SEC Power Rankings updated after Week 1 of college football
By Thomas Goldkamp,
2024-09-04
The latest SEC Power Rankings from On3 are in after Week 1 of the college football regular season.
The On3 Massey Ratings – which were officially used during the BCS era and have generated high school sports team rankings since 1995 – rank sports teams by analyzing game outcomes, strength of schedule, and margin of victory.
The team at the top shouldn’t surprise you, not after a dominant opening-weekend win over a quality Power Five opponent. That’s Georgia , of course, which is looking to get back to the College Football Playoffs in 2024.
Let’s dive into the latest SEC Power Rankings below.
It was exactly the kind of opener you’d have wanted if you were the Bulldogs. A smooth, decisive 34-3 win over a ranked Clemson team. And the game was never really in doubt.
The best news for Georgia is that several promising young players emerged, most notably freshman tailback Nate Frazier . Given how much retooling the Bulldogs had to do at the skill positions the debut for the offense really couldn’t have looked much better.
Jalen Milroe and Kalen DeBoer (William McLelland / USA TODAY Sports)
How’s a smooth five-touchdown performance from Jalen Milroe for getting feet wet in the new offense under coach Kalen DeBoer ? Alabama showed no signs of trouble in a 63-0 romp over Western Kentucky .
Milroe threw for 200 yards and ran for 79, tossing three touchdown passes and rushing for two more. Justice Haynes ran for 102 yards and a touchdown and Alabama got just about everyone involved in the win.
Texas got off to a balanced start in a 52-0 win over a mid-level Group of Five program in Colorado State . It was a game in which the Longhorns spread the ball to plenty of people and even backup quarterback Arch Manning got some meaningful run.
Manning threw for a touchdown and ran for another, while Texas balanced the load in the backfield and in the receiving corps. It was a thoroughly convincing season opener from a team that has playoff aspirations.
The Rebels were yet another team that took a prime early spot in the SEC Power Rankings with a dominant opening win, this time 76-0 over FCS Furman . While it’s hard to take too much away from games like this, the offense looked crisp.
Quarterback Jaxson Dart threw for 418 yards and five touchdowns without an interception, while Tre Harris caught eight passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns. He could fight for the national lead in receiving this year.
Oklahoma’s season opener was a coming out part of sorts for Purdue transfer Deion Burks , who caught three touchdown passes in a 51-3 win over Temple . He got going early, and Oklahoma raced out to a 34-0 halftime lead.
Quarterback Jackson Arnold threw for four touchdowns, though he didn’t pile up huge yardage. He was involved as a dual-threat option, rushing a team-high 11 times in the contest.
Missouri came out of the gates swinging in a 51-0 win over Murray State , scoring 28 points in the first quarter to essentially put the game out of reach. There weren’t any huge individual performances, instead a pretty well-rounded effort.
The Tigers had eight different players log a carry, while 11 different players managed to catch a pass in the game. So far, so good for the Tigers.
(Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK)
It wasn’t a system debut or even truly the debut for quarterback Nico Iamaleava , but he looked excellent in a 69-3 win over Chattanooga . Iamaleava had done enough to hit the bench by halftime.
The talented second-year quarterback threw for a school record 314 yards in the first half, also throwing three touchdown strikes. He wasn’t hugely involved with his legs, but Dylan Sampson covered that with 124 yards rushing and three touchdowns.
LSU looked like a much improved team defensively for most of the night against USC , but the Tigers still couldn’t come up with the key stop they needed when the game was on the line. That spoiled an otherwise excellent overall performance.
Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier was sharp and receiver Kyren Lacy looks like the next in line of a long tradition of top-notch LSU receivers. But now the Tigers must find a way to bounce back in a hurry.
After throwing an interception on his opening drive, quarterback Brock Vandagriff settled in quite nicely and threw for 169 yards and three touchdowns in a lightning-shortened 31-0 win over Southern Miss . Almost the entire second half of the game was scrapped due to lightning.
The Wildcats are a team that could move around in our SEC Power Rankings quite a bit in the early weeks as we get a handle on what they are. Much of that depends on Vandagriff, and it was a positive opening game.
Turnovers and poor run defense doomed Texas A&M in a season opener against Notre Dame , one of the tougher opening games. The Fighting Irish racked up 198 yards rushing to set the tone and come away with a 23-13 win at Kyle Field.
Texas A&M must get better play out of quarterback Conner Weigman , who went 12-of-30 passing for 100 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns. The Aggies also need to get the run game going, because there are too many talented players in the backfield not to be producing.
While Florida played healthy competition in a ranked Miami squad, the home loss was enough to sink the Gators into the bottom third of this week’s SEC Power Rankings. Vanderbilt proved its mettle with a quality overtime win against Virginia Tech , managing to avoid last place in this week’s rankings for the time being. South Carolina had a real struggle against Old Dominion , ultimately benefiting enough from costly turnovers by the Monarchs to pull out a close win. But there is plenty the Gamecocks need work on.
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