Ranking the SEC's 9 saddest showings from a rough 2016 opening weekend

The SEC is the most talented conference and the one with the best recent postseason history. Yes, yes, yes, sure, sure, fine.

It also has been elevated to such a lofty perch that when it stumbles, the whole world gets to picnic around the crater. 2016's opening weekend has been just such an occasion, for the most part.

First, a few good things!

• No. 1 Bama stood on No. 20 USC's head for a few hours and won, 52-6. Any conference with Bama in it can't be all that sad.
• Texas A&M beat No. 16 UCLA, but did turn a 24-9 lead with five minutes left into overtime somehow.
• No. 18 Georgia covered the spread against No. 22 North Carolina in Atlanta, 33-24.

One that kind of lingers in the middle ...

• No. 25 Florida was only up by 10-7 on lowly UMass for what felt like hours, but scraped out a 24-7 win.

And now to the real excitement.

9. Auburn held No. 2 Clemson to 19 points, which is good, but only scored 13.

Offense is supposed to be Gus Malzahn's specialty. War Eagle's quarterback situation left absolutely no reason to believe this thing will get right any time soon.

8. Three-touchdown favorite Arkansas had to come back late to beat Conference USA's unranked Louisiana Tech by one point.

That's actually a great result for September Arkansas and could mean good or bad things for the annual November surge.

7. Missouri got blown out, 26-11, by unranked West Virginia, the team that replaced the Tigers in the Big 12.

Eleven points is pretty good for Mizzou's offense, though.

6. SEC East favorite Tennessee needed a lucky fumble in overtime to beat an unranked Sun Belt team.

Everyone saw it.

5. Ole Miss gave up 33 unanswered points and lost to a Florida State team it had led by 22.

It was all very Peak Ole Miss.

4. Kentucky gave up 34 unanswered points to its fired OC and lost at home to unranked Southern Miss.

Anything else? Yeah, there was some other stuff.

3. No. 5 LSU, the conference's second highest-rated team, lost to an unranked team from the lightly regarded Big Ten West.

The Tigers aren't necessarily out of the Playoff race, since a conference championship is technically still on the table, but that's a lot of adverbs. The main issue: all of last year's problems on offense are still apparent. I swore things would be better; I picked LSU to make the Playoff. Never listen to me.

Also, the Tigers didn't look very #classy at the end. (This one might result in a suspension.)

2. Mississippi State lost to unranked South Alabama, a football program that did not exist until 2009.

It also lost despite using South Alabama as a dumping ground for a chickenshit one-game suspension of its top recruit.

1. Vanderbilt lost to Will Muschamp.

Wow.

BONUS! Eight of 14 SEC teams realized they still have to play this Bama squad.

It was already on the schedule? That doesn't matter.