Tennessee football: Did Akron win help Vols at all in Week 3 SEC Power Rankings?

Defeated Missouri State Bears 38-27

Bobby Petrino almost did it. The Missouri State Bears head coach marched into his former school’s stadium with an FCS team and built a 17-0 lead. Arkansas was able to come back after that to take control, but struggling against a lower-tier team is more than enough to make them the worst of the undefeateds in our SEC Power Rankings.

In fact, there’s a case to drop them below Mississippi State and LSU, particularly LSU. After all, they haven’t won a game away from home yet either, as both the Cincinnati Bearcats and South Carolina were at home, so they’ve got one Power Five win, no wins away from home and, most recently, a near-loss to an FCS school.

However, we have to be fair here. That FCS school is a top five program, one that beat a very good UT-Martin Skyhawks team the week before. Tennessee football will have to deal with UT-Martin later in the year. Also, Cincinnati is effectively a Power Five program under Luke Fickell, so they basically have two Power Five wins.

That’s enough to keep them in the tier with the undefeated teams, but they’ve got a lot to prove going forward. It starts this week, as they have their annual neutral-site showdown with Texas A&M, which will be a huge matchup. Then they visit Mississippi State, the BYU Cougars and Auburn, so things are about to get tricky.