Week 3 SEC conference power rankings

Conference play for SEC football opened up in Week 2, with the South Carolina Gamecocks coming up with a pretty surprising 31-6 convincing win on the road in Lexington over the Kentucky Wildcats.

Top group of SEC football teams cementing status as conference title contenders early this fall

Week 2 also saw multiple ranked matchups around the SEC, bolstering the status of some of the top contenders in the conference, including Texas football and the Tennessee Volunteers. After Week 2 of the college football season, the SEC has six of the top seven teams in this week's AP Poll.

The top tier of teams in the SEC coming out of Week 2 are starting to separate themselves from the rest of the conference. The bottom tier also had some tough losses over the weekend, along with a few teams in the middle tier avoiding upset scares against other FBS opponents.

Despite only one conference game being played in the SEC in Week 2, the power rankings entering Week 3 have shifted a good bit outside of the very top of the list.

Here are the updated post-Week 2 SEC power rankings after another big week of movement for the conference last weekend.

Last week: 12 (-4)

The Mississippi State Bulldogs were one of the two SEC teams to fall to P4 opponents over the weekend. Despite a late comeback effort in the second half against Arizona State on the road on Saturday night, Mississippi State's rally fell just short in a 30-23 loss to the Sun Devils.

Mississippi State's spread offense under first-year head coach Jeff Lebby was held to under 300 total yards of offense against a middle-of-the-pack Arizona State defense, which is a bad sign for the Bulldogs. That's not to mention how much improvement Mississippi State's run defense needs to show after giving up nearly 600 rushing yards in the season's first two games.