ORLANDO, Fla. — After Week 1 of the college football season, the SEC sits with a 12-3 record and six teams ranked in the AP Top 25, tied with the Pac-12 for the most among all conferences.
With Georgia and Alabama occupying top three spots, it looks like all is right in the world and the SEC will once again be the premier college football conference in America.
But a look under the hood shows some concern for this conference heading into what will be a far more challenging slate of games in Week 2, and Locked on SEC host Chris Gordy and guest Chris Marler discuss if the conference is actually overrated in 2023.
“They fell on their face on the national stage, and that’s not something we are used to seeing the SEC do,” Marler said. “Only four SEC teams played a Power-5 opponent and they went 1-3. They weren’t favored in two of those three losses, but they weren’t massive underdogs and they all kind of got embarrassed.”
The biggest culprit in making the SEC look bad was LSU, who gave up 31 second half points to Florida State in a shocking 45-24 loss, which catapulted the Seminoles to No. 4 in the AP poll and dropped the Tigers to 14.
Florida also fell to Utah, and while they weren’t favored they only managed 11 total points and lost to a Utes team without starting quarterback Cam Rising. Meanwhile South Carolina struggled against ACC rival North Carolina, taking a 31-17 loss.
Tennessee manhandled Virginia for the SEC’s lone victory over a Power-5 opponent, while everyone else took care of business against inferior G5 squads.
Week 2 still has plenty of G5 teams for the SEC to boost their win total against, but matchups like Auburn vs. Cal, Mississippi St. vs. Arizona, Ole Miss vs. Tulane, Texas A&M vs. Miami, Vanderbilt vs. Wake Forest and the matchup of the week, Alabama vs. Texas, should give fans a much clearer picture of the true quality of the SEC in the 2023 college football season.