SEC Week 3 has arrived, and the warm-ups are done\u2014now it\u2019s about positioning. Week 2 revealed who\u2019s climbing, who\u2019s slipping, and where momentum is shifting. Most matchups barely cracked second-screen status, but a few demanded full attention. Here\u2019s whose stock is on the rise\u2014and whose is taking a hit.<\/p>\n
“I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.” The cowbells were clanging in full force on Saturday night. Mississippi State jumped out to a 17-0 lead over the defending Big 12 Champion Sun Devils. It wouldn’t last for long, as Arizona State went on a 20-0 run to take the lead. It wasn’t meant to be, though. Blake Shapen hit Brenen Thompson on a 58-yard bomb to seal the win with the go-ahead touchdown left with just 30 seconds left on the clock. It was the biggest win in the Jeff Lebby era and gave the Bulldogs as they move on to year two.<\/p>\n
The Sooners’ defense was nasty on Saturday night in their win over Michigan. They held five-star freshman Bryce Underwood to 142 yards passing with no touchdowns. The Sooners did a masterful job at shutting down and limiting the effectiveness of the Wolverine run game. Michigan rushed for just 146 total yards, and their meager passing results show why they were just 3-12 on third down. John Mateer played well, but with the Sooner defense, that should be just enough to turn a season full of questions into something more in 2026.<\/p>\n
It’s two steps forward and three steps back again in Gainesville. The Gators finished the season with a four-game winning streak and became bowl-eligible after a rough start that saw Billy Napier’s future questioned and key players injured. Napier is just 20-20 in a little over three seasons in Gainesville. But bad losses continue to stand out. Touchdowns called back, and another spitting incident cost the Gators against South Florida. The Gators will now travel to LSU, Miami, home against Texas, and on the road at College Station in the next five weeks. That is not a recipe for success or security for the Florida coaches.<\/p>\n
Rankings are based on the AP media poll. Lines and game totals are courtesy of\u00a0FanDuel<\/a>. All games are Eastern Standard Time. Check the links for insights from your favorite\u00a0Last Word on College Football<\/a>\u00a0writers. After the lines, we\u2019ll take a big picture look and predict the five biggest SEC Week 1 matchups on the weekend.<\/p>\n Picks last week:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Better last week, tripped up by the Gators and the cow bells in Stark Vegas.<\/p>\n Tennessee has been strong at home under Josh Heupel. But if Heupel and the Vols have kryptonite, it is\u00a0 Georgia. Georgia has knocked Tennessee each of the last eight years in a row. The Vols have scored plenty of points, but they have yet to face a defense that has been as formidable as the Georgia defense.\u00a0Tennessee is expected to be without starting cornerbacks Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson III against Georgia, as McCoy continues to recover from an ACL injury and Gibson from an undisclosed arm injury sustained in the season opener.<\/p>\n Pick:<\/strong> Georgia<\/p>\n This game has a tendency to get wild and weird when these two teams get together. Ole Miss dominated this one last year in Fayetteville. Dominating doesn’t seem yet to be in the Rebels’ vocabulary in 2025. They had to battle for four quarters last week in a win over Kentucky in Lexington. Arkansas comes in 2-0 after dismantling Arkansas State in Little Rock last weekend. Everyone had Sam Pittman picked for dead and the first one fired in the SEC. Don’t doubt Pittman or the Hogs. This one should be fun, but painful for the Lane Trian.<\/p>\n Pick:<\/strong> Arkansas<\/p>\n The seat is more than hot in Gainesville. Fans have forgotten any goodwill gained in 2024. DJ Lagway and Napier are going to have to pull out all the stops to find a win in Baton Rouge. The LSU defense has been stingy in 2025. Blake Baker has the Tigers finally playing up to the standard he is used to. LSU’s offense has been good, though they are going to have to battle some injuries on the offensive line. This one could go off the rails and turn the Gator fan base into a frenzy.<\/p>\n Pick:<\/strong> LSU<\/p>\n What do we make of the Aggies? They have two wins to start the season. But, they’ve looked far from impressive in their wins against subpar opponents. They head to South Bend to face a Notre Dame team that is still learning or growing. Expect this to be a four-quarter game, but the luck of the Irish finds a way to smile.<\/p>\n Pick:<\/strong> Notre Dame<\/p>\n South Carolina’s current winning streak against Vanderbilt in football is 16 games, a streak stretching back to 2008. This isn’t your brother or your father’s Vanderbilt. Diego Pavia and Clark Lea have the ‘Dores playing with an edge. South Carolina has looked shaky against a bad Virginia Tech squad and an FCS squad in South Carolina State. This will be LaNorris Sellers and Shane Beamer’s first test. This one should also go four quarters, but Pavia will find a way to lead the Dores through the Sandstorm.<\/p>\n Pick:<\/strong> Vanderbilt<\/p>\n Main Image: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SEC Week 3 has arrived, and the warm-ups are done\u2014now it\u2019s about positioning. Week 2 revealed who\u2019s climbing, who\u2019s slipping, and where momentum is shifting. Most matchups barely cracked second-screen status, but a few demanded full attention. Here\u2019s whose stock is on the rise\u2014and whose is taking a hit. Stark Vegas Fever “I got a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":77423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35588,35573,35584,17,35676,35582,3,35577,35587,35575,35580],"tags":[314,244,65,86,259,258,20,80,59,64,96],"class_list":["post-77401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-arkansas-razorbacks","category-florida-gators","category-lsu-tigers","category-news","category-notre-dame-fighting-irish","category-ole-miss-rebels","category-sec","category-south-carolina-gamecocks","category-tennessee-volunteers","category-texas-am-aggies","category-vanderbilt-commodores","tag-arkansas-razorbacks","tag-florida-gators","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-sec","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-texas-am-aggies","tag-vanderbilt-commodores"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77401"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77425,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77401\/revisions\/77425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n Matchup<\/strong><\/td>\n Date<\/strong><\/td>\n Time<\/strong><\/td>\n Channel<\/strong><\/td>\n Line<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n No. 13 Oklahoma<\/a> @ Temple<\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n Noon<\/td>\n ESPN 2<\/td>\n #Boomer -23.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Wisconsin @ No. 19 Alabama<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n Noon<\/td>\n ABC<\/td>\n #RollTide -21.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n South Alabama @ No. 24 Auburn<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 12:45 PM<\/td>\n SECN<\/td>\n #WDE -25.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n No. 6 Georgia<\/a> @ No. 15 Tennessee<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 3:30 PM<\/td>\n ABC<\/td>\n #GoDawgs -3.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Louisiana @ No. 25 Missouri<\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 4:00 PM<\/td>\n SECN<\/td>\n #MIZ -27.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n UTEP @ No. 7 Texas<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 4:15 PM<\/td>\n SECN<\/td>\n #HookEm -41.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Alcorn St @ Mississippi State<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 6:00 PM<\/td>\n SECN+<\/td>\n N\/A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Arkansas<\/a> @ No. 17 Ole Miss<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 7:00 PM<\/td>\n ESPN<\/td>\n #Sip -7.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Florida<\/a> @ No. 3 LSU<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 7:30 PM<\/td>\n ABC<\/td>\n #GeauxTigers -7.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n No. 16 Texas A&M @ No. 8 Notre Dame<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 7:30 PM<\/td>\n NBC<\/td>\n #GoIrish -6.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Eastern Michigan @ Kentucky<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 7:30 PM<\/td>\n ESPNU<\/td>\n #BBN -23.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Vanderbilt @ No. 11 South Carolina<\/a><\/td>\n Sept. 13<\/td>\n 7:45 PM<\/td>\n SECN<\/td>\n #SpursUp -6.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n No. 6 Georgia @ No. 15 Tennessee<\/h3>\n
Arkansas @ No. 17 Ole Miss<\/h3>\n
Florida @ No. 3 LSU<\/h3>\n
No. 16 Texas A&M @ No. 8 Notre Dame<\/h3>\n
Vanderbilt @ No. 11 South Carolina<\/h3>\n