SEC Football teams with their hands on the panic button in Week 6
There's plenty of SEC football teams that have already hit the panic button as we head into week six, and plenty of others that are getting ready to reach across the table and smash the button with a hammer.
Some teams are beyond panic. Take Auburn for example; the Tigers went 2-3 in a gifted five game homestand to open the season, and now they get to take on a pissed off Georgia team on the road with the Bulldogs fresh off of a loss to Alabama.
Most Auburn fans are feeling panicky, but they can take solace that their coach is playing 4-D chess and everything is going to be fine. Unless of course they lose again this week and there's no one left for Hugh Freeze to throw under the bus. Maybe he'll even take some accountability!
The Tigers aren't on this list this week for the first time in a while because I don't see a loss on the road to Georgia making things any worse than they already are.
But have no fear, there's other teams we can poke fun at. Let's see which teams need a win this week to avoid the panic button:
3. Missouri
Missouri is undefeated and ranked No. 9 in the AP Poll, but the Tigers have looked shaky in their last two wins. They struggled to a 27-21 home win over Boston College before needing overtime to beat Vanderbilt in Columbia.
The Tigers entered the year with playoff aspirations, and while everything is certainly still in front of them, they haven't yet looked like a playoff team yet.
Missouri goes on the road for the first time this year as they head to College Station to take on a Texas A&M team that has reeled off four straight wins after a season opening loss to Notre Dame.
Missouri is two point underdogs for the meeting at Kyle Field, and while a road loss to Texas A&M would be far from the end of the world, if the Tigers are to be taken seriously as playoff contenders, they need to find a way to win this game.
Missouri still has road games against Alabama and South Carolina as well as home dates with Auburn, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. With Missouri getting a gift from the scheduling gods and avoiding Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, and Tennessee, I'm not sure they can afford more than a single loss and still get into the playoff.
2. Florida
How bad are things in Gainesville right now? Florida is a home underdog to UCF this Saturday. The same UCF that got beaten to a pulp by Colorado in Orlano. Vegas has no faith in the Gators, even coming off of a bye week.
Florida fans hit the panic button weeks ago, right after a season opening blowout loss to Miami casted doubt on bowl eligibility. The schedule gets absolutely brutal after this, with Florida facing the following:
@ Tennessee
vs. Kentucky
vs. Georgia
@ Texas
vs. LSU
vs. Ole Miss
@ Florida State
Florida will probably be an underdog in every single one of those games. Bowl eligibility is an afterthought, but the Gators haven't finished 3-9 or worse since 1979. The one solace is that a loss this week could spell the official end of the Billy Napier era.
1. Ole Miss
I like Lane Kiffin. We all like Lane Kiffin. But that loss last week at home to Kentucky was a very Lane Kiffin loss. Did you know that Kiffin has never gone 8-5 or better in back-to-back seasons as a head coach?
That seemed like a foregone conclusion this year for an Ole Miss team that was in nearly everyone's preseason playoff bracket. But dropping a second straight game this week could put that into some doubt. How will Kiffin be able to keep a team dominated by transfers engaged if things start spiraling?
We'll learn a lot about this Ole Miss team this week. The Rebels struggled up front against a strong Kentucky defensive line, and they'll face an even stiffer test in Columbia against a ferocious South Carolina front led by one of the best freshmen in the nation in Dylan Stewart.
A second straight loss would drop Ole Miss to 4-2, and might raise some uncomfortable questions about their head coach as the team's playoff aspirations would be practically dead.