Alabama Football: SEC Football Week 5 Power Rankings

This week there was a tie for second place in our SEC Power Rankings. First, the Georgia Bulldogs. It was a convincing win against their rivals in Week 2. The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry was all Georgia from the beginning to the end. The Bulldog defense kept Auburn’s offense in check all day long. Bo Nix never could get going and the offense sputtered to only six points. On the offensive side of the ball UGA’s 4th-string QB in training camp, Stetson Bennet IV, led the Bulldogs to 27 points against a very good Auburn defense. To be fair, it was mostly the running game that propelled Georgia to victory, but Bennett made all the throws he needed to and most importantly, he didn’t give the ball away. Georgia has another tough early-season test this week against the aforementioned Tennessee Volunteers. It doesn’t get any easier after that as they will travel to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama football October 17. Beating the Volunteers though will go a long way for them in winning the SEC East. They will only have the other number two team this week to contend with at that point.

Speaking of the other number two team this week, we come to the Florida Gators. All the Gators have done the first two weeks is put up almost 1000 yards of offense and 89 points. Kyle Trask looks like a legitimate Heisman candidate and is the first SEC QB to have 10 TD passes in the first two games in over two decades. You can’t talk about this Gator offense without mentioning the other Kyle, Kyle Pitts. Pitts has 6 TD catches in two games on only 12 catches. Yeah, that is a TD catch every two catches. The Gators are off to a blistering start on offense, but the defense has lacked something to be desired. They allowed 35 and 24 points to Ole Miss and South Carolina respectively. Not only that, but both teams were in the game until the end. This Florida team has all the tools on offense to contend for a championship, but the defense needs to step up. This week they get Texas A&M after the Aggies just got drubbed by Alabama football. It is an opportunity for the Gators to make a statement not only to Alabama, but to the SEC and all of college football.

Now we come to the inevitable conclusion of this list. Who else would be atop the SEC after two weeks? Alabama football showed improvement on both sides of the ball in Week 2 especially up front. The pass defense still needs work, but they still managed two INTs, one of them returned for a TD. They also held A&M to just 3.8 yards per carry. Pretty good against the A&M backfield. One thing that must be improved before going up against teams like Mississippi State and Florida is the secondary. They are young and showed definitive improvement in Week 2, but there were three busted coverages that led to 21 points for A&M, and other busted coverages that were not seen by Mond which could have led to even more points. Alabama football faces a scrappy tough opponent in Ole Miss this week. The number one storyline going into the game though will be the return of Lane Kiffin who will get his first opportunity against his old boss. This game could be a tough test for the Tide on defense. On offense though, the Tide could put up some gawdy numbers. I like the way that David Hale at ESPN put it. Talking about Mac Jones he said in this article,

"He might throw for 1,000 yards depending on how mad Nick Saban gets about Lane Kiffin’s tweets this week."

He may not be that far off. Kyle Trask had a field day with the Ole Miss secondary and he only has one or two top end weapons. Mac Jones is just as good as Trask and he has four legitimate weapons to give the ball to if you include Najee Harris. It could be a record day for Jones.

This season is turning into a wild ride across the college football landscape. We will have to see if the PAC-12 and BIG-10 have as much chaos when their seasons kick off in a few weeks. One thing I know for sure though, It is going to be a fun season. Let’s just hope it ends with another championship for Alabama football.