issues.
Alabama's season has been Jekyll & Hyde, and so has Kalen DeBoer's personality. We saw a fiery side of DeBoer rarely seen during the loss to Georgia, but as the Crimson Tide was gutted by Tennessee, he looked completely bewildered. Despite starting a freshman quarterback, Alabama isn't reaching its potential, which seems to be a hallmark of DeBoer's tenure.
Alex Golesh looked like a coach ready to crack the top five of the power rankings after Auburn's shocking upset of Georgia. The Tigers looked prime to make a run, but instead they stumbled against a very beatable LSU team. Credit where it's due, Golesh has the Tigers looking much better, but there's still room to grow.
Jon Sumrall has the Gators looking like SEC contenders some weeks, and then more like the Billy Napier version of the Gators. Still, it's his first season at the helm, and the improvement is noticeable. The Gators have a difficult stretch coming now, so we'll see if Florida can continue to make him look more than serviceable.
Josh Heupel was ready to land near the top of this power ranking, and then the Vols had to go and you-know-what the bed against South Carolina. That game was nothing more than the Vols beating the Vols. Without tons of bad penalties and mental errors, Tennessee runs away with that game, and that's on Heupel and his staff.
We'll put Lane Kiffin at No. 4 because, well...he's got to be ranked somewhere. LSU looks somewhat better under Kiffin than they did under Brian Kelly, and while the Tigers did spend a lot of roster dollars this year, there are still some holes that need to be filled. The two losses are forgivable, if not expected.
Honestly, you could say Pete Golding and Lane Kiffin are interchangeable in this ranking. Golding gets the nod because the Rebels beat LSU. He's not exceeding or falling too far below expectations, but another loss with a quarterback like Trinidad Chambliss on your roster could mean a tumble in the rankings for Golding.
Before you come at us hard on this one, hear us out. Kirby Smart may be the best coach in the SEC, possibly even the country, but in terms of power rankings for this season, you have to give that loss to Auburn a lot of weight. Georgia should be undefeated and heavily favored over the Gators in the Cocktail Party. Instead, they're carrying a loss that could cost them, with a 10.5-point spread over Florida.
What Will Stein has done in Kentucky is nothing short of miraculous, and he's living proof that Mark Stoops was retained for far too long. The early-season loss to Alabama is a blemish, but Kentucky is also a much better team now than they were in Week 2. If that game is played in Week 9, the outcome is probably much different. Right now it's shaping up for a Kentucky-Georgia SEC Championship Game. Not on anyone's bingo card.
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