So What Did We Learn On Week Five? Alabama And Georgia Are Simply Better Than Everybody Else

What we learned, Week Five: 1—Who’s No. 1? It doesn’t matter because the first five weeks of play have proven one thing: It’s Alabama and Georgia and then there

What we learned, Week Five:

1—Who’s No. 1? It doesn’t matter because the first five weeks of play have proven one thing: It’s Alabama and Georgia and then there is the rest of the field.

Alabama and Georgia proved once again on Saturday that they are just simply better than everybody else, period. And with all due respect to my friend Danny Kanell, the gap between Alabama, Georgia, and the rest of college football is significant.

The two most high-profile matchups on Saturday turned into blowouts as No. 1 Alabama dominated No. 12 Ole Miss 42-21 and No. 2 Georgia just broke the spirit of No. 8 Arkansas, 37-0. In both games the winner simply lined up and blew the opponent off the ball. And the opponent was helpless to even slow it down.

Alabama and Georgia remained 1-2 in the new Associated Press media poll released on Sunday. Alabama had 53 first place votes while Georgia had nine.

Both go on the road Saturday as Alabama plays Texas A&M and Georgia goes to Auburn, which upset LSU in Baton Rouge.

We can, however, have a debate on who’s No. 3 and No. 4. We’ll do that another time.

2—Cincinnati is officially in the discussion for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

There has always been a formula to get a Group of Five school into the mix for the CFP:

**--Go undefeated and take care of your conference games without too much of a struggle.

**--Schedule two non-conference opponents from the Power Five conferences. Win both of those games.

**--Chaos among most of the Power Five. Well, it’s pretty much a lock that the ACC (Clemson has two losses) and the Pac-12 (Oregon lost to Stanford in overtime) are out. The Big 12 looks shaky, even though Oklahoma keeps winning. Notre Dame (4-1) is probably out after losing to Cincinnati at home.

So the Bearcats, who were No. 5 in Sunday’s AP poll, should move up next week if they win  against Temple because No. 4 Penn State goes to No. 3 Iowa on Saturday.

3—Reason No. 5,225 why we love college Football: Bo Nix.

After Auburn almost (and probably should have) lost to Georgia State on Sept. 25, Tiger quarterback Bo Nix was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.

Think of this: His dad (Patrick) played quarterback at Auburn. His grandfather, Conrad, was a Hall of Fame high school coach who won over 300 games and two state championships. He also went to Auburn.

The whole world speculated that Bo Nix would lose his job as Auburn’s starting quarterback before or during Saturday night’s game at LSU. That did not happen. Nix accounted for 329 yards and made one play after another as the Tigers won in Baton Rouge for the first time since 1999.

When it was over Nix took a well-deserved victory lap around the floor of Tiger Stadium. His smile could have lit up Toomer’s Corner.

So in the space of seven days Nix went from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high. That is why we love this game so much. We love a story of redemption.

Now Bo Nix gets to play Georgia Saturday afternoon at Jordan-Hare.

4—The biggest surprise of the weekend? It wasn’t the ease with which Alabama and Georgia won against Top 12 teams. It wasn’t Kentucky beating Florida in Lexington for the first time since 1986. It wasn’t Mississippi State beating Texas A&M in College Station.

It was Tennessee hanging a cool 62 points on Missouri in a 62-24 win at Missouri. I frankly didn’t think this Tennessee team could score 62 on anybody (but Vanderbilt) in the SEC. But the Volunteers jumped out to a 28-3 lead in the first quarter and then put it in cruise control.

This was a big win for first-year coachc Josh Heupel because it gives him something to build on.

I said this summer that for Tennessee 6-6 would be a really good season and 7-5 would be a great season. If the Vols (3-2) can beat South Carolina (3-2) on Saturday in Knoxville those goals are within reach. Tennessee will be underdogs to Ole Miss, Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia. But South Alabama and Vanderbilt look like wins.

Now that I’ve thought of it, Ole Miss at Tennessee on Oct. 16 could be very interesting.

5—After losing at Kentucky 20-13 Saturday, Florida still has a path to the SEC championship game in Atlanta on Dec. 4. No, really.

But I wouldn’t bet the ranch—or anything else for that matter--on it.

First of all, the Gators (1-2 in SEC) have to win out against Vanderbilt, at LSU, Georgia (Jacksonville), at South Carolina, and at Missouri to finish 6-2. Vanderbilt is the only SEC game left on campus.

Secondly, Georgia (3-0 SEC) would have to lose twice and Kentucky would have to lose three times. I don’t see either one of those things happening.

When Florida lost the 31-29 squeaker to No. 1 Alabama we thought the Gators had enough in the tank to run the table and challenge Georgia in the SEC East.

But give Kentucky credit. The Wildcats held Florida to only 13 points. The Gators certainly did their part to help as they had 15 penalties including eight false starts. They also had eight snaps inside the Kentucky 10-yard line in the final moments and could not score.

Florida was hoping for, a the very least, another New Year’s Day Six bowl this season. I don’t believe that is going to happen.