CFB · STORYLINES · SEC · COLLEGE-FOOTBALL · KENTUCKY · GEORGIA
Kentucky Leads the SEC, Georgia Owns the Odds, and Saturday Starts Sorting Out Atlanta
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
Kentucky is 5-1 and leading the SEC. My sims rate the Wildcats 14th out of 16 teams in the league. Both of those things are true on the same Thursday, and I've been staring at that pair for two days.
Georgia has one loss, sits No. 3 in the AP, and reaches Atlanta in 84.7% of my sims. Alabama has two conference losses and still gets to Atlanta more often than the team with the best record in the conference.
The SEC race is upside down. Saturday is where it starts to sort itself out, and Georgia-Florida is the first shake of the table.
Three Rankings Looking at Three Different SEC Races
The standings say Kentucky. Georgia is the only other one-loss team in the league, and behind those two there are seven teams sitting on two losses, so the top of the race is really a two-team race with a mob behind it.
The AP poll says Georgia, and by a lot. Georgia is No. 3, Kentucky No. 9, Alabama No. 10, and those three are the only SEC teams in the top 10. Kentucky is leading the conference and ranked below a team that beat them by four touchdowns.
My sims say Georgia, and they say it louder than the poll does. I simmed every remaining SEC game, played the rest of the season out 20,000 times with the real SEC tiebreakers, and rated every team by its margins. Georgia comes out at +12.6 against an average SEC team.
Kentucky comes out at -8.3. Fourteenth of 16. Only Mississippi State and Arkansas rate below them in my sims, and I promise I didn't put a thumb on it.
How does the 14th-rated team lead the league? The standings count wins and nothing else, and Kentucky has banked five of them in year one under Will Stein. The sims count margins, and they still see the 45-17 beating Alabama put on them.
Georgia's résumé isn't spotless either, but the team underneath it is the best in the league by a wide gap, and Georgia owns the 20-17 win over Alabama. Three rankings, and only one of them hands out a trophy.
Real or Fraud, One Contender at a Time
Georgia is real. The +12.6 is the best number in the conference by a mile, the Alabama win is the tiebreaker that matters most, and Georgia is favored in all four games it has left. Even the road trip to Ole Miss comes back Georgia 74.4% of the time.
Kentucky is where I split with my own sims a little. Will Stein is showing he was a great hire, and I think there's some staying power there. The first half against Bama showed what this team can be. The question is whether they can sustain it for a full game, and my sims say no, Kentucky is an underdog in all three games it has left.
So the record is real and the rating is a 14th-place team. Both can be true.
Alabama is the team I'd have the hardest time explaining to someone who only reads the standings. Two conference losses, and my sims still rate the Tide second in the league at +7.6. They're favored in all three games left, starting with a 55.5% at LSU that I would describe as "favored" only in the loosest sense.
Texas has the best case of anybody not named Georgia. Third in my sims at +7.4, favored in all five games left, with the trip to Texas A&M the tightest of them at 54.2%, and if the Longhorns get to Atlanta they win the title game 45% of the time. The losses are what keep Texas at No. 11 in the AP, and the sims only get them to Atlanta 19.3% of the time because five games is a lot of games.
Ole Miss is a good team with no path. The rating is +2.8, Georgia comes to Oxford, and my sims give the Rebels that one only 25.6% of the time. Then there's a trip to Oklahoma at 45.0%. Atlanta happens for Ole Miss in 10.8% of my sims.
LSU is two home games from being the story of the league. Alabama at 44.5% and Texas at 38.2%, back to back in Baton Rouge, and win both and the Tigers are in the middle of everything. Win neither and they're at 9.2% for a reason.
Florida gets to Atlanta in 9.5% of my sims, and almost all of that is because the schedule hands the Gators Georgia on Saturday and Kentucky later, which is two chances to rearrange the top. Tennessee sits at -4.8 in my sim ratings and reaches Atlanta in 3.3% of my season sims, but the Vols matter anyway, because they're a 63.9% favorite over Kentucky.
Georgia Has the Easy Road and Kentucky Is Climbing Uphill
Georgia's four remaining games come back Georgia 81.2%, 74.4%, 82.7% and 81.2% in my sims. Florida, Ole Miss, Missouri, South Carolina. No coin flips anywhere on the list.
Kentucky's three come back Kentucky 36.1% at Tennessee, 36.4% against Florida and 18.8% at Missouri. The team leading the SEC is an underdog every Saturday it has left, and the Missouri trip is close to a three-touchdown problem.
That schedule gap is why Georgia reaches Atlanta in 84.7% of my sims and Kentucky in 19.9%. Alabama, with two conference losses, reaches it 32.2% of the time. The sims have the Tide favored in all three of their games and hold the 45-17 head-to-head over Kentucky, and that's enough to put a two-loss team ahead of the one-loss leader.
Georgia is the top seed in Atlanta in 73.4% of my sims, and Georgia vs Alabama is the most likely title game at 27.0%. Georgia vs Kentucky is second at 14.8%, with Georgia vs Texas a hair behind at 14.1%. Georgia is in every one of the top nine matchups.
The biggest swing game left is Alabama at LSU on Nov. 7. Alabama reaches Atlanta 54.8% of the time with a win and 3.4% with a loss. One game, one afternoon in Baton Rouge, and the Tide's season either stays alive or quietly ends.
Georgia's trip to Ole Miss comes the week after Florida, on Nov. 7, and it's a big one for the Rebels and a shrug for the Dawgs. Ole Miss gets to Atlanta 34.2% of the time with a win. Georgia is still at 57.0% even with a loss, because there's nothing behind them that can catch up fast enough.
The outside numbers land in the same place, which I'll credit. Polymarket has Georgia at 43% to win the SEC, Alabama 11%, Kentucky 7% and Florida 5%. The A to Z Sports model goes Georgia 32%, Alabama 14%, LSU 12%, Kentucky 8%, and its most likely title game is Georgia vs Kentucky at 14%. My sims are more bullish on Georgia than either of them, at 62% to win the whole thing.
Saturday's SEC Slate Through My Sims
Georgia-Florida is in Atlanta this year, 3:30 ET on ABC, and my sims give it to Georgia 81.2% of the time with a typical score around 30-17. Florida rates -1.2 and nothing in the matchup pushes that number up.
A Florida upset would be the biggest thing to happen to the race all year. Florida's chances of reaching Atlanta go from 4.0% to 32.6% with a win. Georgia goes from 90.6% with a win to 59.4% with a loss, which is still the best number in the league, because the rest of the schedule is that soft.
Texas hosts Mississippi State and wins 85.4% of my sims, typically 34-17. That one moves Texas from 5.1% to 21.7% to reach Atlanta, so for the Longhorns it's the week they aren't allowed to slip.
Ole Miss gets Auburn at home and wins 69.5% of the time, around 36-27 in the typical sim. A loss there drops the Rebels to 2.0%, so the Georgia game next week only matters if they handle Auburn first.
Kentucky and Alabama are both on a bye. The two teams I keep writing about get to watch, which feels about right for how this league has gone.
How Many SEC Teams the Bracket Folks Let In
CBS has the SEC still well positioned for four playoff teams, with a likely range of 3 to 5. The fight it sees coming is three-loss SEC teams against two-loss teams from other conferences, and that's the fight the Alabamas and Texases of this race are going to live in.
Sporting News puts four SEC teams in for Week 9, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU and Texas, with Georgia as the No. 3 seed and projected SEC champ. It also counts the league at two one-loss teams and seven two-loss teams, which is the whole logjam in one line.
Dawn of the Dawg has Georgia No. 3 as SEC champ at 12-1 and Kentucky No. 9 as an at-large at 11-2. That Kentucky line is the one I'd poke at, because 11-2 means winning two of three as an underdog in all three. My sims get Kentucky to 7-2 in the conference 19.4% of the time.
CBS also points out that a new strength-of-conference metric would help the SEC if the committee takes it seriously. I'd love that to be true and I'll believe it when a three-loss SEC team jumps a two-loss Big Ten team on a Tuesday night.
The committee's first rankings come out Nov. 3. By then Georgia-Florida and Saturday's full slate are on the books, and Alabama at LSU is four days away.
The Two Teams I'd Book for Atlanta
My sims say Georgia and Alabama, 27.0% as a pair, nearly double the next matchup. A rematch in Atlanta is the game I want most, and if it happens the Tide win it 42% of the time, so Georgia would have a fight on its hands.
Bama still has to get through its own schedule first, tho, and there are plenty of places to stub a toe. LSU on the road is a 55.5% game, and a loss there drops the Tide to 3.4% to reach Atlanta. One bad Saturday and a Kentucky-type team slides into that spot, which wouldn't shock me one bit.
Kentucky deserves that fair hearing. The Wildcats have the best record in the league, the tiebreakers favor record first, and a win at Missouri would put them at 49.1% to reach Atlanta. The problem is it's two of three as an underdog in all three, and my sims make 6-3 the most common finish at 45.2%.
Georgia's half of it is simple. Florida on Saturday is the hurdle, and once the Dawgs clear it I think the rest of the year turns into fairly smooth sailing. At 90.6% to reach Atlanta with a win, they're booked by dinner.
So Georgia and Alabama, with Kentucky as the pothole that's real enough to keep me from laughing at it.