Quick bowl reaction: Bama in, FSU/ Georgia out

After they beat Georgia in the National Championship Game and Florida State’s offense looked so ragged against Louisville, it seemed inevitable that Alabama was going to be the final team into the College Football Play-Off. They will play No.1 Michigan, while No.2 Washington and No.3 Texas face off in the other one. Georgia fans could moan about not being one of the best teams in, but they sank themselves by back-to-back not-great performances against Georgia Tech and Alabama respectively. In the end, they ended up No.6 in the nation, and will face Florida State in the Orange Bowl – something we suspect won’t have a lot of weight if you consider the amount of players who won’t play. But the bottom

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The forgotten men of great SEC teams

For good or for bad, SEC people can bend your ear until they’ve practically ripped it off about the Cam Newtons, Tim Tebows, Reggie Whites, Trent Richardsons and Tuas of memory. Of course Georgia fans will regale you with stories about Herschel, ‘Florida men’ will even talk about Spurrier’s frighteningly good offenses, and someone from Arkansas might chime about Darren McFadden. But there are the forgotten men. It goes without saying that most offensive and defensive linesmen are these ‘forgotten men’, but every team who’s won a National Championship tend to have a good offensive line. It helps with putting up the points. So please don’t get annoyed if we ignore them. We’re not going to just doing National Championships

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LSU continues to impress after Week 3

OK, we failed to produce a prediction for Week 3 due to ‘technical difficulties’ (we stupidly forgot to press the ‘post’ button), so here were our predictions. We said Auburn would beat LSU by 7. We said Alabama would beat Ole Miss by 21. We said Notre Dame would beat Vandy by 10. We said Missouri would beat Purdue 31-17. We thought Arkansas would be North Texas by 10, and Florida beating Colorado State by 24. We had Texas A&M, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky waltzing away. Straight up, we went 9-2. Against the spread, it was a little uglier. Anyway, here we go after the mass celebrations in Baton Rouge and, er, Denton, TX (HOW ABOUT THAT TRICK PLAY?), here’s

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Kentucky, Aggies, Georgia impress, Florida doesn’t: Week 2 SEC Wrap-Up

I know, it’s Wednesday and there’s already a college football game on Thursday, and we haven’t really got ourselves together to write our ‘Impressed/Depressed’ list. That’s because half of this writer was doing other things, and half of this writer was asking himself: “What in the hell happened to Florida?” Anyway, let’s get to the list. And congratulations to Mark Stoops and Kentucky for getting a giant-sized Gator off your back. Kentucky: I would have killed to be a Kentucky fan in Gainseville on Saturday. Before the game I would have been given non-stop crap by full-grown men in jorts about how the Wildcats would ‘always’ be Gator bait. In the game a group of people – probably in jorts –

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All ’bout South Carolina, Georgia and Texas (A&M): Week 2 SEC Predictions

This weekend, the whole country is going to be concentrating on the Great State of South Carolina. At 3.30pm the Devils from Georgia will roll into Columbia, and we’ll have to hear some terrible EDM music, and people will be screaming and whirling towels. And it will be noisy. Because Williams-Brice is noisy. CBS will be showing it, so you can always watch it on silent if you don’t like the commentators. Then at 7pm Clemson rolls into Kyle Field to play the 12th Man, Jimbo’s friend and benefactor, and dog-worshippers Texas A&M who had a double-whammy last week when it beat Northwestern State and a couple of days later got to laugh at Texas losing to Maryland (and got

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LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss impress, Saban doesn’t in Week 1 of the SEC season

LSU’s roasting of No.8 Miami, Auburn’s victory in a war against Washington, and Alabama’s brutal dismantling of Louisville (not to mention their coach’s brutal dismantling of an ESPN reporter) were all the most impressive things of Week 1. Tennessee was the only team in the SEC that lost – although that was helped by some ‘superb’ scheduling by ADs everywhere (yeah, the South Carolina vs Coastal Carolina game was always going to be a barnburner). I’d like to note that for games 9-14 I was scrambling for reasons why I would be impressed. Hence why Tennessee’s so high.  Anyway, which SEC team impressed the most on Week 1 of the CFB season? LSU (1-0): The 33-17 dismantling of Miami was very impressive

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Will Alabama kick off the season with a win? SEC Predictions for Week 1

It’s the fun bit of our job when we get to predict the Week 1 games of the college football season for SEC teams. We think we know everything after Week 1, only to see that our ‘knowledge’ is blown away by Thanksgiving that we feel miserable and inclined to douse ourselves in whiskey while we wait around for bowl season. Anyway, here are your predictions for Week 1 of the SEC season. As usual, we’re going in the order of games we’re interested in. Sorry Texas A&M vs Northwestern State, you’re not very high. The first five games on this list are being played on neutral fields. Which means that if you’re a season ticket holder of a SEC

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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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After the mayhem of Week 7, Auburn and Tennessee fans are unhappy

After the unbridled craziness of Week 7 (see Clemson, Washington and Washington State all getting upset) Alabama and Georgia still rule the SEC. While Alabama rolled, it wasn’t the most convincing of performances from Georgia, who only woke up in the second half of their game against Missouri. Elsewhere, Auburn blew a 20-pt lead on a horribly hot day at LSU and really, really pissed off their fanbase in the process (To LSU fans, ‘Coach O’ is now God), the Tennessee soap opera continued with a 15-9 home loss to South Carolina in one of the ugliest games you’ll ever see, while Texas A&M now like Kevin Sumlin again after the Aggies won by 2 points in an electrifying atmosphere

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What conferences need from their teams to get in the play-off

We love college football because of the passion. We love college football because of the tailgates. We love college football because it’s the chance to see old college buddies again, cheer the team on, and have a brew or seven two. We love college football because anyone beats anyone, anytime. But the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 don’t need parity. They need their good teams going as far as possible to give them the biggest chance to get into the country’s worst-timed play-off…..The College Football Play-Off. So here’s what each conference will need to maximise their needs…. SEC The SEC would be really, really happy if Alabama and Georgia met in the SEC Championship Game unbeaten. That would

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