Week 13 was mostly a status-quo weekend for the SEC football hierarchy, but that brings us to the final week — rivalry week for some — of the 2025 college football regular season with much still on the line, including the final round of musical chairs in the SEC Power Rankings.
All 16 SEC teams are in action for the first time in several weeks. Games are scheduled for both Friday and Saturday, including a couple of big conference rivalry games with College Football Playoff Rankings and league standings ramifications.
Texas A&M, the No. 1 team in the SEC Power Rankings for the third week in a row, puts its unbeaten 11-0 record on the line in a rivalry matchup at Texas the day after Thanksgiving. The annual Iron Bowl rivalry between Ole Miss and Mississippi State (5-6) also will kick off on Friday. The Rebels (10-1) are hoping to close out their first-ever 11-win regular season. The game is at Mississippi State, and we all know that you can throw season records and rankings out the window in high-emotion, intrastate games of this nature, and with school pride and bragging rights on the line.
Alabama, hanging on at a precarious No. 10 in the current CFP rankings, is at Auburn on Saturday for the Iron Bowl. On paper, this looks like a layup for the Crimson Tide, but again, this is a heated rivalry where anything goes — favorite beware!
A couple of other final weekend matchups of interest involve Georgia at Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt at Tennessee and LSU at Oklahoma, with the Sooners needing just one more win to lock up a spot in the College Football Playoff.
The way things stand today, the SEC could have five teams in the 12-team playoff field, but it’s still not clear which two teams will play for the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta on Dec. 6.
Week 14 SEC Football Power Rankings
1. Texas A&M (11-0, 7-0)
The Aggies may have the toughest challenge of any SEC team this week when they take the conference’s only unblemished record to Austin to play their hated rival, the Texas Longhorns, who are undefeated (5-0) at home this season. A win puts Texas A&M in the SEC Championship, as well as the College Football Playoff. Even with a loss, though, the Aggies should be in the playoff.
2. Georgia Bulldogs (10-1, 7-1)
Georgia’s lone loss this season was at home to Alabama, 24-21. The Bulldogs will finish the regular season at Georgia Tech, which opened the season with eight straight wins but has lost two of the last three. Regardless of what happens this weekend, Georgia appears to be firmly in the playoff field. As far as a path to the SEC Championship, because Alabama holds the tiebreaker over Georgia, the Bulldogs need a Texas A&M loss and an Alabama loss to reach the conference title game.
3. Ole Miss Rebels (10-1, 6-1)
Ole Miss heads into the Thanksgiving weekend in quest of its first-ever 11-win regular season, but also not knowing what the future holds for head coach Lane Kiffin, who is on the short list for several open positions at major programs. Whether that creates a distraction for the Rebels’ Egg Bowl rivalry game at Mississippi State remains to be seen.
Mississippi was No. 6 last week. The Rebels still have a chance to make the conference championship game, but their path is the most complicated of any of the contenders. Ole Miss needs to win against Mississippi State on Friday, and have Texas A&M and Alabama lose to leapfrog into the SEC Championship Game.
4. Oklahoma Sooners (9-2, 5-2)
The Sooners recorded their third consecutive win over a top-25 team with a 17-6 win over Missouri on Saturday. A win on Saturday, hosting LSU, will send Oklahoma to its first playoff appearance since 2019, when the Sooners lost 63-28 in the national semifinal round to Joe Burrow and eventual national champion LSU.
5. Alabama Crimson Tide (9-2, 6-1)
Alabama has two losses for the season, but only one conference loss, 23-21 to Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide face in-state rival Auburn on Saturday in the annual Iron Bowl rivalry. Win that game, and Bama goes to Atlanta to face either Texas A&M or Georgia for the SEC championship. If Alabama gets by Auburn and advances to the SEC Championship, that likely will secure Bama’s spot in the College Football Playoff regardless of whether it wins the conference title game.
6. Texas Longhorns (8-3, 5-2)
The Longhorns had one of their more powerful offensive performances this past weekend, defeating cellar-dwelling Arkansas 52-37. That may not have done much to improve Texas’ season resume, but the Horns host bitter rival and undefeated Texas A&M on Friday, and the outcome of that game certainly could. The Longhorns have been somewhat of a disappointment this season, having started out the 2025 season as the nation’s preseason No. 1. Texas is up one spot in the power rankings, from No. 7 a week ago.
7. Vanderbilt Commodores (9-2, 5-2)
Vanderbilt hammered Kentucky 45-17 on Saturday with Commodore quarterback Diego Pavia throwing for 484 yards and five touchdowns. Vandy plays its regular-season finale at Tennessee this weekend looking to reach 10 wins and its winningest season since going 9-4 in back-to-back years in 2013 and 2014. The Commodores are also up one spot from last week.
8. Tennessee Volunteers (8-3, 4-3)
Tennessee has been ranked in the top 25 all season, and the Vols have eight wins heading into the final weekend of the regular season. But in the dog-eat-dog SEC, they are only eighth in the conference standings. After recording a road win at Florida over the weekend, Tennessee finishes up with a tough test against in-state rival Vanderbilt, which is having one of its best seasons in over a decade. Missouri’s loss to Oklahoma allowed the Volunteers to move up one in the power rankings.
9. Missouri Tigers (7-4, 3-4)
Missouri returned to the top 25 last week at No. 22, but will likely drop back out after losing at Oklahoma on Saturday. The Tigers dropped three spots in the power rankings this week and conclude the regular season at Arkansas on Saturday.
10. LSU Tigers (7-4, 3-4)
Having lost three of its last four games against SEC opponents and three of its last five overall, LSU has been on a gradual descending scale for over a month. At one point early in the season, the Tigers were ranked No. 3 in the country. They are on track for their worst season under former head coach Brian Kelly (who was fired on Oct. 26 after a 49-25 home loss to Texas A&M) and worst since Ed Orgeron’s last season at LSU in 2021.
11. Mississippi State Bulldogs (5-6, 1-6)
Mississippi State has a tall order this week, hosting in-state Egg Bowl rival Ole Miss. Despite having just one conference win, the Bulldogs remain ahead of both Kentucky and Florida in the power rankings, both with two wins in conference play. The Bulldogs are one win away from becoming bowl eligible, but it will be hard sledding against a very good Ole Miss team.
12. Kentucky Wildcats (5-6, 2-6)
Vanderbilt took Kentucky to the woodshed over the weekend, posting a 28-point win, 45-17. The Wildcats finish out the regular season traveling Louisville for an in-state, inter-conference showdown and needing one more win to become bowl eligible.
13. Auburn Tigers (5-6, 1-6)
It’s been a difficult season for the Auburn Tigers, who on Week 4 were ranked No. 22 in the Associated Press Top 25. Their head coach, Hugh Freeze, was fired a couple of weeks ago, and they go into the Iron Bowl matchup against rival Alabama as heavy underdogs. An improbable win would make Auburn’s season, as well as bowl eligible.
14. South Carolina Gamecocks (4-7, 1-7)
The Gamecocks are another SEC team that began this season with high expectations and ranked as high as No. 15 in the country. South Carolina started out winning its first two games before going on a 1-7 skid. The Gamecocks only conference win was 35-13 over Kentucky. They picked up win No. 4 on the season this past weekend, 51-7, over Coastal Carolina. USC will end its season with a Senior Day matchup against Clemson.
15. Florida Gators (3-8, 2-6)
Florida is yet another SEC team that has grossly underachieved this season. The Gators’ signature win of the season came against then-No. 9 Texas on Oct. 4. They also beat Mississippi State a couple of weeks later. Both of those wins were at Florida. The Gators are another SEC team that fired its head coach this season, joining Arkansas, Auburn and LSU. Florida will end its season hosting Florida State.
16. Arkansas Razorbacks (2-9, 0-7)
Arkansas is a team that can match the best in the SEC offensively, but defensively, the Razorbacks sit at the bottom of the conference and are 124th out of 134 FBS teams. Unless they are able to pull an improbable upset against border rival Missouri on Saturday, the Razorbacks are going to finish the season winless in the conference and with just two wins for the season. The last time Arkansas had as few as two wins in a season was in 2018 and ’19. Those two Arkansas teams also were 0-8 in the conference.
