Keelon Russell threw for 285 yards and three touchdowns on 16-of-22 passing Saturday in Starkville, added a rushing score, and never put the ball on the ground as Alabama beat Mississippi State 56-23 on the road. Trae'shawn Brown ran for two touchdowns inside a 179-yard ground effort at 4.8 yards per carry, with true freshman Tyrell Miller making his first career start at right tackle in place of injured Jayvin James.
That is the whole week. Everything else on the SEC schedule is worth a glance between drives.
What Starkville actually settled
Three questions that followed this team out of August are now closed, and they closed in the same game.
Russell's lone bad day came on his first true SEC road start, at Kentucky, where he threw two interceptions and lost a strip-sack fumble and called it bad quarterback play himself. Alabama still won that one, because the defense held Kentucky without points after halftime and handed the offense three short fields. Russell then put up a career-high 400 yards of total offense against South Carolina, 21-of-27 for 365 and four touchdowns, and now he's gone back on the road and been clean for a third straight game. DeBoer's read was that Russell "has learned from everything that's happened".
The run game answer is the one that should surprise fans most. Alabama has now rushed for credible numbers four weeks running. DeBoer also said Alabama now has "three, four, or five guys that can all do some things" at running back. Against Georgia's front, that depth stops being a talking point and starts being a requirement.
The defensive answer is the most qualified. Alabama's defense piled up five sacks and four takeaways in Starkville while playing without two starting outside linebackers, with true freshman Xavier Griffin leading the team in tackles with nine and adding a sack. Read that two ways. The depth held, and the depth is being asked to hold a lot.
Why Georgia is the only test that counts
Alabama won in Athens last September. Then Georgia won the SEC Championship Game 28-7 and held Alabama scoreless through three quarters, the first time that had happened to anyone in an SEC title game, while out-possessing the Tide by nearly 14 minutes. That is the version of Alabama-Georgia that Kirby Smart's team has most recently produced, and it is the one a dominant Saturday in Starkville does nothing to erase.
The model makes Alabama a 53% home favorite, which is as close to a coin flip as a top-six team gets.
The stakes are stacked as high as a regular-season game gets. Win, and Alabama's SEC title game odds sit at 82%, its playoff odds at 91%, its first-round bye at 50% and its projected seed at 4.5. Lose, and those same numbers land at 39%, 78%, 22% and 6.2. Those are two alternative Saturdays, not a slide from one to the other, and the gap between them is the largest single swing on Alabama's remaining schedule. It also arrives at the front of the hardest stretch of the year, which brings Georgia, then at Tennessee, then Texas A&M, with no open date until October 31 and consecutive road trips to LSU and Vanderbilt waiting after it. There is no soft landing anywhere in the next three weeks.
Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
The rest of the board
Four SEC games move Alabama's path to Atlanta by small amounts. None of them is worth rearranging a Saturday around.
Texas at Oklahoma: root for Oklahoma
The best of the bunch, and the least likely. Oklahoma wins this about 25% of the time, but a Texas loss is worth +7.1 percentage points to Alabama's SEC title game odds, 67% with the upset, 60% without, because it knocks a 5-0 conference rival's record back a game in the standings Alabama is climbing. 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
Ole Miss at Vanderbilt: root for Vanderbilt
Essentially a toss-up at 51%, with Vanderbilt handing No. 9 Ole Miss a conference loss worth +3.0 points to Alabama's title-game odds, 63% against 60%. Same mechanism, smaller target. 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
South Carolina at Florida: root for South Carolina
Alabama already handled South Carolina; the point here is a loss for Florida, the ranked team in this game. South Carolina wins roughly 36% of the time, worth +2.8 points, 63% versus 61%. 12:45 p.m. ET on SEC Network.
LSU at Kentucky: root for Kentucky
Kentucky is a 37% home underdog against No. 10 LSU, a team Alabama still has to visit in November. A Kentucky win nudges the title-game number to 63% from 61%, +2.2 points. 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The full picture, including every probability behind these numbers, is at the interactive guide, and the simulation details are in the methodology.