Fourth and Dumb

So it’s been a quiet week here at Fourth and Dumb. No action since Tuesday–hey, it’s like my marriage! Hey-o! Take my wife, please!

Sigh. Yeah, cheesy monologue material may be the way to go, as the college football season seems to have really stagnated here at the end of this season. Seriously, are there any games of import still happening? I’m too lazy to do the research, but I’m certain there are no more match-ups of two top-15 teams happening this week or next week. And even most of the rivalry games seem pretty lopsided this year. Today we get Ohio State-Michigan, for example, but outside of their fans, does that game jazz anyone this season? Same with next week’s Florida-FSU and Bama-Auburn: you just don’t think these games are going to be big ones. Or at least I don’t.

Anyway, there’s just one game in the SEC really worth watching for any normal people today (note that being abnormal, I fully expect to check out Vandy-Tennessee and Georgia Kentucky if I’m able): that’s LSU at Ole Miss. The Rebs seem to have awakened the offense a bit, with Dexter McCluster averaging 264 all-purpose yards the last four games, and Jevan Snead completing more passes to teammates than opponents. Still, the Tigers have a stout defense, and we can’t be sure Ole Miss won’t revert to old ways. I think this will be close, but the Rebs will pull it out to win by 2 or 3.

Florida and Bama get FIU and UT-Chattanooga, respectively. Let’s see if either team can crest 50; last year you’d expect the Gators to get 49 at half in a game like this, but though I expect Tebow to throw some long balls on the nation’s 118th-ranked defense, I think the Gates will still run a bunch and not score a ton of points. But I hope desperately that John Brantley gets some reps in the second half. For Bama, expect a steady diet of Mark Ingram, bolstering his Heisman hopes and not letting Greg McElroy lose any more confidence by throwing picks.

Georgia-Kentucky should be pretty competitive, and I’d be a boor not to pause to offer condolences to Bulldog Nation on the passing of UGA VII this week. I hope he’s got legs to hump in Dawg heaven (which, by the way, is near Schenectady, NY). Anyway, don’t be surprised to see Kentucky take the Dawgs down, but on the other hand, don’t count on it, either. Georgia throws for a ton of yards and wins close.

I’d love to think Vandy would give Tennessee a tough game at Knoxville, but their offense is too weak. If their D-line can play like they did against the Gators in The Swamp, they might be able to keep it close for a while, but their offense is so bad it doesn’t seem like they could do much with the field position their D might give them. Tennessee will win at around the spread of 17.

Miss State will try desperately to get bowl eligible, but Arkansas’s offense is too good for that. Still, Dan Mullen’s got the Other Bulldogs’ offense looking better than it has in forever. Expect good things from them in two years when he’s got the personnel his offense needs.

Some interesting things happened in the Nathan’s-foot-long-slathered-in-Sriracha sauce-and-jalapenos-and-sauerkraut that is the world’s greatest football conference, the SEC, this past Halloween weekend.

 However, the Florida-Georgia game really wasn’t one of them, unless of course you’re specifically a fan of either team. The Gators finally had a game in which they didn’t turn the ball over three or more times, and consequently they rolled the Dawgs up 41-17. Riley Cooper did make the best catch I’ve seen this year, hauling in his second TD with one hand while leaping forward, and there has since been the excitement of learning that Brandon Spikes decided to test the vision of a Georgia RB by sticking his fingers deep into his eyes (earning him a first-half suspension versus Vandy—I hope the Gators can hold off back-up Commodore QB Mackenzi Adams for two quarters!). But otherwise things went as most expected.

 A bigger surprise, maybe, occurred at Jordan-Hare, where Auburn “beat hayell outta the Rebs” (as PlainsTigers might say). Was there a more overrated team this year than Ole Miss? I, for one, was certainly guilty of thinking they would be a serious threat in the SEC West (um, did I pick them to win? Crap.), as on paper they seemed to have good reasons to be better offensively than they were in ’08. But Jevan Snead suddenly seems to make lots of bad decisions, and Dexter McCluster just isn’t gashing folks like he did last year. Maybe the UF and Texas Tech games last year fooled me, or maybe the Houston Nutt effect only works for a year. Either way, Auburn looked good and may be back on track for a 7-8 win season and decent bowl. Hey, Chizik has already won more games this year than he did in two up at Iowa State!

 The ‘Cocks were limp and lifeless on Halloween night, dribbling the ball onto the ground on the third play and then turning it over two more times in the next four possessions, keeping them from the kind of penetration they needed to embed the football in the soft and fecund soil of the end zone (Gah, will these moronic references never end???). “Hello Kiffy” got his fourth win with four to go, and that game at Oxford against the Rebs is hardly looking unwinnable right now, so he’s going to get the Vols into a bowl. I’d say more about this game, but I was handing out candy by then, wearing a prosthetic to make it look like my right eye had been enucleated, but unfortunately that’s my good eye, and coupling that with a lot of beer and tequila meant I was legally and morally blind by then. Fortunately, it spared me the ugly of UT’s black jerseys.

 Still under the radar, Miss State got new coach Dan Mullen a good road win at Kentucky, putting the Other Bulldogs at 4-5 with games against Bama and Ole Miss at home sandwiched around a trip to Fayetteville to play the Razorpigs. If he gets them to a bowl, he’s the NCAA coach of the year in my book.

This week’s games in the world’s greatest football conference, that Southeastern one, will offer much insight into the final jockeying for bowl position which will take place in November. Though there are no blockbuster match-ups, there are some very interesting games to the discerning aficionado of Southern pigskin.

To wit, South Carolina at Tennessee, the best game of the weekend. Kiffin’s flap with the Spurdog was less exciting than those he had with Pope Urban and Nick Satan, but expect to hear a bit about it on Gameday and during the gamecast. In case you forgot, Spurrier said that Kiffin may have been recruiting SC commits before Kiffin took his NCAA recruiting test, a requirement before recruiting, and Kiffin said he didn’t. Then Spurrier contemptuously told Kiff he never accused him of cheating in front of a pack of reporters and a (reportedly) bemused Bobby Petrino and Rich Brooks at the SEC meetings in Destin, Florida.

Anyway, the game itself is clearly the most important game of the season for Kiffin. Despite his “moral victories,” no one expected him to beat Bama or Florida this year, so he can bask in the glow of close games there. Likewise, he got his one big win this year by pounding Georgia. So why is this game so big for him? Well, UT is 3-4. His team will be favored and expected (by Vols fans) to beat Memphis and Vandy at home, while a roadie at Ole Miss will be an acceptable loss by most fans. If this comes true, that equals 5-5, with this game and the later roadie at Kentucky being the deciding factors for the Vols’ bowl eligibility this year. More important, Vols fans expect to compete with Florida (and most years, Georgia) for the SEC East, so even in this first season, they expect Kiffin to put the Vols ahead of the lower half of the division. If Kiffin really wants to get the fans behind him, he has to win this game at home. However, I think the ‘Cocks defense will be too stiff for the Vols’ running game, and the Spurdog will win a low-scoring, ugly game.

Ole Miss’s trip to Auburn is likely the game for third place in the SEC West. Ole Miss’s season kind of reminds me of Florida’s—they’ve made a lot of mistakes in close games, but unlike the Gators, they haven’t been talented enough, especially on defense, to survive those mistakes. Like the Gators, Ole Miss is due for a big offensive game. However, it won’t come in Jurdin-Hayer, where those cow college PlainsTiger fans will be in full throat. Still, Ole Miss will win a close one.

Florida-Georgia doesn’t have the luster of last year’s “Urban’s Revenge” game, but the Gators are still trying to get juice out of Georgia’s end zone dance of two years ago. This is pretty lame: the Gators just need to start acting like the pros that most of them are going to be. The Gators’ failures this season have been due to execution: they’ve often forgotten how to block and hold on to the ball. Fortunately, the defense has been as good as advertised (though not in the realm of the all-time greats, as Brandon Spikes had boastfully predicted before the season). Better for the Gators, they get Spikes back for this game, along with three (!) regulars from the D-line who didn’t play last week. Expect the Gators to put it together this week and actually score over thirty while holding the dogs to less than 17.

I think Kentucky will handle a game Miss State team at home, while the student-ATHLETES of Georgia Tech will pound the STUDENT-athletes of Vanderbilt. Jordan Jefferson will look all-world against the Tulane defense. Ryan Mallett will throw for six TDs against Eastern Michigan, one of which will come with him holding up a D-lineman in his left arm while throwing a 97-yard pass with his right. Satan will spend the entire day huddled in his dark lair, chuckling at footage of the LSU passing game. I will drink a dwarfsweight of Red Stripe before trick or treating with my daughter and then catching the last three quarters of the Oregon game. As Pippa put it in Browning’s great poem, “God’s in his heaven/All’s right with the world.”

Week 7 of competition in the Southeastern Conference unfolded as most of us assumed it would, with two exceptions: Auburn losing to Kentucky and Florida nearly puking themselves against Arkansas.

Let’s start with the Gators. In the days since their brush with failure, many folks have been screaming about the two bad calls against Arkansas during the Gators’ fourth-quarter comeback. Indeed, even the SEC itself admitted that the personal foul called against the Arkansas DE was non-existent, though they didn’t comment on the phantom pass interference call in the end zone a couple plays later. This has led some, like ESPN moron Colin Cowherd (seriously, that guy is really charmless and uninteresting), to insist that Florida would have a loss on its record were it not for those calls.

This is pretty silly, frankly. Neither call came on a third down, so there’s nothing to say that the Gators wouldn’t still have converted for a new set of downs. Further, though obviously the yardage helps, Jeff Demps still had to run for a six-yard TD after they were made. And finally, it’s worth noting that both came on the drive the Gators used to tie the game. Arkansas got a shot at a 40-something-yard field goal AFTER that Gator TD, but they missed. The refs didn’t force that. Further, the Gators then had to drive down for the winning FG.

So sure, those calls were bad and definitely hurt the Razorpigs. But to suggest that they directly caused the Arkansas loss is plain stupid. What’s clearly not stupid is questioning the Gator offense. Obviously they’re not scoring points too well right now. They are, however, moving the ball. They lost two fumbles inside the Arkansas ten yard line, and their TD scoring efficiency in the red zone this year is less than 50%. If the Gators don’t start opening up the passing game to include the wide receivers more frequently, they’re going to have a hard time against South Carolina and, presumably, Alabama in the SEC CG.

Meantime, Auburn has come back to earth, weighed down by my cursed prediction that they’d be 7-0 heading into Death Valley this weekend to play LSU. As it is, they’ll now exit the Bayou State 5-3, heading for the Liberty Bowl. So it goes.

Bama had a hard time of it with the ‘Cocks, but they were never really in trouble. Their defense continues to impress, though I’m a little skeptical of the sudden Heisman hype around RB Mark Ingram. He’s a good back, but let’s see how he does against Tennessee this weekend and LSU down the road. But either way, the Bama-Florida game is beginning to look inevitable.

PS–fun note about this weekend’s Tennessee-Bama game: Lane Kiffin requested to be able to wear their home orange jerseys against Bama in Tuscaloosa this weekend, and the SEC agreed, but Bama said ‘no’ without comment. This hurt Lane’s feelings, and he complained that it would’ve been “fun” for the players and fans to see the teams in their solid colors. Don’t think that Nick Satan has forgotten Lane’s off-season boasting about beating Bama in recruiting. I’m sure Bama will try to put the pasting to the Vols, and though I almost never, ever, root for the Tide, here’s hoping they give Kiffin’s boys the spanking the Gators couldn’t.

PPS–Nah, I’m not going to bother to write about Georgia beating Vandy or other minor games in the conference. You don’t really care, and neither do I.

On paper this seems like a pretty mellow week in the world’s greatest football conference. Tennessee and LSU get the weekend off, and only one match-up features both teams in the top 25. So let’s start there.

The ‘Cocks strut into Tuscaloosa, turgidly engorged with pride and confidence (goddamn, will I ever stop being so immature?). But can Stephen Garcia find ways to repeatedly penetrate Crimson orifices? (Apparently not). Seriously, we can all see how this game will play out, right? Bama’s D will not allow any serious rushing success by SC, so Garcia is going to have to make plays against a young but good Bama secondary (which, it’s worth noting, couldn’t be exploited by Jevan Snead or Tyrod Taylor). Still, the game will be close in the fourth quarter because of SC’s better-than-advertised defense, so a couple big plays may decide it. I think Bama wins a squeaker, but I won’t be surprised if the Ol’ Ball Coach steals this one.

Florida hosts Arkansas in a game that should allow the Gators to finally put up some points. However, this game smells a lot like the Ole Miss game of last year. The Gates just got a big win and might be caught flat this weekend, despite Urban’s urgings. Still, the Razorpigs are giving up 40 points per SEC game this year, and it seems unlikely that even a stinky performance won’t net more points than the Gators’ defense will allow. Gators win 45-17 or something.

The Vandy-Georgia game could get interesting, but probably won’t. Georgia has allowed an average of 35 points per SEC opponent so far, but Vandy has only averaged 6 points (!!!) in three SEC games this year. That and the advantage of being between the hedges allows the Dawgs to stanch the bleeding for a while.

The only other conference match-up sees Kentucky travel to Auburn. The PlainsTigers might be looking ahead to next week’s game with LSU, but I don’t think Kentucky’s back-up QB Will Fidler (or the other back-up, if they choose to use him–unlikely enough that I don’t even feel like googling to find out who the hell he is) can meet the challenge of taking Auburn down in Jurrdin Hayeh stadium. Young Chizzy’s going to have Auburn bowl eligible in seven games, something Tubby couldn’t do last year in 12. Where are your curses now, War Eagles?

Another week, another layer of lustrous nacre added to the fine pearl that is the greatest football conference on Earth, the SEC.

The marquee game between UF and LSU in Death Valley was tense and fascinating but not exciting, if that makes sense. I don’t imagine that disinterested fans from the Midwest or Northeast would say it was a great game to watch, as it was a defensive slugfest without many big plays. But for the discerning or interested viewer, it was a masterpiece of slug-it-out Southern football. The Gators played it awfully close to the vest on offense, obviously very confident that Jordan Jefferson couldn’t move the ball on their defense. And as in the Tennessee game, the Gators left obvious points on the field (missed FG, lame 4^th-down attempt in the red zone), allowing the score to make the game appear closer than it was. But despite the low scoring, the outcome wasn’t much in doubt after the first few LSU possessions. LSU now gets a needed off-week to prepare for Auburn, an elimination match for the Tigers as far as remaining in the SEC West hunt. 

Why an elimination game already? Because Alabama is starting to look nigh-unbeatable in the West. Greg McElroy has turned out to be an ideal game manager for the Tide, who, like the Gators, are happy to grind you to death with their front seven, score a few points, and play field position. Ole Miss just played awfully against Bama, but most of that is attributable to the Tide’s D. However, as much crap as Jevan Snead has gotten for that game, he had some receivers drop some balls and one of them literally hand over an interception to a linebacker when the Rebels had a chance to cut the deficit to three early in the fourth quarter. But that’s the danger of these low-scoring games for Bama and Florida: you’re always just a crazy play away from being in big trouble. But then again, these teams don’t seem to allow those plays.

Auburn’s offense played like a bunch of CHUDs suddenly exposed to bright light in Fayetteville against the Razorpigs. They were fumbling and throwing INTs and dropping passes against a three-digit-ranked defense. But to be fair to Arkansas, that Petrino offense is for real, and Massive Mallett is making lots of plays for that team. Now Arkansas gets Florida in the Swamp, while Auburn hosts Kentucky. Arkansas is dead meat, no matter how good that offense is, but Auburn has a fight on its hands, too. However, they’ll be aided by the fact that they’ll be playing a Kentucky team without starting QB Mike Hartline.

That’s because he got hurt in a very tight contest with South Carolina, who keeps escaping with wins. The SC defense played one of its softest games this year against Kentucky, even allowing pretty scattershot back-up QB Will Fidler to make some plays against them. The Cocks will have to seriously pick up the pace to have a prayer against Bama on Saturday, but I think their defense, matched up with Bama’s, means the game will be in doubt into the fourth quarter.

Meantime, Vandy went down in overtime vs. Army, telling us that Vandy’s seeming resurgence under Bobby Johnson is likely stalled, and that they’ll be a 5-6 win team forever, unless of course they scrap those stupid entrance rules and SAT scores for students and stuff. Miss State showed more offensive flash in a tough loss to Houston, but OtherBulldog fans should be excited by the fact that Dan Mullen has this team scoring points. How good will they be when he gets some actual players in there?

Last but certainly not least, what the hell is going on with Georgia? We all figured their offense would be down after losing Stafford and Moreno, but I at least assumed their defense would be as good or better than ’08. In fact, however, Cox has been better than expected, or was until Saturday when the Vols tore him up, and the Dawg defense has been just wretched. They made Jonathan Crompton look like Tom Brady Saturday; I wouldn’t have thought that Crompton could have thrown for that many yards against tall grass. Georgia may end up having a hard time getting to seven wins at the rate their D is playing; fortunately for them, they get offense-challenged Vandy to practice on this week.

Another week, another step in the unfolding of the beautiful flower that is the Southeastern Conference 2009 football season.

So I watched 55 minutes of the LSU-Georgia game. My daughter was staying at a friend’s, so my wife and I went out for tapas and drinks, like civilized people do. But the second place we went to had no TV. Why do I tell you this? Well, I got to see 13 of the points scored, but had to get the 21 points scored spasmodically when both defenses seemed to sag like fatally wounded stoats described to me in intermittent texts by last week’s guest picker, Mike Dame. However, I think I see this as an advantage. The 55 minutes I saw sure seem to me to be the “real” LSU offense and defense: the former futzes around and seems to lack leadership, while the latter is fast and mean and capable of shutting down offenses as good as the Dawgs’. Georgia, being the mirror image of LSU, couldn’t get the passing game going, though to be fair Cox had some receivers drop some good balls. The good news is that  the season’s first match-up of top-five teams is preserved for next Saturday. But LSU will have real problems with the Gator D; will it even matter if Timmy plays? We’ll see.

Alabama seemed to play pretty well against Kentucky (“seemed”? Well, I just watched the re-runs like you; what the hell do I know?). Giving up 20 points seems kind of dicey, but they never were threatened. They seem like the second best team in the country to me, but as you know, I’m an SEC homer. Besides, I’m holding out judgement on Texas till after the Oklahoma game.

I only got to see parts of the Auburn-Tennessee game, but enough to warm my heart. Lane’s boys are 2-3 with a now-desperate Dawgs team coming in. Crompton sucks, as we all knew he would, but his 20 of 43 showing, with what seemed like some drops by his receivers, will stave off Nick Stephens for a while more. But unless Stephens is clearly behind Crompton (and if that’s true, the Vols will suck for at least 2-3 more years, and be still my heart!), it seems like they’d be well to give him a chance and some experience. But they’ll be sitting 2-4 after this next Saturday, with few guarantees after that. Who knew that Auburn would be 5-0 and Young Chizzy would be flashing his gold teeth caps and rockin’ the Grey Goose to West Division contention? Their defense dominated (but hey, who doesn’t against these guys), and the offense seems to be jelling. Just remember, I said they’d be 7-0 before heading to LSU (sorry, Todd!). Um, but I did only say that after they were 4-0, of course. Man, just think how much crap that guy who videotaped himself hollering at Chizik and the AD at the airport is going to get if Chizik gets the PlainsTigers to the SEC championship? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Damn, Miss State hung 31 on Georgia Tech; that was three games’ worth of scoring under Sly Crooms! Unfortunately, Tech got 42, but Dan Mullen’s got the Other Bulldogs on the right track.

Ole Miss ground out a ho-hum win in Nashville, as the top tier teams in the SEC do. I guess that means they’re still top tier, but we’ll find out Saturday when they host Bama. Mmm, Bama at Ole Miss and UF at LSU back to back: I’m glad to be alive!

Oh, and Arkansas put up a pile of points against Texas A&M, which means their game against Auburn is an elimination game: the winner can still pretend to hope to win the West, but the loser isn’t allowed to pretend that anymore. And South Carolina beat some non-football school and is ranked–good for the ol’ ball coach, but beware Kentucky.

The biggest news of the fifth weekend in the world’s greatest college football conference came from its dullest game, Florida’s 41-7 victory over Kentucky, 31/48 of the total points of which came in the first 15 minutes. Of course the news was the bonk on Tim Tebow’s noggin, which was truly horrifying for all Gator fans. Seeing Tim’s blank face on the sideline brought home just how serious a head trauma he took.

Of course, now we know he seems mostly fine, though he’s going to sit all of this week and may not be cleared to start against LSU on October 10, but most of us are betting he will. Now that he’s mostly well, though, it’s worth noting that the Gators can now proclaim another title: CFB’s pukiest team. Timmy joined his roommate Riley Cooper in being shown on national TV barfing; Coop planted some green-looking yams after running a couple long outs against Charleston Southern. Mmmmm.

Miss State nearly shocked the world by taking down LSU. If the Tigers are giving up 26 points to MSU (and if Tyson Lee really stretches on fourth down, they’d have given up 33 and the win), they’re in trouble. This week they get to play the REAL Bulldogs, the ones for whom Joe Cox is making people forget that dude who’s playing for the Lions now. They might give up 40+ to Georgia between the hedges.

Alabama’s defense really locked down mega-man Ryan Mallett and Arkansas. I think an argument could easily be made that Alabama has been the best team in the country over this third of the season, led by a stout D and an offense which is keeping McElroy methodical and in management of games.

Arizona State’s defense showed it was for real against the Dawgs, but Cox came through with a nice drive when he had to, getting field position for the winning FG. Georgia is finding a good offensive rhythm; if they had made another play or two versus Okie State, they’d be sitting in the top five right now. As it is, they might get in after beating LSU this weekend, provided we see some upsets like we have the last couple weeks.

Nobody else played anybody really worth commenting on, but I can’t help but point out that Tennessee nearly gave up as many points at home to Ohio as they did to the Gators in the Swamp. I think Lane’s daddy could’ve spent some of the off-season looking at video of other teams, couldn’t he?

Just a few minutes before I take the wife and kid to a friend’s to watch the USF-FSU game of dyslexia. But I didn’t want to leave our loyal fans without my sage predictions for the fourth week in the world’s greatest conference of football:

There’s a top three offense (Arkansas) going against a top three defense today in Tuscaloosa. The Razorbacks are going to give the Tide all they can handle today, but Bama’s defense is too good to let Zeus-like Ryan Mallett to throw his lightning bolts all over them. Bama gets two picks wins 27-23.

Miss State will slow it down and slog it out, as they always do, against the Bayou Tigres in Starkville. Still, even Jordan Jefferson can get some first downs against the “athletes” Miss State rolls out on defense. LSU wins 23-10 after a close first half.

Arizona State currently has a top 20 defense statistically, but they haven’t played anybody. The Dawgs hang 40+ on the Scum Devils between the hedges and knock them out of the nation’s statistically best D’s.

I just heard that Jesus didn’t protect Timmy from getting a respiratory infection, but at least it’s not the flu that so many other Gators are suffering. Brandon Spikes is fighting some nasty tendinitis in his heel, and I heard a doctor say this week that the overcompensating that people do with such injuries can lead to a ruptured achilles, so I hope that Charlie Strong doesn’t make him play much today. Kentucky’s not the pushover they used to be, but the Gators will get their 23rd straight against the ‘Cats by something like 33-13.  I just don’t think the Gator offense is going to be destroying too many people this year, but they’ll grind it out again.

The other games mostly suck. Tennessee fans will feel good about themselves for beating Ohio, and Auburn will crush Ball State. Next week we’ll learn something about Auburn when they go to Tennessee, where I predict they’ll give Kiffin another “moral victory.”  Oh, and don’t be surprised if Rice’s bizarre triple option gets the win over Vanderbilt.

Let the cheddar burst out of the wurst and the Red Stripe flow like the milk of paradise!

Chris Borglum, ladies and gentlemen. You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.

He is…dare I say it…en fuego.

Commentary and analysis after the jump. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Bowl Week Extravaganza – Part 3’ »