Firings to flops in SEC football, here's a one-sentence summary of each team's season
The SEC Championship matchup is set, two coaches have been fired, while Arkansas' embattled coach Sam Pittman will be retained into 2024. Two SEC teams (Vanderbilt and Arkansas) will not earn bowl eligibility, and three more (Florida, South Carolina and Mississippi State) will join that list if they don't secure an upset win this week.
This isn't a banner season for the SEC. Nevertheless, Georgia and Alabama remain in College Football Playoff contention. The Bulldogs retain their frontrunner status for the national championship. Also, Missouri and Ole Miss are contending for New Year's Six bowls.
On this edition of "SEC Football Unfiltered," a podcast from the USA TODAY Network, hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams provide one sentence to summarize each SEC team's season or the state of the program.
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Here's how they condense each team into a handful of words:
Alabama: The Crimson Tide is better than I expected, because Jalen Milroe is better than I expected. – Toppmeyer
Arkansas: Sam Pittman made a bad offensive coordinator hire and squandered a good quarterback, but Arkansas chose not to do immediately (fire Pittman) what it likely will do eventually. – Toppmeyer
Auburn: Until Hugh Freeze and Auburn secure or develop a quality quarterback, they're irrelevant. – Toppmeyer
Florida: Billy Napier, meet Jim McElwain and Ron Zook, who were better recruiters than coaches. – Adams
Georgia: Initially, I wasn't sure about Carson Beck, but now I'm sure Georgia can win another national championship with him at quarterback. – Adams
Kentucky: The best days of the Mark Stoops era have come and gone. – Adams
TOPPMEYER: Mark Stoops eats his words, Kentucky football season becomes a bust
ADAMS: What if Nico Iamaleava had been Tennessee football's starting quarterback in 2023?
LSU: The Tigers squandered what could have been a special season with a Heisman-caliber quarterback, because Brian Kelly hasn't fixed LSU's defense. – Toppmeyer
Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin finally secured a marquee victory and took Ole Miss back to its ceiling, but where does that lead for Kiffin? – Toppmeyer
Mississippi State: An irrelevant segue season became the boring appetizer to an inevitable coaching search. – Toppmeyer
Missouri: Finally, Missouri has the fans and the players to call itself a real SEC program. – Adams
South Carolina: Shane Beamer's kicks are better than his coaching. – Adams
Tennessee: Fans would have preferred the Nico Show to the Joe Show. – Adams
Texas A&M: Jimbo Fisher cemented his legacy as a coach who did less with more and benefited one heck of a lot from Jameis Winston and a powerful agent. – Toppmeyer
Vanderbilt: Some programs adorn their stadiums with statues, but Vanderbilt prefers cranes, and a football season stumbled its way through a construction site. – Adams
Week 12 picks!
Picks against the spread:
Ohio State at Michigan (-3.5)
Toppmeyer: Ohio State; Adams: Michigan
Ole Miss (-12.5) at Mississippi State
Toppmeyer: Mississippi State; Adams: Ole Miss
Missouri (-7.5) at Arkansas
Toppmeyer: Missouri; Adams: Missouri
Texas A&M at LSU (-11.5)
Toppmeyer: Texas A&M; Adams: LSU
Clemson (-7) at South Carolina
Toppmeyer: Clemson; Adams: Clemson
Alabama (-15) at Auburn
Toppmeyer: Alabama; Adams: Auburn
Lock of the week
Toppmeyer: Miami (Ohio) (-6.5) at Ball State ; Adams: Arizona (-11.5) at Arizona State
Records
Records: Toppmeyer 31-36-1 (3-2 last week); Adams 28-38-2 (2-3 last week)
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. John Adams is the senior columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. You can subscribe to their podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, or check out the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: SEC football: 1-sentence summaries of each team, from firings to flops
