A bye week did not do anything to help the Tennessee Volunteers in the Southeastern Conference. They remain at the bottom of our SEC Power Rankings.
It didn’t take long for us to be able to narrow the tiers in the league this year. Our SEC Power Rankings following the final weekend of September games for 2019 make it very clear where the power lies in the conference.
After a Tennessee football bye week, we have been able to separate the conference into three tiers. There are five teams at the top, and they remain the top 10 teams in the nation who all have national title aspirations.
Then we have four teams at the bottom, all of whom remain winless in the league. Finally, in the middle there are five more teams, all of whom have a conference win, have flirted with the top 25 and look to clearly be middle of the pack programs.
Of course, the tiers in our SEC Power Rankings can change on a week to week basis. This week has one game between two teams in the top tier, a game between a team in the top tier and a team in the bottom tier, and a game between a middle of the pack tier team and a bottom tier team. So a few things can change with just one upset.
However, right now, as we get set for the start of October and the heart of college football season, the standings among the schools are clear. As always, our rankings place the most emphasis on what a team most recently did and a bit less each previous week. Our factors include quality of victory, head to head and then margin of victory, in that order.
Also, remember, how good we think a team is or what we project them to do has no bearing on this list. It is only based on what they have done. So with that, let’s break it down on the final day of September. These are our SEC Power Rankings following a Vols bye in Week Five of the 2019 college football season.