Just how unimpressive did the SEC look in Week 4?

The SEC is always placed on a pedestal for its strong college football performances, but one would not have known that from this weekend.

This week of college football was one to remember, as there were several competitive games that kept fans on the edges of their seats.

Said games include but are not limited to Texas Tech’s overtime victory over Texas, Clemson’s double-overtime escape from Wake Forest, and yet another upset dealt to the Oklahoma Sooners on Kansas State’s behalf.

When it comes to the other nail-biting games, though, several of them involved at least one SEC team—and not in a good way.

I know that it is important to remember that “a win is a win,” but it’s hard to look at some of these SEC teams’ latest performances with optimism when considering the standard that they have set for themselves in the past.

Let’s kick things off with seeing how the defending champs did this weekend. The top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs hosted the Kent State Golden Flashes on Saturday, and I think we can all guess how that one turned out…can’t we?

The short answer to that question is ”not exactly.” While the Dawgs won by a convincing margin, they did not do so as comfortably as one would have predicted. The final score of 39-22 was, if anything, a large concern for the SEC’s crown jewel, especially with Kent State only being down by 10 for a good chunk of the game’s final quarter.

Winning by three scores is hardly something to cry about, but forgive me for feeling that more should be expected from a CFP front runner hosting a MAC team (one with a losing record, no less).

How did the rest of the SEC do this weekend?

As for some of the other strong SEC squads that inexcusably struggled, both Kentucky and Ole Miss escaped their Group of 5 opponents by eight points. Even with the games being played in SEC stadiums, the Wildcats only downed Northern Illinois by a score of 31-23, while the Rebels survived Tulsa by a very similar one of 35-27.

When you are sharing your conference with some of college football’s greatest programs/talent, you can’t afford to limp past the little guys, yet that is exactly what those two did on Saturday—and the depth of the SEC looks more questionable as a result.

Even the league play from this weekend led to a fair share of disappointment. Texas A&M has now hopped back into the AP‘s top 20 after stunning Arkansas, but that caused the Razorbacks to fall a menacing 10 spots.

Also, Tennessee’s win over Florida may have put the Vols in the top 10, but it left the Gators unranked at the same time. That kind of give-and-take will hardly ever help the conference as a whole.

That just leaves the games that told us nothing, whether it be due to the poor quality of their matchups, their final scores, their impact on the rankings, or a blending of the three.

To summarize: Alabama crushed Vanderbilt, Mississippi State dominated Bowling Green, LSU shut out New Mexico, South Carolina bullied Charlotte, and Auburn outlasted Missouri in overtime.

All of those games amounted to just two takeaways; the first is that at least some portion of the SEC can easily handle smaller competition, and the second is that Auburn is slightly less terrible than Missouri. Neither of those make for a lot to flash a smile over.

Will Week 4 define many—if any—of these teams as the season progresses? No, probably not. However, some of them need to get it together and fast, because the coming Saturdays won’t be much easier than this one.