SEC football in Week 3 was dripping with so much drama it felt like the third episode of the latest must-watch reality TV show. The most anticipated game of the regular season finally happened in Oxford, and it lived up to the hype. Kentucky pulled off a shocker in College Station. The other Mississippi team is flying under the radar with a budding superstar of its own at QB. Vandy was gifted a win and moved to 3-0 in back-to-back seasons. Oklahoma’s offense looks ugly, while Florida’s looks promising.
Before flipping over to Week 4, let’s break down the standout stats and performances from the Week 3 SEC slate.
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss passes for a career-high 363 yards, tosses two touchdowns, and runs for the game-winning score to upset No. 7 LSU in former Rebels coach Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford
Trinidad Chambliss is THE Heisman frontrunner and best player in college football until proven otherwise. It’s not all about stats — though Chambliss’ stats were worthy of earning SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors. Chambliss has the it factor that we’ve seen in other SEC quarterbacks like Joe Burrow, Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel.
Heisman-worthy players do not play perfect games every week. Chambliss started by engineering an offense that piled up 289 yards and built a 24-7 first-half lead. Then he threw an interception in the third quarter, and LSU scored 17 unanswered points to tie the game.
Chambliss went from the highs to the lows and right back to the highs, leading the Rebels on a 13-play, 75-yard game-winning drive in the fourth quarter. He finished it himself with a 14-yard touchdown run.
Ole Miss’s former head coach, who couldn’t beat his former quarterback, aptly described the Heisman contender in his postgame news conference: “He’s hard to defend, and a lot of people haven’t beat him.”
Kentucky quarterback Kenny Minchey finishes 14-of-18 for 252 yards, two touchdowns and no turnovers while averaging an absurd 14 yards per attempt in the Wildcats’ stunning 31-21 win at No. 9 Texas A&M
Overshadowed by the drama surrounding Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford was perhaps the most impressive team performance of the weekend: Kentucky coming out of nowhere to upset Texas A&M in College Station in a game it completely controlled in the second half.
After falling behind 7-0, the Wildcats reeled off 28 straight points, highlighted by a 21-0 third quarter. Minchey was exceptionally efficient, completing his final 11 passes and going 9-for-9 in the second half. That’s the type of week-to-week quarterback play that can help first-year coach Will Stein turn Kentucky around quickly.
The Wildcats’ defense deserves plenty of credit, too, for holding an Aggies offense that entered the game averaging 49 points to just 21. Texas A&M managed only 20 yards and zero first downs during Kentucky’s dominant third quarter.
Mississippi State QB Kamario Taylor continues his rise to stardom, throwing four TD passes in the Bulldogs’ 41-34 win at South Carolina. Taylor leads the SEC with 11 TD passes
To help put Taylor’s performance over the first few weeks of the season in perspective, Bulldogs legend Dak Prescott threw nine TD passes through the first three games of his historic 2014 season, when Mississippi State eventually spent five consecutive weeks ranked No. 1.
Those who didn’t watch Saturday’s game might not realize Taylor contributed to Mississippi State’s early deficit. His first pass attempt was intercepted, helping set up South Carolina’s second touchdown of the first quarter. The Bulldogs trailed 16-0 and later went into halftime down 23-14.
But Taylor didn’t unravel. Mississippi State responded by going on a 41-7 scoring run that turned the 16-point deficit into a 41-23 lead. Taylor threw four touchdown passes to four different receivers without another interception.
Three games into the season, Taylor has already thrown two more TD passes than Prescott had at the same point in that unforgettable 2014 season.
Teams leading with possession in the final 10 seconds were 1,046-1 over the last 20 years before Vanderbilt stunned NC State
There’s no way around it: The Commodores were gifted a win in the final seconds. But that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that Vanderbilt, with a true freshman starting at quarterback, overcame a 17-point second-half deficit.
Then came one of the strangest endings you’ll ever see. NC State had the ball, the lead, and only six seconds left before a botched attempt to take an intentional safety resulted in Vanderbilt recovering a fumble in the end zone for the winning touchdown with one second remaining.
I’ve been watching SEC football closely for more than 20 years. Vanderbilt used to be the type of program that lost games in ridiculous fashion. It’s nice to see Lady Luck visiting Nashville over the last few seasons.
Oklahoma’s offense continues to struggle as the Sooners manage just 299 total yards in a 14-6 win over New Mexico
John Mateer’s stat line looks good — 238 yards and two touchdowns — until you see the two interceptions. That means over the last two games, in which the Sooners are averaging just 12 points, Mateer has thrown three TDs to three INTs.
In contrast, the Sooners’ defense is allowing an SEC-best 7.67 points per game. But as maligned as Mateer’s play has been, Oklahoma is struggling as a complete offensive unit. The Sooners managed only 61 rushing yards against New Mexico, averaged an inept 1.6 yards per carry and were held scoreless over the final 22 minutes of the game.
Oklahoma’s defense held New Mexico to just 185 total yards and six points. Asking that unit to carry this much of the load against Georgia on Saturday feels dangerous.
Florida rushes for 243 yards and four touchdowns against an Auburn defense that entered Saturday allowing only 76.5 rushing yards per game in a 44-39 road win
Florida might be on its way to proving its explosive offense, which averaged 569 yards against FAU and Campbell, wasn’t simply a product of overmatched competition.
Yes, Auburn is highly flawed. If Baylor and former Gators QB DJ Lagway hadn’t come up inches short of beating Auburn in Week 1, the Tigers would be 1-2 and viewed as one of the worst teams in the conference. Still, Florida piled up 495 yards of total offense and scored 44 points at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The Gators are averaging 54 points per game through three weeks.
The offense will need to continue validating that improvement when Ole Miss visits Gainesville on Saturday. As scary as Trinidad Chambliss and the Ole Miss offense have looked through the first few games of the season, the Rebels’ defense has struggled at times and ranks in the bottom half of the SEC in rushing defense.
That’s a weakness the 3.5-point favorite Gators will need to exploit if they are going to beat the No. 4 Rebels at home.
By Jake Thigpen (@Jake_Thigpen)
