It was another thrilling
weekend of college football… unless you’re a Tennessee fan. The Vols were
blasted by an average Florida team, losing by double digits to the Gators for
the ninth time since 2007. Let’s just start there….
Vols
Embarrassed Themselves… Again
I’m running out of ways
to explain Tennessee's incompetence. The Vols were outgained on Saturday by
202 yards, turned the ball over four times, had Jauan Jennings drop a wide open
touchdown pass that turned into an interception, and committed four personal
fouls. They blocked about as well a wet paper bag, and tackled even worse. Jarrett
Guarantano was horrendous, and he was eventually replaced at halftime by Brian
Maurer, who wasn’t much better. Guarantano threw two interceptions and finished
with a QBR of 9.9. Maurer, the one the fanbase had been clamoring for, finished
4 out of 11 passing for 44 yards and had a QBR of 12.2. But yeah, he’s the next
Josh Dobbs! This was totally a Josh Dobbs situation! Stop.
As has been a theme in
this rivalry, the Vols couldn’t run the ball at all. Ty Chandler was the leading
rusher, finishing with 34 yards on ten carries. Awesome. Eric Gray had six carries for
27 yards but lost a fumble, and had 16 of his yards come from one attempt, meaning
he gained just 11 yards on his other five opportunities.
Jim Chaney was brought in
to bring some life to what was an anemic offense the last two years, but so far, the Vols
have looked horrible on that side of the ball. Their biggest problem is that
the two most important aspects of a good offense, quarterback and offensive
line, have been absolutely atrocious and are arguably the worst in the
conference. When Dobbs was the quarterback a few years ago, the offensive line
was a train wreck too, but he was so talented that they were still able to move
the ball. I don’t know if we can blame Chaney yet, as the man has presided over
some high powered attacks in the past, but with that said, he’s still been a
disappointment so far.
What
About Pruitt?
Before I go any further
here, Jeremy Pruitt is going to be the coach in 2020 unless he has drunk
driving arrest (which, I were him, I’d definitely be rolling down to the local
Applebees and polishing off a couple dozen $2 dollar drafts with how bad my
team is) or has some other scandal in his personal life. He’s Fulmer’s guy, his
first big hire, and he’s not going to bail on him after two years, even if things
continue horribly (which they will).
With that said, the
fanbase seems pretty divided on what to do and how they feel about Pruitt. I
guess these things always happen when a coach isn’t living up to expectations.
On the one hand, those who don’t want Pruitt fired yet argue that, “you can’t
fix a 12 year mess in 16 games” and, “They’re playing a lot young players” and,
“We need to let him get some of his recruiting classes in there first” and, “They’re
still playing Butch’s players!”
To me, those arguments
don’t hold water. Every program in the country plays young guys with no experience.
Alabama is going to start five freshman on defense this season. Clemson’s
starting quarterback last season was a true freshman. Florida’s quarterback
Kyle Trask hadn’t started a game in seven years. "We play young guys!" isn't an excuse.
And let’s
not act like Butch didn’t recruit well. I’m not saying he was recruiting on the level of Alabama or Florida every year, but he was still landing classes in the top 10 or 15. He certainly
wasn’t getting out-recruited to the point that the score of Saturday’s game
should be 34-3.
I don’t see how, “We need
to let Pruitt get his guys in there” makes any sense either. Why? The Vols have
gotten inarguably worse this season with a squad that brought back 16 starters
from last year’s team that knocked off two ranked opponents. Why would anyone have
confidence in Pruitt’s ability to “coach ‘em up” when he’s been in charge of
the program and things have gotten this bad? The Vols looked poorly coached.
They don’t “execute”, block, tackle, anything. They turn the ball over far too
much, and they commit dumb penalties multiple times a game.
You know, it would’ve
been one thing if the Vols had gone down to Gainesville and been competitive.
Then you have a case about the whole “fix a mess in 16 games” thing. Pruitt could
make the argument that things were getting better, and it would've been a much more believable
one. Florida was 31 points better than the Vols. 31! And like I wrote on Saturday,
the Gators are going to play Georgia in Jacksonville later in the season and lose
by four touchdowns. So if Florida is 31 points better than Tennessee, and
Georgia is four touchdowns better than the Gators, then when Tennessee hosts
the ‘Dawgs in two weeks, is score going to be 63-0? Why not?
Realistically, what does
Pruitt have to do next year to keep his job? Win nine games? Does anyone think
he’s capable of that? I certainly don’t. At the very least, they’ll be
underdogs against Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Oh yeah, they’re also at
Oklahoma next year too. So that’s probably four losses right there. He’d have to win all of their other eight games and a bowl to get to nine wins. Who has
confidence they can do that? After all, this is the program that lost to Georgia
State and were defeated by BYU when they had a 99% chance to win at the end of
the game.
So if we know Pruitt is going
to get fired at the end of next season, what are we waiting for? Seriously. The
Vols are going to go 2-10 or 3-9, the worst season in the history of the
program. I’d love to see an example of a coach at a big time school who won two
games in his second year and then went on to eventually win the conference later
in his tenure. If it has happened, it hasn’t occurred in the SEC in a while,
because every coach that’s won the conference since the inception of the championship
game in 1992 had at least nine victories by his second year.
Tennessee fans deserve
better. But instead we’ll just get another fun year next season where the program
gets their teeth kicked in again and again and again. Awesome.
Georgia
Held On To Beat Notre Dame
Kind of surprising that this
game was as close as it was, considering the Irish finished with just 46 rushing
yards and were penalized 12 times for 85 yards, most of them being pre-snap
penalties due to the Georgia crowd noise.
The key point of the game
was late in the fourth quarter, with Georgia facing a fourth and short in Notre
Dame territory and protecting a 20-10 lead. Instead of going for the kill and attempting
to blast the Irish off the ball with their rushing attack (like they’d been
doing all night), Kirby Smart chose to settle for a field goal to put them up
just 13. Why not just go for it? There’s no way you don’t pick up the yard unless
you have a total lapse up front, and if you do make it, the Irish defense is probably
broken mentally, which makes it easier for you to punch in a TD and go up 17,
which virtually ends the game. If you don't make it, your defense has been stout all night, and the likelihood of them driving the ball down the field was pretty low. If you make it, but get stopped on the next set of downs, well at least you've ran more time off the clock. Instead, they decide to kick then, and it stays a two possession game. If you’d asked Brian
Kelly in that moment what he would’ve wanted Georgia to do, he would’ve said kick
it. That means something.
Add this to the list of questionable
late game decisions made by Kirby Smart in his three-plus seasons in Athens,
the most prominent of course being the fake punt against Alabama in the SEC
Championship Game last year.
The ‘Dawgs should be 7-0
when they go to Jacksonville on November 2 to play Florida. Win that and they’ll
finish up by hosting Missouri, traveling to Auburn, hosting Texas A&M, and
going to Georgia Tech. Kirby is 0-3 on the road against SEC West teams in his
tenure with Georgia, so that Auburn game is one to keep an eye on, though they’ll
probably be favored every week until they play Alabama (or maybe LSU) in the
SEC Championship Game.
As for Notre Dame, the Irish
have a good chance to run the table the rest of the way, but it’s going to be difficult
for them to make the playoff case, unless there is just a ton of chaos, meaning
they’re going to need to be one of the only one loss teams in the country with maybe one or
two undefeated teams. It’ll be particularly difficult for them if Georgia
finishes the year with their only loss being to Alabama in the SEC Championship
Game, because how could a one loss Irish team get in the playoff over a one
loss Georgia team who beat them head to head? Or let’s say that Georgia wins
the SEC; what’s the case for Notre Dame getting in over Alabama? Seems like a
tough one to make.
Auburn
Beat Texas A&M In College Station
The Tigers did this
despite only gaining 299 yards of offense (compared to 391 for the Aggies) and
dealing with swirling coaching rumors all week that Bob Stoops was going to
take over for Gus Malzahn after the season.
Auburn has shown a ton of
grit so far this season. They should’ve lost to Oregon in Week 1, and they didn’t
succumb to the heat in a loud road environment this week. I don’t know what
this means for them going forward, but if Bo Nix continues to play well, it’ll
make Gus’s ridiculous contract not look like quite the dumpster fire that it
actually is.
As for the Aggies, the schedule
is only going to get tougher from here, and they already have two losses. They
host Alabama on October 12, and finish the year with back-to-back games at Georgia
and at LSU. Brutal. They won’t be favored in any of those games, and 7-5 feels
probable for Jimbo Fisher’s second year.
If they do finish 7-5, that’ll
bring Jimbo’s two year record to 16-9. If he did that at Tennessee, they’d
throw a damn parade for him and probably name a street after him. But at A&M, where
he’s making $7.5 million, I don’t think a lot of folks are going to be
thrilled. I’m not saying he’s on the hot seat, just that he wouldn’t have lived
up to the expectations that come when you sign a ten year deal so far.
Michigan…
What Else Is There To Say?
The Wolverines had an
extra week to prepare for Wisconsin and were down 28-0 at halftime. Listen, I
get it, the Badgers are a good team, and maybe are even a darkhorse playoff
contender. They’ve got the best defense in the Big Ten, and have one of the
Heisman frontrunners in Jonathan Taylor.
With that said… holy crap
Jim Harbaugh, you can’t have a performance like that in your fifth year, particularly
not when you haven’t won your division, conference, or beaten Ohio State yet.
This was a big game for ole Harbaugh and they crapped the bed.
Good luck against Ohio
State this year too. This was the time for Harbaugh to beat them, in Ryan Day’s
first season, when they had only four returning starters. Instead, the Buckeyes
haven’t missed a beat while Michigan is arguably worse off now than they were
in 2015 when Harbaugh got the job.
I don’t know what the
Wolverines do going forward. Can they fire him? Do they want to pay him a
buyout of over $15 million? And who would they hire to replace him?
I just can’t believe it
hasn’t worked there for him yet. He resurrected and built what was a dead Stanford
program, and he showed up in the NFL and had the Niners in the NFC Championship
Game in 2011 and 2013 and the Super Bowl in 2012. But since he arrived in Ann
Arbor, it’s been a disappointing mess.
There are no good answers
for the Wolverines.
Washington
State Blew A 32 Point Third Quarter Lead To UCLA
Crappy UCLA put up 50
second half points and forced six turnovers to comeback against kooky Mike Leach
and Washington State. Hilariously, this happened only a few hours after I was
arguing that Mike Leach would’ve been a better hire for Tennessee than Jeremy
Pruitt was. How much of an idiot am I? Don’t answer that.
Chip Kelly needed a win probably
as much, if not more than Pruitt did, and he was actually able to pull it off with
an offense that finally looked like the kind he used to terrify the country with
at Oregon. Can the Bruins build off this going forward and turn around what has
been a disastrous first 16 games for Kelly? We’ll see.
As for Leach, Saturday,
and frankly, this whole week, is why the best two jobs he’s gotten have been Texas
Tech and Washington State. Do I think he’s a better coach than Jeremy Pruitt?
Yes. Would I rather have him at Tennessee? Yeah, I would. But he’s never really
been a defense guy, and while he’s a hilarious, how well would it play at
Tennessee if they lost the same week someone asked him at a press conference
about what SEC mascot would win in a fight to the death? Leach was really asked
that about the Pac 12 mascots earlier in the week, and he answered the question about as thoughtfully
as I would’ve hoped for him to do, because he’s Mike Leach and that’s what he
does. He’s a crazy funny guy, and I’m happy he’s in college football. But realistically,
he’s not ever getting the Tennessee job, particularly not with Mr. Serious
Phillip Fulmer calling the shots.
My
Top 4
1.
Clemson
I’ll
leave the Tigers here for now, even though they haven’t been tested and won’t
be until the playoff semifinals in late December. The ACC is atrocious. The second
best team in the league, Virginia, only beat crappy Florida State and Willie
Taggart by a touchdown at home last week, and followed that up by struggling for three
quarters with Old Dominion. Not good.
2.
LSU
I’ll
slot the Tigers here for now, though like I’ve said before, they aren’t beating
Alabama. But their win at Texas two weeks ago is still probably the best of any
team at this point in the season.
3.
Alabama
I
think this is worst Alabama team Saban has had since the three loss one in 2010.
If there were ever a year for LSU and Swamp Monster Orgeron to get them, it
would be this season.
4.
Oklahoma
I’m
putting the Sooners here because I think they’re going to finish the season
with the best offense in the country for the third straight year. Georgia didn’t blow me away
on Saturday; if anything, I feel less confident in them.
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