I don’t like reaching the halfway point of the season.

I realize that’s how time works, but I still don’t celebrate it because it means we’ll have fewer fall Saturdays left in the future than fall Saturdays in the bank. I don’t like that and neither do you. When I am commissioner of college football, I will stop this unfair annual fall tradition at double speed.

However, I like to distract myself from this reality by digging up interesting stats that help tell the story of the first half of the season. There is no shortage of that.

Here are my 10 favorite wild SEC stats as we (reluctantly) acknowledge the halfway point of the 2024 season:

1. Vanderbilt has a positive lead in SEC play and has as many SEC wins as preseason top-10 teams Ole Miss and Mizzou combined

To be fair, the same can be said of non-Bowl 2023 team Arkansas, which, like Vandy, also beat a top-five team this season. But that’s Vandy! For example, the team with two SEC wins in the decade of the 2020s until Diego Pavia and about half of the New Mexico State program showed up in 2023. This is the program that survived its 2.5 over/under in the regular season and ended an 0-60 start against AP top-five opponents with a win over No. 1 Alabama. The fact that the ‘Dores compounded that by controlling the game at Kentucky, which was coming off a bye and a win against No. 6 Ole Miss, was telling.

Consider that Mizzou’s only SEC win in two tries was a double-overtime thriller against Vandy. The Dores are incredibly close to 3-0 in SEC play with two wins against top-10 teams. Even crazier? With a win against Ball State as a 4-touchdown favorite this weekend, Vandy could secure bowl eligibility before November for the first time in program history. All you have to do is beat America’s No. 1 team for the second time this season.

Who can rule that out in this Pavia universe we live in?

2. Two of the SEC’s three remaining undefeated teams in conference play had multiple QBs starting multiple games

This may not seem “crazy” to some, but consider how often an injury to a starting quarterback can derail a season. For A&M and Texas, both programs turned to redshirt freshmen to step in and step up. This is nothing to make fun of. Marcel Reed and Arch Manning helped themselves and helped their teams by weathering the storm instead of coasting.

I say it over and over again. Even in an era where quarterback depth is so difficult to come by due to the fluid nature of the transfer portal, it is often the overlooked ingredient for a successful team. At least the depth at this position allows an offense to have a complete playbook at its disposal rather than having to worry about what can happen if the QB running game is overused or if the pass rush runs into a quarterback while he’s running attacks downfield. Texas and Texas A&M have already checked this important box.

3. Auburn suffered three home losses before October for the first time in program history

This is due to an FBS-worst sales margin of -11. By the way, I looked at the pre-October loss stats right after Auburn inexplicably blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter against Oklahoma. I went back to the 1910s and found that back then they didn’t play three games until October. You know what else they didn’t do back then? Play in the SEC.

But that’s the problem. It would be one thing if Auburn lost at home to three Giants. It lost to Cal as a 2-touchdown favorite, it lost to an Arkansas team that won four games last year, and it lost to an Oklahoma team without its top five receivers but with a true freshman in its first Career start. Needless to say, Jordan Hare supporters probably didn’t mind a month-long home game break.

4. Tre Harris has 411 more receiving yards than any other SEC receiver

That’s right: Harris publishes numbers on video games. He has 987 receiving yards and would have already had 1,000 receiving yards if he had caught Jaxson Dart’s long pass in the LSU game. That and the Kentucky fumble are the only negatives for the Ole Miss receiver in 2024.

I limited this to the SEC, but if I didn’t want to do that, I would point out that Harris has 245 more receiving yards than any Core 4 player. Yes, he has the extra game because most teams already had their byes and Ole Miss is heading into the first bye week, but still. The distance between Harris and every other SEC receiver (411 yards) is a number that only 9 other SEC receivers have summed up this season.

5. 17-year-old Ryan Williams (in case you haven’t heard) has more 50-yard catches (5) than 13 SEC teams

By now you know that the freshman from Alabama is 17 years old. They also know he’s a home run player waiting to happen. Seven of his 23 catches were for at least 40 yards (only 23 FBS teams have that many 40-yard passing plays in 2024), which is why he is averaging an FBS-best 25 yards/catch. Surely it will work… right? The SEC record for yards/catch for a full season is held by Mississippi State’s Danny Knight, who averaged 25.0 yards/catch in 1982.

If Williams were to break that 42-year-old record before he could legally vote, it would be an absurd achievement, even by his own absurd standards.

6. Texas trailed by just 3 minutes and 50 seconds (out of a possible 360 ​​minutes) and allowed a touchdown pass

What’s more impressive than Texas’ pass defense being so dominant when running? This 1 touchdown pass allowed in 6 games came in the final 2 minutes of a 31-6 Michigan game when Texas was already pulling its first starters. This will play. Yes, there’s a good chance it ends up against Carson Beck this weekend. The Dawgs are the only top-70 offense Texas has played in 2024. But these defensive numbers through 6 games are off the charts:

• No. 1 in FBS in scoring defense
• No. 1 in the FBS in yards allowed/game
• No. 1 in the FBS in yards allowed/game
• No. 1 in the FBS in yards/pass allowed
• #1 in FBS in TD passes allowed
• No. 1 in FBS in opposing 10-yard plays from scrimmage
• No. 1 in the FBS in opposing 20-yard plays from scrimmage
• T-No. 1 in FBS in opposing 30-yard plays from scrimmage
• No. 2 in FBS in opposing QB rating allowed
• No. 2 in FBS in opposing red zone scoring percentage
• No. 4 in FBS in rushing TDs allowed
• No. 7 in FBS in opposing 3rd down conversion percentage

Yes, that’s why that field goal at the end of the first quarter against Oklahoma brought Texas to the only deficit it would face all season.

7. Dylan Sampson already has as many rushing TDs (15) as any SEC player in the entire 2023 season

Lost in the hubbub of Nico Iamaleava’s regression in October is how good Sampson was in this leading man role. He has completed drives in the last 10 quarters for a Tennessee offense that has come back down to earth. In just 6 games, Sampson matched Quinshon Judkins’ SEC-best 15 rushing touchdowns in 2023. With 2 more rushing scores, Sampson will have more than any SEC player in the last three seasons.

Here are the SEC players who have scored 20 rushing touchdowns in a season:

• 1. 2015 Derrick Henry, 28
• 2. 2020 Najee Harris, 26
• T3. 2013 Tre Mason, 23
• T3. 2007 Tim Tebow, 23
• 5. 2015 Leonard Fournette, 22
• T6. 2012 Johnny Manziel, 21
• T6. 2011 Trent Richardson, 21
• T8. 2015 Alex Collins, 20
• T8, 2010 Cam Newton, 20

As long as Sampson stays healthy, all signs point to him making this list. Who knows? Maybe he’ll top it if Tennessee can make it to the College Football Playoff.

8. Ole Miss averages 84.6 penalty yards per game

I know what you’re thinking. That seems high, but how high is it? Well, here are the highest penalty yards/game totals by SEC teams in the 21st century:

1. 2001 Mississippi State – 89.7 penalty yards/game
2. 2000 Mississippi State – 86.9 penalty yards/game
3. 2002 Alabama – 78.8 penalty yards/game
4. 2021 Ole Miss – 75.2 penalty yards/game
5. 2003 Georgia – 73.7 penalty yards/game
6. 2003 Mississippi State – 72.3 penalty yards per game
7. 2008 Georgia – 72.2 penalty yards per game
8. 2002 Arkansas – 71.6 penalty yards/game
9. 2001 Georgia – 71.0 penalty yards/game
10. 2021 Florida – 70.6 penalty yards/game

So yes, Ole Miss is trying to avoid stealing this dubious title from the Mississippi State teams of the early 21st century. Including Ole Miss in 2021, there’s a good chance Lane Kiffin will have two of the five most penalized SEC teams of the 21st century. I don’t think that’s going to be on his resume anytime soon.

9. Oklahoma converted just 26.8% on 3rd down…

… No SEC team has been this bad for an entire season since the NCAA began tracking third-down conversion percentage in 2005.

Shot. The 3rd-down issues that arose in the season opener against Temple were not resolved, even with a quarterback change. Of course, when you’re without your top five receivers and your offensive line is broken, it’s difficult to successfully convert on 3rd down. But still. That’s not exactly a convincing endorsement from Seth Littrell to keep his OC job at his alma mater.

The good news for Oklahoma is that the number that needs to be sorted out to avoid holding that dubious title at the end of the season is just 26.9%, which was set by Vanderbilt in 2010. The bad news for Oklahoma is that 4 of the last 6 games have been against AP top 25 teams and half of those 6 opponents have among the top 25 opponent 3rd down conversion percentages nationally.

10. South Carolina leads FBS with most tackles for loss in conference play (33)

Like the team that has already competed against LSU, Ole Miss and Alabama. Kyle Kennard, Dylan Stewart, Tonka Hemingway and TJ Sanders were phenomenal for Shane Beamer. Kennard, the Georgia Tech transfer, and Stewart, the 5-star freshman, are the freshmen, which may explain why this group looks so different than last year, when they totaled 38 TFLs in 8 conference games (No. 107 in FBS). If you can believe it, that total was actually the highest in the first three years of the Beamer era.

Needless to say, this group will break that total, likely as early as this weekend when they face the aforementioned struggling Oklahoma offense.