It’s officially spooky season in the SEC, although some teams have been living through a horror movie since the season kicked off.
Georgia learned that surviving one near-death experience doesn’t mean another isn’t lurking around the corner. Alabama fans are watching their worst nightmares unfold before their eyes, while Texas’ season is becoming the kind of horror movie that’s so bad it’s actually funny.
Meanwhile, Auburn apparently rose from the dead just long enough to terrify the Bulldogs, and Missouri probably wishes somebody would destroy all footage of its trip to Oxford.
With Halloween just around the corner, we’re embracing the holiday spirit for this week’s SEC power rankings by assigning each of the conference’s 16 teams a horror movie that best represents its season.
Some teams are the monsters. Others are the helpless victims. A few are making the kind of inexplicably stupid decisions that get characters killed in the opening scene.
And as any horror movie fan knows, just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse, there’s always another jump scare waiting around the corner.
Taylor’s SEC Power Rankings
(Last week’s ranking in parenthesis.)
1. Georgia (1)
- Last week: lost to Auburn, 27-24
- This week: Off
- Horror movie: Final Destination. Georgia cheated death against Alabama, recovering all four of its fumbles. But death always wins and it showed up in the form of Auburn last Saturday.
2. Ole Miss (4)
- Last week: def. No. 13 Missouri, 31-3
- This week: at No. 19 Texas
- Horror movie: The Exorcist. Whatever demonic entity was possessing the Rebels against Florida was exercised during the bye week. Presumably, Pete Golding found a priest or two during the bye week three weeks ago.
3. Texas (3)
- Last week: lost to Florida, 27-24
- This week: vs. No. 7 Ole Miss
- Horror movie: The Wicker Man. The Longhorns were setup as national title contenders and were being led down a rosy path only to realize the path ends with the championship dreams being trapped and set on fire.
4. Tennessee (8)
- Last week: def. No. 6 Alabama, 26-10
- This week: at South Carolina
- Horror movie: Halloween. Just like Michael Myers does whenever his sister Laurie comes back to Haddonfield, Illinois, Tennessee usually shows up wielding a butcher’s knife whenever Alabama comes to Knoxville
5. Alabama (2)
- Last week: lost to No. 14 Tennessee, 26-10
- This week: vs. Texas A&M
- Horror movie: Misery. Alabama fans would like to be the villain in this movie so they can hold Kalen DeBoer hostage until he rewrites the season with a more Saban-like ending.
6. Kentucky (6)
- Last week: def. Oklahoma, 21-13
- This week: vs. Vanderbilt
- Horror movie: It Follows. Keep dismissing the Wildcats, but they’ll just keep coming back. They aren’t moving particularly fast, but every time you turn around, they’re a little closer.
7. LSU (9)
- Last week: def. No. 16 Mississippi State, 31-0
- This week: at Auburn
- Horror movie: Psycho. Mississippi State checked into Baton Rouge expecting a football game. Turns out, Death Valley offers even worse hospitality than Norman Bates.
8. Missouri (5)
- Last week: lost to No. 9 Ole Miss, 31-3
- This week: Off
- Horror movie: A Quiet Place. Make too much noise and terrifying creatures will destroy you. Missouri apparently took that advice literally in Oxford.
9. Mississippi State (7)
- Last week: lost to No. 22 LSU, 31-0
- This week: vs. Oklahoma
- Horror movie: The Invisible Man. Kamario Taylor set the college football world on fire but an injury kept him off the field last week. The result would scare even the biggest horror movie fans.
10. Florida (10)
- Last week: def. No. 7 Texas, 27-24
- This week: Off
- Horror movie: Split. Much like the villain with 23 different personalities, we have no clue who the real Florida is.
11. Texas A&M (11)
- Last week: def. The Citadel, 41-0
- This week: at No. 13 Alabama
- Horror movie: The Amityville Horror. Imagine spending your life’s savings on your dream home only to find out its haunted and nothing works right. That’s basically Texas A&M football.
12. Auburn (13)
- Last week: def. No. 1 Georgia, 27-24
- This week: vs. No. 18 LSU
- Horror movie: Carrie. Everybody, including yours truly, hasn’t shown Auburn much respect, but they just showed up at Georgia’s party and turned it into a bloodbath.
13. Oklahoma (12)
- Last week: lost to No. 15 Kentucky, 21-13
- This week: at Mississippi State
- Horror movie: Saw. Instead of someone else setting the traps for Oklahoma to escape, the Sooners are doing it themselves. Four turnovers, including a pick-six against Kentucky is complicated trap to escape from in time.
14. South Carolina (15)
- Last week: Off
- This week: vs. No. 11 Tennessee
- Horror movie: Happy Death Day. South Carolina spent three weeks experiencing the same nightmare. Lose to Mississippi State. Get annihilated by Alabama. Find a particularly painful way to lose to Kentucky. Finally, the Gamecocks figured out how to break the loop against Florida..
15. Vanderbilt (14)
- Last week: lost to Arkansas, 31-21
- This week: at No. 12 Kentucky
- Horror movie: The Babadook. A family is haunted by a terrifying presence that represents unresolved grief. For Vanderbilt, that grief is the loss Diego Pavia.
16. Arkansas (16)
- Last week: def. Vanderbilt, 31-21
- This week: Off
- Horror movie: Frankenstein. It’s alive! Ryan Silverfield has apparently figured out how to resurrect the dead. Unfortunately, like the original monster, nobody’s quite sure whether this creation will actually function properly.
