When the SEC office first announced the league would attack COVID-19 with a 10-game conference-only schedule, the fear was the gap.
Surely the top echelon would feast on the bottom feeders. You know, the haves would have their way with the have nots. Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Florida and possibly Auburn would rule in a top-heavy league, while the rest of the conference would spend the year licking its wounds.
And to be sure, after four weeks, Alabama is at the top of the heap, having separated itself from the pack thanks to its convincing 41-24 win over Georgia last Saturday in Tuscaloosa. The Tide is 4-0. Georgia dropped to 3-1. Texas A&M is 3-1. Florida is 2-1. After that is something we might not have imagined, however.
It's called parity. Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Auburn and surprising Arkansas are all 2-2. Missouri and LSU are 1-2. Mississippi State and Ole Miss are 1-3, but Mississippi State won at LSU and Ole Miss won at Kentucky _ as we know _ 42-41 in overtime. On any given Saturday.
Just last Saturday, Kentucky won at Tennessee for the first time since 1984, and won decisively, 34-7. South Carolina beat Auburn for the first time since 1933, rallying from a 16-14 halftime deficit to win 30-22 in Columbia. And Arkansas picked off six Matt Corral passes to hold Lane Kiffin's explosive offense to just three touchdowns in a 33-21 win over Ole Miss.
How about those Razorbacks. After winning four total games in two seasons under Chad Morris, Arkansas hired veteran offensive line coach Sam Pittman to be head coach. Pittman hired ex-Missouri coach Barry Odom as his defensive coordinator. Now Pittman is the leading candidate for SEC Coach of the Year honors.
In fact, Arkansas could easily be 3-1, had the officials noticed that Auburn quarterback Bo Nix's late-game spike was actually a backward pass and a fumble in what was ultimately a 30-28 Auburn win.
And look at Kentucky's next opponent, Missouri, which started off 0-2 under new coach Eli Drinkwitz only to take advantage of LSU's defense-less defense for a 45-41 win in Columbia two weeks back. That game ended with LSU failing to convert on four tries from the Mizzou 1-yard line.
So where does Kentucky stand in the middle of all this? Mark Stoops' club still has a brutal schedule ahead, with a home game against Georgia (Oct. 31) and trips to Alabama (Nov. 21) and Florida (Nov. 28) on the docket. But with wins over Mississippi State and Tennessee after an 0-2 start, the Cats are in a much better spot than two weeks ago.
A much more confident spot, as well. Start with the six-interception effort against Mississippi State, the first time a Mike Leach-coached team failed to score an offensive point. Then add the two interception returns for touchdowns at Tennessee, where the UK offense dominated the second half on the way to the school's largest margin of victory in the series since 1935.
"The Tennessee win was a huge deal confidence-wise," UK senior offensive tackle Landon Young said Tuesday. "You look at the season that we beat Florida early-on, after that I feel like we had a head-of-steam confidence the rest of the games and I think that's part of the reason we won so many after that."
That 2018 season did not include a pandemic and a league-only schedule, however. Thanks to the postponement of Missouri-Vanderbilt last Saturday, Missouri has had two weeks to rest and recuperate. And thanks to the SEC's COVID shuffle, Georgia will have had an extra week off when it comes to Kroger Field to face Kentucky next Saturday.
Still, given what we've seen so far, I'm not sure any team in the league is that much better than any other team. Except for Alabama, of course. And maybe Georgia. After that, in this weird year, most any outcome is possible.
