Tag: Vols

The SEC: Your rooting guide

Hello, Mr New SEC fan. You’re looking for a team to root for, and here at the SEC Football Blog we’d like to be your ‘rooting guide’. For the record, all of our fanbases get loaded and cook good food before a game on a Saturday. Some fans are obnoxious, some are respectful. They want their team to beat the living crap out of yours, but they probably won’t tell that you to your face. It’s a Southern thing. Our stadiums are monstrous theaters, and a lot of our players go play in the NFL. Know this: The school you root for has historically been in trouble with the NCAA – college football’s governing body – at some point, and

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Georgia is the best, LSU one of the worst: Week 3 SEC Ranking

It was a weird week in the SEC. The Big 12 actually had some pretty good, low-scoring games, while the SEC was a scorefest of legendary proportions. Alabama and Ole Miss was 63-48, Missouri beat LSU 45-41, Texas A&M beat Florida 41-38, Auburn beat Arkansas 30-28, Georgia humiliated Tennessee 44-21, South Carolina smashed Vanderbilt 41-7 and the weirdest game was at Lexington, where Kentucky beat Mississippi State 24-2. Let’s not get this wrong – it was a humbling day for losers and winners. Here are our ranks for the SEC this week. 1. Georgia (3-0). It wasn’t pretty in the first half, but Georgia’s half-time adjustments were exceptional, and there was nothing that Tennessee could do about it. Georgia put

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Steve Spurrier’s ownership of Peyton Manning is legendary

Peyton Manning probably doesn’t give Steve Spurrier a second thought. After he’s a legend, he’s won two Super Bowls, and he’s been paid an awful lot of money to sell everything from insurance to pizza. Steve Spurrier probably doesn’t Peyton Manning a second thought. He’s a legend in the College Football world, and he’s one of the Kings of Smacktalk. But if you look closely, Steve Spurrier has gone 5-0 against Peyton Manning, and in snipey comments, probably more than that. He’s also 1-0 against the Manning family in Heismans, and has won 1 more National Championship, 5 more SEC titles and 15 more SEC East titles than the rest of the Manning family put together). He never played against

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Week 6 rankings: Gators chomp, Georgia rolls

Right, so we’ve been plunged into the deep end by Week 6 of the college football season. In the AP’s rankings, Alabama is No.1, followed by Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State, LSU and Oklahoma. Florida, Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Penn State fill out your Top 10. Auburn (12th) and Texas A&M (24th) are the other SEC teams on the list. So here are our power rankings for the SEC. This is less about ‘how they look’ and more about ‘who they’ve beaten’. Florida (6-0): Beat Auburn in a monstrously noisy atmosphere in The Swamp. It was like being back in Spurrier’s time again. Yeah, it wasn’t pretty (they turned the ball over 4 times), but the Gators’ defense is amazing. The LSU

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Can Auburn’s season get worse? Week 8 SEC predictions

The mathematics of a monster contract like Gus Malzahn’s might not show it, but the Auburn head coach’s job status is fragile. The offense is sputtering (76th in the country), and because of that, the defense – although it’s one of the best in the country – can’t get a break. This week the offense wil hope to rebound against an Ole Miss team that hasn’t really heard of defense. But the Tigers are on the road in Oxford, and everybody’s scenting blood. Elsewhere, the Ed Orgeron train will keep on truckin’ against Mississippi State in the only ranked match-up in the SEC this week, while embattled Missouri coach Barry Odom will try and pick up his team against high-scoring but

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Tennessee Preview 2018: Will the Vols get off the mat?

2017 was an awful, awful year for the Tennessee Volunteers. Butch Jones was such an unpopular coach that signs saying “Fire Butch Jones” went viral. At games not involving Jones or Tennessee. When he was fired after the team lost to Kentucky, there was an audible sense of relief. You know, for two seconds until the Knoxville roadshow went on overdrive as they tried to find a successor (remember the Greg Schiano incident?) – with former Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt eventually coming through the mire to claim the top job. This year, there is every possibility that the Vols will be the basement-dwellers of their division. They aren’t a whole lot better than the terrible 4-8 team that stunk up the

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SEC fans of the year: The Tennesseee fans who stayed around

In 2017, it was easy to be an Alabama fan. It was easy to be a Georgia fan. It was easy to be an Auburn fan. Hell, at the end of the season, it was easy to be a LSU fan and a Missouri fan. But it wasn’t an easy year for Tennessee fans. This inaugural award doesn’t go to the Tennessee fans who started up the #EmptyNeyland campaign, aimed to show fans’ chagrin at Butch Jones. It doesn’t go to the people who jumped on the ‘No Schiano’ bandwagon, like my former priest, who claimed not to care about Tennessee – or any college football for that matter – because he was ‘too busy with kids, but managed to

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More trouble at Tennessee? Key RB suspended after pot arrest

If it wasn’t the persistent losing, or the middle fingers put up against Alabama fans, or even the hot seat that’s frying Butch Jones right now, then the under-fire coach has had to do something else: Suspend his top running back. John Kelly, who’s had 615 yards on 125 carries and 6 TDs, as well as 26 receptions for 255 yards (averaging 9.8 yards per reception), is a key playmaker, was cited on marijuana possession on Wednesday. “Kelly consented to the search, and officers asked Ignont to get out of the car, the statement said. During the search, they found “a clear plastic baggie containing a green leafy substance believed to be marijuana” as well as “a glass pipe usually used

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Is LSU really the third best team in the SEC? Week 8 Rankings

LSU suddenly look as though it has something to make its fans excited about. After the Troy disaster, the Tigers have won three straight (Florida, Auburn and Ole Miss), and even Danny Etling does not look as bad as Gary Danielson makes him out to be (some people think Gary Danielson’s better than WE think he is). But are the Tigers the third best team in the SEC? It’s between them at Texas A&M. A&M was on a bye week, but with LSU’s road victory – albeit an Ole Miss team that is inept at stopping the run, they move up to third. Auburn’s also pretty good, too. So here you are. Alabama: Nick Saban will probably be yelling at backup

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Can Tennessee survive Alabama? Week 8 SEC Predictions

We’re going to make a massive prediction this week and tell you that someone might make a comment about Philip Fulmer when Tennessee comes to Tuscalossa. Apart from that, this – on paper – isn’t a wildly interesting slate with Auburn going to Arkansas, LSU going to Ole Miss, Kentucky going to Mississippi State, and Idaho visiting Missouri. So here are the games in the level of interesting: Auburn (-15.5) vs Arkansas: If things were going to be smooth for Bret Bielema and Arkansas this season, things suddenly became a lot less smooth when it was reported that Bielema’s buyout was in fact $5.9 million NOT the $15 million as earlier thought. That’s a hell of a jump. Apparently, a reporter

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