SEC Unfiltered: Depth? What depth? SEC looking awfully top-heavy

Welcome to SEC Unfiltered, the USA TODAY NETWORK's newsletter on SEC sports. Look for this newsletter in your inbox Monday through Friday. Today, Tuscaloosa News sports columnist Chase Goodbread takes over:

Tennessee by 21.

Georgia by 16.5.

No, these aren't point spreads from Week 1 against Directional-U cupcakes. They're both for the coming weekend in Southeastern Conference football, and both for intra-league tilts. Alabama was favored by 21 over Mississippi State a couple of weeks ago, and covered. Ole Miss was a 15.5-point favorite over Auburn, and nearly covered.

There's a massive gap between the top teams in the SEC and all the rest. The line between the top tier and the also-rans can be drawn every year, of course, but this season, you can use the thickest marker in the drawer.

Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU and Alabama are a combined 39-6. There's an SEC Championship Game matchup in there somewhere, perhaps two College Football Playoff qualifiers, and every SEC loss among them has come at the hands of another. That means the other nine teams in the league have failed to notch a single win against them.

Kentucky flirted with membership in the club in September, until it lost to South Carolina by 10 and was exposed three weeks later by Tennessee, 44-6. Arkansas opened 3-0 and has lost four of six since, rock-bottoming last week at home against Liberty.

It might as well be two different leagues, and when bowl bids are extended, that will be all the more apparent. For a league that's supposed to have a lot of depth, it just doesn't in 2022.

That'll be hard to forget if the SEC hogs half the CFP field, or if Georgia grabs its second straight CFP title.

But with three weeks left in the regular season, it's safe to say the league isn't as deep as its reputation.

Reach Chase Goodbread at [email protected]. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread