SEC East Rundown: Contenders separate, Vanderbilt rebuild is steep

The SEC East race is up and running.

The first month of the college football season has wrapped up and we’ll enter October for Week 5. Football weather is on the horizon as teams begin to separate themselves in conference championship races.

In the SEC East, that is already taking place. The three top contenders in the division all won last week while a pecking order is starting to be established in the bottom of the division.

KSR has your weekly wrapup to keep everyone up to speed on all things happening in the division outside of Kentucky.

Emory Jones separates during SEC play

Back at SEC Media Days, Florida head coach Dan Mullen heaped non-stop praise for redshirt junior quarterback Emory Jones. After sitting behind Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask in his first four seasons in Gainesville, now was the time for the former top-100 recruit to shine.

However, Jones struggled against both Florida Atlantic and USF as redshirt freshman Anthony Richardson become the talk of college football. However, the young quarterback tweaked his hamstring against USF and Florida was forced to go all-in on Jones.

The veteran answered the bell.

In the second-half comeback against Alabama and double-digit win over Tennessee, Jones rushed for 220 yards on 34 attempts and passed for 404 yards with a pair of touchdowns.

Things have calmed down and Jones appears to be the guy moving forward. However, the veteran still only has a 46.15 percent passing success rate this season with a very high 17.31 percent pass breakup/interception rate. Meanwhile, Dan Mullen confirmed that Richardson is 100 percent ready to go heading into Saturday.

We are not far away from a QB carousel coming if Jones has a subpar outing.

Brock Bowers is emerging

Georgia is absolutely ridiculous. The Bulldogs have the best defense in college football to go along with an offense with blue-chip recruits lining up all over the place. The most impressive one might be a true freshman.

Five-star tight end Brock Bowers looks like the best true freshman in the SEC. The California native leads the Bulldogs in receptions (18), yards (272), and receiving touchdowns (4). Meanwhile, offensive coordinator Todd Monken called his number on a jet sweep in the red zone to give the diaper dandy a rushing touchdown.

Relive the best moments of 𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙆 𝙁𝙊𝙐𝙍 ‼️#GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/IyCK6uB5v1

— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) September 28, 2021

The Bulldogs continue to roll and Kirby Smart appears to have more young stars in the fold. UGA just continues to reload on the recruiting trail.

Missouri has major problems

Heading into Week 4, Missouri had a very substantial game. Heading up to Boston College, the Tigers found themselves in a toss-us contest against a team that could be a contender in the ACC Atlantic.

Once again, the defense was a disappointment. Connor Bazelak threw for 303 yards as the Tigers put up six yards per play, but that was still not enough in the 41-34 overtime loss. The Eagles were able to rush for 285 non-sack yards averaging nearly six yards per attempt. This has been a long season for new defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.

Mizzou ranks 114th nationally in yards per play allowed (6.38) and 129th in yards per rush (6.16). Only USF is lower.

The Tigers have a very good offense, but it is currently getting wasted due to having an SEC defense that just cannot get stops.

South Carolina offense has issues

One of the big takeaways from being at Williams-Brice Stadium for Kentucky’s 16-10 win over South Carolina was that many Gamecock fans are not a huge fan of new offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield. The numbers are ugly through 16 quarters despite the team sitting at 2-2.

.@CoachSBeamer: We're 2-2… it's still September. The sky is not falling. pic.twitter.com/SIlZoMjJEc

— Mike Gillespie (@MikeABCColumbia) September 28, 2021

Carolina ranks 13th in the SEC in yards per play offense (5.14) and 12th in the SEC in yards per rush (3.47). Even with starters on the offensive line returning to go with a bunch of talented tailbacks, the Gamecocks can just not get the ground game going.

This is troublesome for a team that has already started a pair of quarterbacks. South Carolina’s defense is forcing some takeaways, but Shane Beamer’s first offense has been unable to take advantage.

Boom or bust

Tennessee is now 2-2 under Josh Heupel with a pair of losses against both Power Five teams faced on the schedule. In the SEC matchup against Florida, both of the scores by the Vols came on touchdown passes of 47 and 75 yards.

However, this group is struggling to put drives together.

Tennessee had just one possession go longer than 10 plays as the Vols were just 6 of 15 on both third and fourth down. This offense produced just three scoring opportunities in their nine possessions outside of the explosive play touchdowns and came away with zero points.

With quarterback Hendon Hooker suffering an injury, this is just another thing for Tennessee to worry about. However, the blueprint appears to be out on the Vols. Take away the big play and force Tennessee to go on long, extended drives.

Clark Lea needs time at Vanderbilt

One thing has been made very clear through the first month of the season. The Vanderbilt rebuild is going to take a long time.

The Commodores had just 77 yards of total offense in the 62-0 home loss against Georgia and have yet to go over 400 yards in a game this season. Meanwhile, the defense has been one of the worst in the SEC through four games.

Vanderbilt has a winnable home game against UConn on Saturday, but things are going to get ugly moving forward. Lea needs time and a lot of patience as this rebuild takes place on the West End.