SEC Football by the Numbers: Top 10 from Week 7

SEC Football by the Numbers: Top 10 from Week 7

During the seventh week of the SEC’s 2022 season, Georgia defeated Vanderbilt 55-0, Kentucky defeated Mississippi State 27-17, LSU defeated Florida 45-35, Ole Miss defeated Auburn 48-34 and Tennessee defeated Alabama 52-49 in conference games and Arkansas defeated BYU 52-35 in a non-conference contest. Here are 10 numbers about the SEC’s Week 7 games:

1 LSU coach has led the Tigers to victories at Auburn and Florida in the same season. In his first season at LSU, Brian Kelly guided the Tigers to a 21-17 victory in Auburn on Oct. 1 and a 45-35 victory in Gainesville on Saturday. LSU has played at Auburn and Florida in the same season 14 times, and five coaches – Curley Hallman, Gerry DiNardo, Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron — had failed to turn the trick that Kelly did this season.

1 Loss for Alabama when it has scored at least 46 points in a game – Saturday’s 52-49 setback against Tennessee. Before Saturday, the Crimson Tide had a 161-0 record when scoring at least 46 points. Alabama became the fourth SEC team to lose when scoring at least 49 points in a non-overtime game. Mississippi State defeated Arkansas 51-50 on Nov. 21, 2015, Wake Forest defeated Texas A&M 55-52 in the Belk Bowl on Dec. 29, 2017, and Ole Miss defeated Arkansas 52-51 on Oct. 9, 2021. Tennessee became the third opponent to score at least 52 points against Alabama in a non-overtime game. Sewanee defeated the Tide 54-4 on Oct. 21, 1907, and Vanderbilt defeated Alabama 78-0 on Oct. 20, 1906.

3 Rushing TDs and 3 passing TDs for LSU QB Jayden Daniels in the Tigers’ 45-35 victory over Florida on Saturday. He became the fourth SEC player to have at least three TD runs and three TD passes in a non-overtime conference game. On Nov. 8, 1952, Mississippi State QB Jackie Parker had three TD runs and three TD passes in a 49-34 victory over Auburn. On Oct. 24, 2015, Mississippi State QB Dak Prescott had three TD runs and three TD passes in a 42-16 victory over Kentucky. On Oct. 9, 2021, Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson had three TD runs and three TD passes in a 52-51 loss to Ole Miss. Against Florida, Daniels completed 23-of-32 passes for 349 yards and ran 14 times for 44 yards. Daniels became the second LSU player to pass for 300 yards against Florida, joining Jamie Howard, who had 339 in a 28-21 loss to the Gators in 1992.

3 SEC ball-carriers ran for at least 175 yards on Saturday. Kentucky RB Christopher Rodriguez Jr. had 197 yards and two TDs on 31 carries in a 27-17 victory over Mississippi State, Auburn RB Tank Bigsby had 179 yards and two TDs on 20 carries in a 48-34 loss to Ole Miss and Arkansas RB Raheim Sanders had 175 yards and two TDs on 15 carries in a 52-35 victory over Brigham Young. Rodriguez became the 45th player in SEC history to reach 3,000 career rushing yards. Bigsby became the fourth Auburn player with at least 100 rushing yards against the same opponent in three consecutive seasons. Against Ole Miss, Bigsby ran for 129 yards in a 35-28 victory in 2020 and 140 in a 31-20 victory in 2021. Auburn’s Carnell “Cadillac” Williams had 100-yard games against Mississippi State in 2002, 2003 and 2004, Bo Jackson had 100-yard games against Alabama in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985 and James Brooks had 100-yard games against Tennessee in 1977, 1978 and 1979. Sanders extended Arkansas’ streak with a 100-yard rusher to eight games. He has been the 100-yard ball-carrier in five of those contests.

4 Losses for Auburn in 17 games in Oxford, Mississippi, including Saturday’s 48-34 setback against Ole Miss. The coach for each of the previous three losses by the Tigers to the Rebels in Oxford was not Auburn’s coach in the next season. Auburn lost at Ole Miss 45-21 in Pat Dye’s last season in 1992, 17-7 in Tommy Tuberville’s last season in 2008 and 41-20 in Gene Chizik’s last season in 2012.

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5 TD receptions for Tennessee WR Jalin Hyatt in a 52-49 victory over Alabama on Saturday to tie the SEC single-game record. Hyatt followed LSU’s Carlos Carson against Rice in 1977, Vanderbilt’s Earl Bennett against Kentucky in 2005, South Carolina’s Sidney Rice against Florida Atlantic in 2006 and Alabama’s DeVonta Smith against Ole Miss in 2019 as SEC players with five TD receptions in one game. Hyatt equaled the Tennessee record for TDs in a game set by Gene McEver in a 54-0 victory over South Carolina on Dec. 7, 1929. Before Saturday, only one opposing player had caught as many as three TD passes in one game against Alabama in this century – Texas A&M’s Malcome Kennedy in a 49-42 loss to the Crimson Tide on Sept. 14, 2013. Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker threw the five TD passes to Hyatt to become the third player with at least that many in a game against Alabama. Johnny Manziel had five TD passes in Texas A&M’s 2013 loss. Danny Wuerrfel threw six TD passes in Florida’s 45-30 victory over the Tide in the SEC Championship Game on Dec. 7, 1996.

5 Interceptions have been returned for TDs by Mississippi State CB Emmanuel Forbes, who scored on a 59-yard interception return with 8:33 left in the Bulldogs’ 27-17 loss to Kentucky on Saturday. Forbes tied the SEC record for career interception-return TDs set by Tennessee LB Jackie Walker from 1969 through 1971. Forbes had three interception-return TDs as a freshman in 2020 and another against Texas A&M on Oct. 1. Forbes has intercepted four passes in the past three games.

11 Consecutive victories for Alabama when the Crimson Tide incurred at least 100 penalty yards, a streak that ended on Saturday. Alabama had a school-record 17 penalties for 130 yards in its 52-49 loss to Tennessee on Saturday. The Tide had 11 penalties for 113 yards in a 40-38 loss to Central Florida on Oct. 28, 2001. Between those games, Alabama won the 11 contests in which it had at least 100 penalty yards.

112 Years since the previous time that Arkansas had scored at least 50 points against a non-conference opponent on the road. On Saturday, the Razorbacks defeated BYU 52-35 in Provo, Utah. On Nov. 5, 1910, Arkansas won 50-0 at Washington College in Missouri. Saturday’s game was Arkansas’ 62nd with at least 50 points since the win at Washington, but the 61 games in between came in home games, conference games or neutral-site games. The victory, fueled by five TD passes by QB KJ Jefferson, made Sam Pittman the first Arkansas coach to win the first eight non-conference games of his tenure with the Razorbacks.

448 Rushing yards for Ole Miss in its 48-34 victory over Auburn on Saturday. The Rebels posted their highest rushing total in a conference game since running for 515 yards in a 39-14 victory over Auburn on Nov. 10, 1951, in Mobile. That’s the highest rushing total ever given up in one game by the Tigers and the most rushing yards in one game for Ole Miss. For the first time since 1975, Ole Miss had three players with at least 100 rushing yards in the same game. Against Auburn, RB Quinshon Judkins ran for 139 yards and two TDs on 25 carries, RB Zach Evans ran for 136 yards and one TD on 21 carries and QB Jaxson Dart ran for 115 yards on 14 carries. In a 23-6 victory over Tennessee on Nov. 15, 1975, in Memphis, Paul Hofer, James Reed and Michael Sweet ran for at least 100 yards apiece for the Rebels. Auburn ran for 301 yards in Saturday’s game. Auburn had won 15 in a row when rushing for at least 300 yards since Nov. 8, 2014, when the Tigers lost to Texas A&M 41-38 while running for 363 yards. Auburn has a 43-2 record in this century when gaining at least 300 yards on the ground. Ole Miss has won four of the past five games in which its opponent has run for at least 300 yards.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.