The eighth week of the SEC’s 92nd season includes seven conference games and one non-conference contest. The league games feature two ranked-vs.-ranked matchups with No. 5 Georgia and No. 1 Texas squaring off in Austin and No. 7 Alabama and No. 11 Tennessee meeting in Knoxville. Ole Miss has an open date on Saturday. Here are 10 stats from SEC Football by the Numbers, along with the schedule, TV and betting lines, to get ready for Week 8:
1 Loss in the previous 25 seasons for Oklahoma in its game after its annual Red River Rivalry meeting with Texas. In 2014, Kansas State upended the Sooners 31-30 a week after Oklahoma defeated Texas 31-26. The Sooners play South Carolina on Saturday after losing to Texas 34-3 last week.
2 Previous games at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium have featured teams ranked in the top five of the AP Poll. No. 1 Texas defeated No. 4 Arkansas 42-7 on Dec. 5, 1970, and No. 1 Ohio State defeated No. 2 Texas 24-7 on Sept. 9, 2006, in Austin, where No. 5 Georgia and No. 1 Texas will square off on Saturday. Texas has a 5-9-1 home record against top-five opponents. Playing in Austin for the first time since 1958, Georgia has a 2-5 record when facing the No. 1 team in the AP Poll. The No. 17 Bulldogs beat No. 1 Florida 24-3 on Nov. 9, 1985, and No. 3 Georgia defeated No. 1 Alabama 33-18 in the CFP national championship game on Jan. 10, 2022. The Bulldogs enter Saturday’s showdown on a 14-game October winning streak, the longest in the SEC. Georgia’s most recent loss in the 10th month is a 41-24 setback against Alabama on Oct. 17, 2020.
4 Consecutive Arkansas-LSU games have been decided by three points. The Tigers defeated the Razorbacks 27-24 in 2020, 13-10 in 2022 and 34-31 in 2023, and Arkansas defeated LSU 16-13 in 2021. Entering their meeting on Saturday, LSU leads the series 44-23-2 after winning seven of the past eight games.
4 Victories and six losses for Alabama coaches in their first game against Tennessee in the SEC era. Red Drew in 1947, Bill Curry in 1987, Gene Stallings in 1990 and Nick Saban in 2007 won against Tennessee in their first season with the Crimson Tide. Ears Whitworth in 1955, Bear Bryant in 1958, Ray Perkins in 1983, Mike DuBose in 1997, Dennis Franchione in 2001 and Mike Shula in 2003 lost to the Vols in their first season as Alabama’s coach. Kalen DeBoer will be guiding the No. 7 Tide against No. 11 Tennessee for the first time on Saturday. DeBoer will be the second first-year Alabama coach to lead a ranked team against the Volunteers, the seventh in a row to face a ranked Tennessee team and the first to open against the Vols in a ranked-vs.-ranked game. On Oct. 15, 1983, Perkins’ No. 11 Tide lost to unranked Tennessee 41-34. Since then, the Volunteers have been ranked for every meeting with a first-year Alabama coach, with Curry upending No. 8 Tennessee 41-22 in 1987, Stallings upsetting No. 3 Tennessee 9-6 in 1990 and Saban defeating No. 20 Tennessee 41-17 in 2007.
8 Of its opponents’ 10 fumbles have been recovered by Oklahoma this season. The Sooners are tied with Memphis for the national lead in opponents’ fumbles recovered. South Carolina has lost eight of its 14 fumbles in 2024. Nationally, the Gamecocks are tied for the most lost fumbles this season with Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, Temple and TCU. South Carolina and Oklahoma play on Saturday.
19 Points are the most that have been scored against Tennessee in the Volunteers’ past seven games. It’s the longest stretch of games without any of Tennessee’s opponents reaching 20 points since a seven-game stretch in 1998 that included a 35-18 victory over Alabama. Tennessee hasn’t held more than seven straight opponents to fewer than 20 points since doing so in the final nine games of the 1985 season. Alabama, Tennessee’s opponent on Saturday, has scored at least 20 points in 17 consecutive games and has at least 34 points in each of its past eight games against Tennessee.
73 Years since Kentucky most recently had a four-game winning streak against Florida. The Wildcats and Gators square off on Saturday with Kentucky owning three consecutive victories over Florida. Kentucky’s only four-game winning streak in the series came from 1948 through 1951. Florida had a 31-game winning streak over Kentucky from 1987 through 2017 and holds a 53-21 lead in the series.
148 Games have been played by Auburn since it was most recently shut out, the second-longest streak in school history. Auburn’s most recent shutout loss came 49-0 to Alabama on Nov. 17, 2012. Auburn’s record scoring streak lasted 149 games, starting with a 55-16 victory over Richmond on Oct. 4, 1980, and ending with a 17-0 loss to Alabama on Nov. 26, 1992. Auburn’s current scoring streak is the 10th-longest in SEC history, and its record streak is the ninth-longest. The Tigers will seek to tie for the top school scoring streak on Saturday against Missouri.
200 Pounds will be lifted in celebration by the winning team after Saturday’s game between Arkansas and LSU. That’s the weight of the Golden Boot, the name of the trophy awarded to the winner of the Razorbacks-Tigers game annually since 1996. LSU has a 19-9 advantage over Arkansas in Golden Boot games.
1,138 Passing yards in Georgia’s past three games for QB Carson Beck. Texas, the Bulldogs’ opponent on Saturday, has yielded 756 passing yards in six games this season. Only one player has reached 150 passing yards against the Longhorns in 2024 – QB Davis Warren with 204 in Michigan’s 31-12 loss to Texas on Sept. 7. Beck had 439 passing yards in a 41-38 loss to Alabama on Sept. 28, 240 passing yards in a 31-13 victory over Auburn on Oct. 5 and 459 passing yards in a 41-31 victory over Mississippi State on Oct. 12.
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE SEC, GO TO OUR SEC PAGE
This week’s SEC schedule includes (all times are CDT with point spreads from BetMGM):
Saturday
· Auburn (2-4, 0-3) at No. 19 Missouri (5-1, 1-1), 11 a.m. at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri (ESPN). Line: Missouri by 4.5
· South Carolina (3-3, 1-3) at Oklahoma (4-2, 1-2), 11:45 a.m. at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma (SEC Network). Line: Oklahoma by 1
· No. 7 Alabama (5-1, 2-1) at No. 11 Tennessee (5-1, 2-1), 2:30 p.m. at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee (ABC). Line: Tennessee by 3
· No. 14 Texas A&M (5-1, 3-0) at Mississippi State (1-5, 0-3), 3:15 p.m. at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi (SEC Network). Line: Texas A&M by 18.5
· Ball State (2-4) at Vanderbilt (4-2), 6 p.m. at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee (ESPN+). Line: Vanderbilt by 27.5
· No. 8 LSU (5-1, 2-0) at Arkansas (4-2, 2-1), 6 p.m. at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas (ESPN). Line: LSU by 2.5
· No. 5 Georgia (5-1, 3-1) at No. 1 Texas (6-0, 2-0), 6:30 p.m. at Darrel K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas (ABC). Line: Texas by 4.5
· Kentucky (3-3, 1-3) at Florida (3-3, 1-2), 6:45 p.m. at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida (SEC Network). Line: Kentucky by 1.5.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
