For those interested in rosy scenarios, The State has an excellent chart of what all the various teams need to do to win the SEC East -- including South Carolina. They leave out Vanderbilt, which I'm not sure is technically mathematically eliminated (and wouldn't it be fitting if they ended up winning this year?), but that's probably fair enough.

The key for our purposes, of course, is what it would take for the Gamecocks to make it, and they pretty much follow what I've been saying. South Carolina has to beat Arkansas and Florida -- which doesn't look impossible if the team plays like it did the second half of the game in Knoxville -- and get one conference loss from Georgia and two from the Vols.

Those schools' remaining schedules:

TENNESSEE
Nov. 3 Louisiana-Lafayette, 4 p.m.
Nov. 10 Arkansas, TBA
Nov. 17 Vanderbilt, TBA
Nov. 24 at Kentucky, TBA

GEORGIA
Nov. 3 Troy, 1 p.m.
Nov. 10 Auburn, TBA
Nov. 17 Kentucky, TBA
Nov. 24 at Georgia Tech, TBA

So Tennessee would have to be shocked -- stunned probably wouldn't be too strong a word in either case -- by the Hogs or the 'Dores, though I would point out that Tennessee-Vanderbilt is a rivalry game. And Kentucky would probably have to pull up a minor upset to beat the Vols. The possibility of all of that happening would be none in any other year, but it's as good as "slim" this year.

Georgia would have to lose a home game to either Auburn or Kentucky. Auburn seems the most likely candidate, though the outcome of that game will depend on (a) which Georgia team shows up; and (b) which Auburn team shows up. Again, a rivalry game in which rankings don't matter (consider that a highly-regarded Auburn team got throttled at home last year by a less respected Georgia squad).

I would emphasize that these are long long long odds. But nothing else about this season has been normal, nationally or in the SEC, so who knows?