Week 9 SEC Football Letter Grades: Alabama Through Kentucky

By Tucker Harlin

This is the final edition of SEC letter grades in October.

Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee all had the week off so they will not receive letter grades.

ALABAMA: A-

All in all, the 34-0 result in Bryant-Denny Stadium was a nice bounceback win for Alabama Saturday.

The offense didn’t have the fastest of starts in the first half as it needed a turnover in order to set up its first touchdown. At the same time, this game didn’t require heroics from Jalen Milroe for a big win.

Missouri quarterback Brady Cook tried his hardest to play through an injury but left the game in the second quarter. The Tiger offense only crossed Alabama’s 40-yard line once all game, and backup Drew Pyne threw three interceptions in relief of Cook.

Basically, Alabama played the hand it was dealt in the best possible way.

ARKANSAS: A

The Razorbacks put on their best performance in SEC play with a 58-25 win over Mississippi State in Starkville.

Taylen Green and the offense put up just shy of 700 total yards. Green threw an interception in the middle of the third quarter, but the offense was too productive for it to matter.

Defensively, the Razorbacks turned the Bulldogs over five times, and the offense turned around and scored 28 points off said turnovers.

Hard to give the Razorbacks anything less than an A for imposing their will like that on the road.

AUBURN: B+

I was thinking Auburn could squeeze into the A tier this week, but the first half of its win over Kentucky was too negative to do so.

The Tigers let the Wildcats go down and score on their first two possessions of the game. Payton Thorne threw a pick to Kentucky on the next possession, but the Tigers defense was able to keep it out of field goal range.

Clock management incompetence at the end of the first half is another reason Auburn isn’t in the A tier. A timeout taken too early, a third down sack to keep the clock winding, and 14 men on the field on a field goal attempt to end the half is pretty awful.

But Auburn ultimately avoided all of these wrongs in the second half.

Offensively, Jarquez Hunter averaged over 12 yards per carry in his 278-yard rushing performance. Just when you thought the defense was about to fold in the fourth quarter, it stood firm at the goal line and effectively ended the game.

Auburn took what it could get for its first SEC win of 2024.

KENTUCKY: F

I attribute most of Kentucky’s first half success to ineptitude from Auburn.

Brock Vandagriff hit Dane Key on a couple of pretty looking deep passes on the Wildcats’ scoring drives. But Vandagriff wasn’t good enough the rest of the way, prompting Mark Stoops to put Gavin Wimsatt in the game.

Wimsatt is mostly used in wildcat packages, and the downfield accuracy was suspect all game. He threw a pick at the goal line during a drive that could’ve cut Kentucky’s deficit to a score.

Auburn’s only offensive objective in the second half was to run up the middle. Kentucky had no idea how to stop Jarquez Hunter.

I haven’t seen this little hope in Lexington since the end of the Joker Phillips years.