Mr. CFB: What We Learned, Week 11

Georgia, LSU clinch spots in the SEC Championship Game

It was a pretty wild Saturday as No. 6 (Oregon), No. 11 (Ole Miss), No. 12 (UCLA), No. 16 (N.C. State), No. 17 (Tulane), No. 18 (Texas), No. 21 (Illinois), and No. 24 (Kentucky) all went down to defeat.

But only one team in the Top 10 (Oregon) lost so there probably won’t be a mass shakeup in the top half of the CFP Standings, which will be released on Tuesday.

We have three Saturday’s left before the field for the playoff is set.

Here are five things we learned on the 11th Saturday of the 2022 season: 

1—The SEC Championship game is set: Georgia (10-0)  looked very much like the No. 1 team in the land as it went on the road and dismantled Mississippi State 45-19.

Thus Georgia—which goes to struggling Kentucky (6-4) on Saturday,--has clinched a spot in the SEC championship game for the fifth time in six seasons under Kirby Smart.

Georgia will play LSU (8-2), which had its hands full at Arkansas but found a way to win 13-10 and clinch a spot in Atlanta. This will be LSU’s seventh trip to the SEC championship game.

Georgia has remaining games at Kentucky this Saturday and Georgia Tech on Nov. 26 in Athens. LSU hosts UAB on Saturday and then goes to struggling Texas A&M on Nov. 26.

If LSU beats Georgia for the SEC championship, there is little doubt that the Tigers will make the playoffs. There is also little doubt that Georgia would also make the playoffs at 12-1. If Georgia wins the Bulldogs would be the No. 1 seed in the CFP. LSU, at 10-3, would likely not make the playoffs.

2—Tennessee made its point to the CFP selection committee: The Volunteers (9-1) wasted no time in putting their loss to Georgia on Nov. 5 in the rear-view mirror. Knowing that it needs to win its last three games (Missouri, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), impressively, the Volunteers and Hendon Hooker overwhelmed Missouri, winning 66-24 on Senior Day at Neyland Stadium.

Since the four teams in front of Tennessee in the CFP standings all won, the Vols can pretty much expect to remain at No. 5 when the new rankings are announced on Tuesday.

When asked about the statement his team made to the selection committee, Coach Josh Heupel said: “The statement for us is that we’re a good football team playing good football,” he said.

3—Texas A&M (3-7) will not be going to a bowl.

Now THERE’S a sentence I never thought I would write this summer.

The Aggies, a consensus Top 10 pick in the preseason, ran into an energized Auburn team and excited crowd at Jordan-Hare Stadium and lost 13-10.

The reality: Texas A&M plays UMass on Saturday and finishes at home with LSU. Lose that one and the Aggies finish 4-8, 1-7 SEC.

Jimbo Fisher fails to take his team to bowl game for the first time.

“First time in my life,” Fisher said. “It’s disappointing. But we’ve got to go back to work and get better.

It was the first win for interim Auburn coach Carnell Williams. The last conference home game of the season  was a sellout.

“(We) ain’t dead. We coming,” Williams said after the game.

Auburn (4-6) finishes with Western Kentucky at home on Saturday and Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 26.

4—You gotta tip your hat to Vanderbilt. You also have to scratch your head about Kentucky.

The easiest thing to do in sports is quit when the going gets tough. And things don’t get much tougher than they are at Vanderbilt. The Commodores entered Saturday’s meeting at Kentucky on a 26-game SEC losing streak. But Vanderbilt hung in with the favored Wildcats and scored with 32 seconds left for a 24-21 victory at Lexington.

Second year coach Clark Lea, a former Vanderbilt player,  was moved to tears after the game.

“We’ve got a bunch of guys that are fighting,” he said. “We’re building a program and building a program’s hard.”

This season has turned out to be a major disappointment for Kentucky (6-4) which was expected to challenge Georgia in the SEC East with quarterback Will Levis returning.

“Disappointed with the way things have gone,” said Coach Mark Stoops. “I think everyone is. For whatever reason I’m not getting it done with this team.”

5—The news of Alabama’s demise has been greatly exaggerated:

For the first time since 2010, Alabama (8-2) will have two losses going into the Iron Bowl with Auburn on Nov. 26.

The Crimson Tide lost at Tennessee (52-49) on a 50-yard field goal on the last play of the game.

They lost at LSU (32-31) on a two-point conversation in overtime. Also the last play of the game.

Now to be completely accurate it should be noted that Alabama won at Texas (20-19) on a late field goal and that the Tide needed to stop Texas A&M at the two-yard line to win 24-20.

It should also be noted that Alabama needed a defensive stop at its 14-yard line inside the final minute to beat Ole Miss 30-24 in Oxford. Alabama trailed 10-0 early and 17-14 at halftime.

“It was a tough night in a lot of ways but it was a great night for us because I think we took a step in the right direction,” Coach Nick Saban said after the game.

Obviously, this has not be a vintage Alabama team that we’re accustomed to seeing under Saban. And it is clear that Georgia has supplanted Alabama as the gold standard in the SEC for now.

But I don’t get the sense that Saban’s days of fielding elite teams are over. I could be wrong We’ll see.