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SEC Power Rankings following Week 8 of 2018: Hardly any change

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 20: Najee Harris #22 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff arms Defensive back Baylen Buchanan #28 of the Tennessee Volunteers with Linebacker Daniel Bituli #35 of the Tennessee Volunteers defending during the second half of the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 20: Najee Harris #22 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff arms Defensive back Baylen Buchanan #28 of the Tennessee Volunteers with Linebacker Daniel Bituli #35 of the Tennessee Volunteers defending during the second half of the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium on October 20, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images /

There were hardly any changes to the SEC Power Rankings following Week 8 of the 2018 season, which saw Tennessee football lose to Alabama.

The entire nature of the conference over the weekend could be defined by Tennessee football losing 58-21 to the Alabama Crimson Tide: everything went as expected. As a result, we hardly had any changes in our SEC Power Rankings.

Four teams in the league didn’t play. Two more faced non-conference opponents that they should have blown out and did. That made for only four games between two teams in the conference, and none of them featured teams you would consider in the same tier as each other.

As you could predict, the higher-ranked team from last week’s SEC Power Rankings, or the team in the higher tier, won all four games. About the only excitement was one close game between two teams in completely different tiers at this point.

But as we get set to break down these rankings again, can we really use that to change anything? Honestly, not at this point. We’ve been saying this all year, but for as long as circular logic applies, we’re going to use it.

In the craziest scenario ever, circular logic is applying all the way into the fourth Saturday of October games. There is one undefeated team right now, and there are four other one-loss teams. Oh, we also have a team that has only one conference loss.

Of those six teams, four control their own destiny for an SEC Championship. One is likely to be in the running if they can win this weekend. The other is elite but may be out of luck based on who they already lost to.

Anyway, the bottom and top tiers of the conference are oddly similar as we’re almost two-thirds of the way through the regular season. With four more teams on byes this week, you would think nothing will change again. But instead, it’s the opposite.

There are two games with teams in the same tier that can truly define who belongs where. Three more involve teams in different tiers with the lower tier playing host in two of them and the potential for an upset in all of them.

As a result, some things are likely to change this weekend. And by next weekend, the final look of the conference will really begin to take shape. But you have to wait one more week for that. Until then, let’s give you our SEC Power Rankings following Week 8 of the 2018 college football season.

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