The Worst SEC Football Opponents of Week 3: Cutting Down on the Calories

UMass at Vanderbilt, Noon ET, ESPN3
Apparently, the now Minutemen were far more sensitive about certain topics than Dan Snyder.

In the spring of 1972, a group of American Indians from New York wrote a letter to the school's administration asking them if they were aware of "defamatory" connotations of the word Redmen and if they would curtail the use of the word. One portion of the letter referred to "undesirable racial connotations of the Redmen nickname."

And that's why they're the minutemen. This is really not as clear-cut an entry for Cupcake Wars as it should be, what with Vanderbilt having fully returned to being Vanderbilt, but we'll give the Commodores the benefit of the doubt. Vanderbilt 23, UMass 13

Louisiana-Lafayette at Ole Miss, 4 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Without wandering too far into the battle over whether this school should be called Louisiana-Lafayette or Louisiana or whatever, we'll point out that there's a perfectly understandable reason for the mix up. The university that includes the Ragin' Cajuns athletics programs has had no fewer than four names over the course of its existence. Ole Miss 56, Louisiana-Lafayette 20

South Alabama vs. Mississippi State, 4 p.m. ET, ESPNews
The mascot for South Alabama is the Jaguars, in case you haven't heard, and they once had an actual jaguar on campus. You can probably see where this is going.

However, the University later decided against housing a live animal on campus after Mischka, who was recovering after being treated for a bad tooth, decided to take a tour of the campus after someone made the mistake of leaving her pen door unlocked. Concern over the animal’s well-being was also a factor in the University’s decision to discontinue housing a live animal on campus.

Yes, the animal's well-being. Not the well-being of the people that the animal might have eaten, you see. Mississippi State 42, South Alabama 17

Southern Miss at Alabama, 6 p.m. ET, ESPN2
There was a time when this game would have been a potential upset, or when it would have brought back memories of Tyrone Prothro's great catch. That was before the Golden Eagles decided to hire Ellis Johnson to be their head coach. In any case, Brett Favre is not the only famous alumnus from Southern Miss: Jimmy Buffett, Gov. Phil Bryant and Ray Guy also attended the school. Alabama 45, Southern Miss 13

Louisiana-Monroe at LSU, 7 p.m. ET, ESPNU
The Warhawks are traveling to Hawaii to begin the 2015 and oh, look, that gave someone in the marketing department what I'm sure they thought was a good idea.

ULM Hawaii Trip Promo from WarhawkVideo on Vimeo.

LSU 38, Louisiana-Monroe 10

Rice at Texas A&M, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2
Here's how the story of Rice's owl getting his name begins:

In 1917, when students from Southwest Conference football rival Texas A&M kidnapped the owl, Rice students pooled their resources and hired a private detective to go to College Station to find the missing mascot.

I for one blame Johnny Manziel for that. Texas A&M 62, Rice 24