SEC Power Rankings after week 4: Vols near bottom

Vanderbilt got hit with a huge dose of reality. And it was painful to witness. After beating the Kansas State Wildcats in a huge home win to suggest this program had arrived under Derek Mason, the Alabama Crimson Tide came into Nashville and delivered one of the most dominating performances in SEC history.

The great Commodores defense gave up over 600 yards to the Tide and 38 first downs while gaining fewer than 100 yards and picking up just three first downs. It was one of the worst stat lines ever.

That may lead fans to believe Mason’s team truly isn’t that good.

However, it wasn’t enough for us to drop the Commodores too much in our SEC Power Rankings. When the Tide focus for four quarters, they could do that to almost anybody.

Despite this loss, you can’t take away their win over Kansas State the week before. And that win likely kept Alabama more focused on this game than they had been since their Week 1 victory over the Florida State Seminoles.

So while there’s shame in such a bad blowout loss, it’s not as shameful as you might think. And the Commodores are still 3-1 with a major quality win.

Now, though, we’re about to get a better read on them. These guys will face the Florida Gators on the road this week in a very winnable game.

Then they’ll host the Georgia Bulldogs before back to back road trips against the Ole Miss Rebels and South Carolina Gamecocks. If they come out of their 2-2, they should be in decent shape.

But if they come out 3-1, then they’ll likely be at least a nine-win team this year. So the Alabama beatdown is no reason to quit on this team yet.