SEC Power Rankings Week 14: An Intervention for Missouri

First and Always

Dear Rock M Nation,

Congratulations on your team's win against Tennessee last Saturday. That was a talented Vols team, and your veteran defensive line (preseason rank: 11th) played their best game of the year and absolutely took the young, inexperienced Tennessee offensive line behind the woodshed. This is genuine praise and sincere congratulations-- quite frankly, I'm amazed that Missouri was able to win that game, and as the young Vols improve, Mizzou might not win again until 2026.

But that's not why I'm writing this missive.

Let's talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.

First, trash talk. If you're going to come onto our post-game thread and gloat, you have to be funny. That's the iron rule of offending social niceties: if you're going to go off the reservation, you better make us laugh. It's not like we haven't given you plenty of potential ammunition: our fight song implies that we murder federal agents to keep our moonshine, we have a color scheme synonymous with hunting and state prisons, and the amount of camouflage at any given sporting event is rivaled only by that at West Virginia. So the material is there, and yet all you have is a few lame cracks like "3-0" or "something something coach them up". Y'all can and should do better. Heck, I made a 50 Shades of Ray joke and compared Mizzou to Nickelback in the gamethread.

Second, let's discuss the perceived reputation of Tennessee fans as a bunch of arrogant, classless jerks. It's simple: we think we're Nebraska, and you're a team that has an all-time record of 36-65-3 against Nebraska. We're the Alabama of the East, and you're the Mississippi State. We have Neyland Stadium, the Vol Navy, Smokey, and Peyton Manning; you have a Rock M at one end of the stadium with a bunch of plump Midwesterners uncomfortably perched on top. We're Tennessee, and you're not. Volunteer fans and other other Tiger fans may never join hand-in-hand and sing Kumbaya, but that's because we think it's our God-given right to pound the bottom half of the SEC East into dirt every November while stuffing ourselves with deep-fried turkey.

In conclusion, if you think we're bad fans now, just wait until we start winning again next year.

Yours,

Hunter

Previous Ranking

SEC Power Rankings Week 13: A Love Letter to the Dearly Departed

Current Ranking

1. Alabama: Boring but effective. Alabama fans: you're cheering for Ivan Drago, you pricks.

2. Mississippi State: A tough, veteran outfit who should easily beat up on an injured, dispirited Ole Miss squad... which means Ole Miss will win by two touchdowns. The only constants in Mississippi are racism, obesity, and hot girls.

3. Georgia: Beat the stuffing out of the SEC East division winner, but failed to take care of business against the bottom-tier teams. Now you know how the other half (ie, South Carolina) lives!

4. Auburn: The most Malzahn thing ever would be to go down early in the Iron Bowl against Alabama, invent a completely new offense at halftime, win on a last-second Statute of Liberty/Fumblerooski/Band-is-on-the-field play, and then call the Finebaum show and reveal that "Harvey Updike" is a pseudonym he uses when he enters a bipolar fugue state. The trees were an inside job! Someone call Charlie Sheen to get to the bottom of this.

5. Arkansas: BERT gorged on turkey stuffed with cheese, bacon, and more bacon (aka an "Arkaducken"), which triggered an immediate hibernation response deep in his flabby, hirsute body. Or that's the only explanation I can think of for how terrible the Razorbacks looked in losing to Mizzou.

6. LSU: Whenever LSU fans start grumbling about Les Miles and his awful, inconsistent offenses, I just laugh and laugh. Miles just won eight games in the toughest division in college football while playing a freshman tailback, two freshman wide receivers, and a pair of quarterbacks who make Jeff Driskel look like a model of consistency.

7. Ole Miss: The most Ole Miss thing ever would be to lose star defensive end Robert Nkemdiche to injury during a glorious, but ultimately unsuccessful goal line stand in the fourth quarter, followed by head coach Hugh Freeze leaving for Gainesville in a green-and-blue helicopter emblazoned with alligators.

8. Missouri: The best period in school history continues.

9. Tennessee: It's frustrating losing to a team as inconsistent as Missouri, but that's the problem with being young and inexperienced. Remember when Venus Williams used to beat up on Serena, even though it was clear that Serena was 10x more talented? Yeah.

10. Texas A&M: Fired defensive coordinator Mark Snyder, clearing the way for Will Muschamp to glower on the sidelines in College Station for years to come. I hope they give him the head-coach-in-waiting title, just so he can have a laugh while he waits for something that will never, ever come.

11. South Carolina: It's hard to tell how Spurrier would respond if he somehow lost to Dabo Swinney-- either he rededicates himself to a final season of offensive dominance and destroys everything in sight while burning Clemson down to smoldering ashes, or he mails a letter to the University of South Carolina president postmarked Key West with a drunken, rambling resignation letter enclosed.

12. Kentucky: If Mark Stoops beats Louisville, this was an incredibly successful season in Lexington.

13. Florida: Gator fans think they're getting Stoops, Freeze, or one of the Kellys. They're more likely to end up with a scratch-and-dent special from the Sears coaching outlet. "Look, this Todd Graham is only lightly used! It still has some trustworthiness left in it!"

14. Vanderbilt: At the end of the season, Derek Mason is going to retreat to a hideaway in the Hollywood Hills and plot a complete reboot with the assistance of reboot master extraordinaire JJ Abrams. Expect next year's Commodores to have 100% more lens flare.