Quick SEC reaction: Week 2
Wow. What a Week 2 for the SEC. And it was somewhat humbling, let me tell you (although not as humbling as the Big 10, who saw Wisconsin, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Iowa and Illinois all lose, stalwarts Michigan and Ohio State tested) – especially in Fayetteville.
Anyway, this blog went an honest-to-God 9-2 yesterday, with our only bad predictions with Arkansas and Vanderbilt.
Anyway, here’s some quick grades before a longer piece tomorrow, when we’re feeling more, ahem, ‘together’.
1) We completely underestimated Louisiana-Monroe. We thought they’d come to town, take their near-$1m, and walk off or walk over. Instead, they battled Arkansas when they were 28-7 down in the third quarter, and came back to win in stunning fashion in overtime. Would they have won if Tyler Wilson hadn’t left the game with a concussion? Probably not. But that’s what football’s about. And Arkansas defense looked downright lousy. Alabama must be really scared going into Fayetteville.
2) Speaking of Alabama, Western Kentucky was dealt with handily. ‘Nuff said.
3) Both Missouri and Texas A&M could have won their games against Georgia and Florida. Missouri was pretty good until their offensive line started getting blown up by Jarvis Jones, and James Franklin didn’t start using his ability to get out of the pocket (or was that more love to Todd Grantham and UGA’s defensive line, we wonder?), and the score more than slightly flattered Georgia. We don’t know if Aaron Murray IS the next Matt Stafford yet, but he’s got a hefty offense out there. And when Georgia get their idiots back from their drug-related suspensions, they will be even better. And as for A&M, the atmosphere at Kyle Field for the game against Florida was SEC-noisy. Florida certainly found it difficult to deal with the noise. But then they discovered that Texas A&M couldn’t deal with the running game – and Kevin Sumlin did their offense a favor by giving Caleb Sturgis another shot at a field goal virtually on half-time that he missed the first time, and they aren’t very good at keeping leads. All points to Mike Gillislee and some good scrambling from Jeff Driskel. He wasn’t too bad as a passer, either, going 13-16 for 162 yards. He could have had a TD too if Frankie Hammond had been able to catch.
4) Vanderbilt goes to a disappointing 0-2. We always had the South Carolina game as a loss, but we really thought – after months of bravado- that James Franklin’s Vanderbilt team would stop, ahem, being Vanderbilt. Well folks, they haven’t. They lost the Math Derby to Northwestern last night 23-13 and although they were in it until late in the game, things obviously aren’t going well down there. Jordan Rodgers 17-33 effort certainly isn’t too great, either – even if he threw for 217 yards.
5) Speaking of 0-2, Auburn was simply terrible in their game against Mississippi State. True, the first half of that one was like watching paint dry and deserving of Twitter jokes about it being the “Jefferson Pilot Rivalry”, but it was basically a puntfest with a few cowbells thrown in. Second half, things were pretty exciting, but then Mississippi State improved vastly – while Auburn had only a 100 yard TD kick-off return from Onterio McCalebb to thank for their inept offense. Yes, we know that the Gus Malzahn era’s going to take a while, but we don’t think that the Kiehl Frazier era should last too long either – especially after this poor (and that’s an understatement because this is a family blog) showing.
6) South Carolina cruised to a game that was over by half-time. Quick note to all doubters of Dylan Thompson, who took over from the injured Connor Shaw for the East Carolina game. The kid threw for 330 yards and 3 TDs in a pretty heroic effort, and some of his reactions to completions and TDs made you think you were watching a guy playing in the Super Bowl. It was awesome! Seriously though, we’re not going to give the Gamecocks too much of a round of applause after this one, but Spurrier managed to do two things: 1) Show that he’s the best quarterback coach in the SEC (see: Steve Spurrier at Florida) 2) Keep Marcus Lattimore from getting injured (He had only 13 touches for 40 yards).
7) Ole Miss (yes, them!) goes 2-0. Ole Miss comfortably beats the team that probably should have beaten a sleeping Oklahoma last Saturday night, with Bo Wallace (three TD passes, 1 TD run) proving to be the new hero of Oxford. We’ll still go out on a limb and say we expect them to lose their next game to Texas (who also went to 2-0 yesterday, by the way), but we’ll stand in the middle of Times Square, wearing only a Mr Freeze costume from Batman, and yell: “There’s a Freeze Coming!” if Ole Miss scores the upset.
8) Tennessee and Kentucky (yes, Kentucky!) complete a good day for the SEC East. Both sides were meant to handle Georgia State and Kent State handily and they did, one by scoring 51 points (UT) and one by scoring 47 (UK). Tyler Bray threw for 310 yards and 4 TDs for the rejuvenated Vols, who’s fans suddenly believe that Derek Dooley is the new Messiah (#fickle), while UK’s Maxwell Smith threw for 354 and 4 TDs. UK fans don’t believe Joker Phillips is the new Blue Messiah, but they wish to be competitive. Good luck with that.
9) And last but not least, a lot of people thought LSU would struggle with Keith Price and the University of Washington. At home. At night. This wasn’t the case, with LSU’s defense proving smothering in a punishing, don’t-y0u-dare-doubt-us 41-3 blowout of the Huskies. This is a darned good football team, folks. Oh, and who cares that Tyrann Mathieu – a LSU student – was at the game? We don’t, ESPN! Just let the kids play! As USC struggled in Syracuse (despite the scoreline), is LSU the second-best team in the nation now?
We’ll let you think about that.