Best described as Survival Saturday, we witnessed a nearly earth-shattering Week 12 slate in college football, as No. 4 TCU and No. 3 Michigan—a 17-point favorite—both needed to rally with game-winning field goals in the final seconds against Baylor and Illinois to keep their college football playoff aspirations alive.

Second-ranked Ohio State, a 26-point favorite, was also trailing Maryland at halftime and No. 1 Georgia looked very sluggish again but held on with an ugly 16-6 victory over Kentucky.

Eight other ranked teams weren’t as fortunate, including a three-touchdown favorite in No. 13 North Carolina, the 14th-ranked Rebels and the fifth-ranked 22.5 favored Volunteers.

Despite the chaos and shocking upsets, the SEC remains the dominant conference in college football, representing four of the Top 10 teams in the country. Here’s a breakdown of the week’s winners and losers.

 

Winner: Spencer Rattler bounces back with career game in shocking upset

A former five-star recruit, Spencer Rattler lived up to his initial hype as a redshirt freshman, earning AP All-Big 12 honors and throwing for 3,031 yards with a 28:7 TD-to-INT ratio for Oklahoma in 2020. But then after being billed as a near-consensus projected Top 2 pick for the 2022 NFL Draft all spring and summer, Rattler cratered under the spotlight before getting benched for Caleb Williams last October and transferring to South Carolina in December.

The 6-foot-1, 215-pound gunslinger had been underwhelming for most of the 2022 campaign as well, averaging a meager 198 passing yards per game with an 8:9 TD-to-INT ratio.

But back under the national spotlight following an embarrassing loss as one of the losers of Week 11, Rattler and the Gamecocks put on a show against Heisman contender Hendon Hooker and the fifth-ranked Vols with one of the biggest upsets of the season.

“That was probably the best I’ve ever felt in a game. I felt unstoppable,” said Rattler, adding he thought it was one of the best wins in college football history, per CBS Sports.

Rattler fired on all cylinders, connecting on 30 of 37 passes for a career-high 438 yards and six TDs with a 96.9 QB rating. Junior WR Antwane Wells Jr., a transfer from James Madison, recently established himself as Rattler’s top target and led the way with 11 receptions for 177 yards.

“He was on. You talk about players and being in the zone,” South Carolina second-year coach Shane Beamer said after the game. “Our whole mindset going into this game was attack. You weren’t going to win this game punting on fourth down.”

Their 63 points are their highest mark in an SEC game in 17 years. The Gamecocks came into the divisional clash averaging 20.7 PPG against conference opponents this season.

 

Winner: Vanderbilt starts new era

The Commodores won their first conference matchup in over three years in last week’s shocking upset at No. 24 Kentucky. And they just followed it up with another stunner, knocking off two-touchdown favorite Florida.

“This is a new era in Vanderbilt football,” coach Clark Lea said after the win. “This is a game where we can look back and see when the shift happened.”

“This is another step in our journey. With continued support and continued effort, we have great things ahead for this program.”

The Commodores were outgained by a wide margin—445-283 in total net yards—but played a cleaner game, weren’t one-dimensional and were far more efficient than the Gators on third downs (60 percent to 26.6 percent).

Vanderbilt’s now won back-to-back conference games for the first time since 2018. If the Commodores can continue this streak with another shocker against No. 10 Tennessee, they’ll make their first bowl game appearance in four years.

 

Loser: Vols’ national title aspirations end in shocking beatdown

Despite a rough loss to Georgia, the Volunteers appeared to be following the rare path to the college football playoff set by Alabama in 2018, when the Tide rolled to another national title despite lacking a conference crown. All Tennessee needed to do was win its final two regular season games and likely jump the loser of the Ohio State-Michigan showdown.

But Spencer Rattler and the Gamecocks had other ideas, pulling off a remarkable 63-38 upset win as 22.5 point underdogs. Even before Hendon Hooker’s devastating injury, the Vols were already trailing 49-31 early in the fourth quarter.

“This one needs to hurt,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said at his post-game press conference.

Hooker didn’t have his best game and missed a handful of wide-open throws, connecting on 25 of 42 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns. But he definitely wasn’t the main culprit—that was a defense that couldn’t make a stop.

South Carolina, which boasts the 11th-best offense in the conference, found the end zone on nine of its 11 drives, and its 63 points are the most ever allowed by the Vols in an SEC game.

 

Winner: Rocket Sanders fuels Arkansas’ blowout, bowl eligibility

After a gut-wrenching loss to Liberty, it was a welcome sight to have quarterback KJ Jefferson back under center, but it was Raheim Sanders—nicknamed Rocket—who stole the show and fueled the Razorbacks’ rout of 14th-ranked Ole Miss.

“He played extremely well,” Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said. “Any running back that carries the ball for 100, 150 yards, they’ve got to have a break, most of the time, they’ve got to have one or two that’ll be a 30-, 40-yard pop. Certainly, that’s what he [got] tonight.”

With Sanders gashing the Rebels for 153 yards in the first half, the Razorbacks jumped out to a massive 35-6 lead and took their foot off the gas in the second half.

The sophomore running back finished the game with 232 yards and three touchdowns at an eye-popping 9.7 yards per carry, while hauling in all five of his targets for 29 yards.

Sanders ranks eighth in the nation with 1,379 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns on 209 carries at 6.6 YPC. Now bowl eligible, Arkansas wraps up the regular season in Missouri on Friday.

 

Loser: Gators keep beating themselves

Standout quarterback Anthony Richardson put on a clinic on Saturday, connecting on 25 of 42 passes for 400 yards and three touchdowns and an interception. But it wasn’t enough to overcome the costly penalties, lack of a run game and poor third down efficiency, as the Gators lost in a stunner to two-touchdown underdog Vanderbilt.

“It’s a setback no question,” Florida coach Billy Napier said after the game, via CBS Sports. “It is a little bit of a reality check.

“There were a lot of missed opportunities. I saw a lot of Florida beating Florida.”

There’s been quite a bit of inconsistency and growing pains for the Gators this season—which is not uncommon when you have a first-year head coach implementing a new system.

 

Winner: Kentucky freshman WR Barion Brown has breakout game

There wasn’t a lot that went right for an underwhelming Wildcats offense that strung together just 119 first-half yards and remained scoreless through three quarters in cold, windy conditions. But the defense managed to slow down Georgia’s prolific offense and the offense stepped up with some big plays in the fourth quarter.

Standout quarterback Will Levis, a potential first round pick in the upcoming 2022 NFL Draft, led the Wildcats to a 99-yard scoring drive that culminated in a touchdown pass to Barion Brown.

It was a true breakout performance from the freshman, who hauled in 10 of 13 targets for 145 yards and a score. Brown now leads the team in receptions (41) and receiving yards (560).

“After a tough loss a week ago, getting them motivated to compete at a high level [was our priority],” coach Mark Stoops said. “It took a lot of digging and soul-searching and the competitive nature of our players to reinvest and commit and to put in that kind of effort. We came up short, but the effort, the preparation was there.”

 

Loser: Hendon Hooker’s Heisman hopes and draft stock take a hit

Star QB Hendon Hooker and his favorite target Jalin Hyatt were highlighted as winners in last week’s column as strong Day 2 options with first-round potential in the 2023 NFL Draft.

But Hooker’s Heisman campaign and draft stock took a tragic hit when he suffered a devastating season-ending torn ACL in a non-contact injury in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s remarkable blowout loss to South Carolina.

When Hooker—who turns 25 in January—hears his name called, he’ll be the third-oldest QB to ever get drafted, behind John Beck (who was 26 in 2007) and Brandon Weeden (28 in 2012).

It’s an open question how much this devastating injury impact Hooker’s draft stock. He’ll miss out on some valuable opportunities to showcase his skills in pre-draft workouts but the timeline for his recovery process is unknown.

The Detroit Lions traded up from the No. 32 overall pick to No. 12 in this year’s draft to land former Alabama star WR Jameson Williams, who tore his ACL in January and is finally set to make his highly-anticipated NFL debut after returning to practice this week.

But there are a couple of other recent examples with a more favorable timeline. As noted by Saints Wire’s John Sigler, Bengals QB Joe Burrow returned to start every game in 2021 en route to a Super Bowl run after tearing his ACL and MCL in mid-November of his 2020 rookie campaign. Browns QB Deshaun Watson also returned to start every game for the Texans in 2018 after suffering a similar ACL injury to Hooker in his rookie season back in Nov. 2017.

Regardless, Hooker has immense upside at the next level and we wish him a speedy recovery.

 

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin

It’s tempting to just label Ole Miss as a loser here, after digging a 35-6 hole at halftime to Arkansas, just a week after having Alabama on the ropes in an SEC West thriller. Costly penalties in the red zone nullified two touchdown passes from QB Jaxson Dart and poor tackling on defense caused the game to get out of hand early.

It’s also worth highlighting the dynamic duo out of the Rebels’ backfield, as Zach Evans (rushed for 207 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries) and freshman phenom Quinshon Judkins (rushed for 214 yards and a score on 24 carries) fueled their unsuccessful fourth-quarter comeback effort.

But the biggest takeaway came Monday evening, when coach Lane Kiffin denied a report from Jon Sokoloff of WCBI News that he would be stepping down at Ole Miss on Friday to become the next head coach at Auburn.

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Kiffin then followed it up this gem, where he called out his son Knox for reaching out to Mississippi State QB Will Rogers ahead of the annual Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving.

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Whether Kiffin’s a ‘loser’ here for getting destroyed by Arkansas or a ‘winner’ for the way he responded to the reports of him leaving Ole Miss is open to interpretation. But he’s certainly in the conversation heading into a potential departure to Auburn, where he would assuredly land a massive contract.

 

Michael Gartman is a contributor to TheInscriberMag.com. Follow him on Twitter and follow us on Facebook.

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