Three Questions Ahead of Week 13 of SEC Football
Credit: Texas A&M Athletics
By Tucker Harlin
How do we have two weeks of regular season college football left in 2024? Here’s a look back at the answers to my questions in Week 12:
DID ARKANSAS SHOW UP AGAINST A RANKED OPPONENT? Yes, but it didn’t win
HOW DID LSU RESPOND TO THE WORST LOSS OF THE BRIAN KELLY ERA IN DEATH VALLEY? With another loss. Lol.
DID SHANE BEAMER GET OVER THE MISSOURI HURDLE? Yes indeed he did.
WILL NICO IAMALEAVA SUIT UP IN ATHENS? Yes, but the Vols still lost.
Week 13 definitely has its fair share of cupcakes, but the conference still has six games between members in the fourth weekend of November.
These are my biggest questions ahead of Week 13.
WHICH OLE MISS IS GOING TO THE SWAMP?
There are two variations of the same team in Oxford.
There’s the Ole Miss that beat up on South Carolina in Columbia and worked Georgia to its first non-Alabama SEC loss in four years. However, there’s also an Ole Miss that lost at home to Kentucky and on the road against an LSU team that hasn’t won since.
Speaking of LSU, the Tigers found out the hard way that you can’t fiddle around with Florida and expect to win. I firmly believe Ole Miss is in a better spot than Brian Kelly and LSU, but D.J. Lagway and that Gators offense has new energy.
This is also a new situation for Lane Kiffin to navigate. He’s coached this team back into the projected field of 12, but can he avoid slipping up against opponents his team will be favored against in the last two weeks?
IS THIS THE WEEK AUBURN FINALLY WINS A CLOSE GAME?
I’m a Tennessee Titans fan.
As you know, the season isn’t going well. When I know the Titans are playing a game they shouldn’t win, I root for them to get blown out as opposed to losing close and making me uselessly invest in them.
Why am I talking about the Titans when this question is about Auburn? Well, Auburn loves nothing more than to lose close games in the most painful possible ways.
Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama, Cal, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Vanderbilt have all won closely against the Tigers in the two years Hugh Freeze has run the show on the plains. As of right now, the line for the Tigers’ home finale against Texas A&M is suggestive of a similar result.
The Aggies are going to have to adapt to life without Le’Veon Moss, so their run game shouldn’t be as productive as what we’ve observed in the first two months of the year.
An Auburn win knocks Texas A&M out of playoff contention.
WHO WINS OUT BETWEEN JALEN MILROE AND OKLAHOMA’S RUN DEFENSE?
I can guarantee you Oklahoma is a more difficult challenge defensively than LSU and the “quality competition” that is Mercer.
It will have been about a month since Jalen Milroe last went against a great defense in a hostile environment, and I saw firsthand how much he struggled against said defense.
The play of the Sooners defense is what kept them in games at Ole Miss, Auburn, and Missouri. However, it wasn’t enough to stay competitive against Tennessee or South Carolina at home.
In reality, Oklahoma’s defense is the only hope it has at making this a competitive battle with the Tide. The offense is one of the worst in the SEC, so an upset is an unlikely possibility.
