Vols Get Blasted At Florida By 31 Points, Prove They've Botched Their Fourth Straight Coaching Hire

Tennessee rolled into Gainesville today and embarrassed themselves by losing by 31 to a pretty average Florida team playing a quarterback who hadn’t made a start in 7 years.

There are an infinite amount of ways to say this was a bad loss. I could talk about the fact that this Florida team is going to travel to Baton Rouge later in the season and lose by three touchdowns, or that they’re going to play Georgia in Jacksonville in late October and lose by four touchdowns. So if the Gators are four touchdowns worse than the Bulldogs, and Tennessee is almost five touchdowns worse than Florida, then does that mean that the Vols are nine touchdowns worse than Georgia? Hell, why not?

I could also talk about how Tennessee has the same problems as a football team today as they did at this point last season, only they’re arguably worse now. Jim Chaney’s offense has been really pitiful so far, and the offensive line continues to be a wet paper bag. I actually thought the defense was competitive today, and they even forced three turnovers, but that probably says more about how mediocre the Gators are than how good the Vol defense is. Does anyone with a functional brain think that Florida is the ninth best team in the country? Of course not. The Gators are a four loss team that Tennessee wasn’t close to being competitive with in Jeremy Pruitt’s sixteenth game as head coach.

How in the hell is it possible that Tennessee has whiffed on four coaching hires in a row now? I think its pretty apparent that Jeremy Pruitt isn't the guy at this point. He’s been an F. 

Lane Kiffin lasted one year before he bolted, and they compounded that problem by hiring Derek Freaking Dooley. And when that didn’t work out after three seasons, they rightly moved on. The 2012 coaching search was the time to make it rain on some coach and hire the right guy. Instead, they went cheap and hired Butch Freaking Jones. The 2017 coaching search was even worse, but despite all the botchery, they still almost hired Mike Leach! Does anyone think the Vols would be 6-10 with Leach through 16 games? Does anyone think they would’ve scored 3 points against anyone in Leach’s sixteenth game?

One thing I’m glad we can finally put to bed is the notion from a majority of the fanbase that Tennessee was just a quarterback change away from being competitive. Yeah, because Brian Maurer looked PHENOMENAL today…. Wrong. They don’t have a competent quarterback on this roster, and somehow Jarrett Guarantano is the best of the bunch, which is why he was the starter.

That being said, Guarantano was abominable today. He missed Dominic Wood-Anderson for what would’ve been a TD, or at least a huge gain into Florida territory. He threw a terrible pick directly into the hands of a Gator DB because he badly misread the coverage while Marquez Callaway read it perfectly. His QBR was 9.9. He was on the field for seven drives of six plays or less.

The only Vol who had a worse day than JG was Jauan Jennings, who declared himself the “leader” of this team after the embarrassing Georgia State loss. He dropped a perfect throw in the endzone on third and goal that deflected up in the air and turned into an interception. He committed a personal foul on a punt when he ran into the returner after he called for a fair catch. I guess Jauan didn’t get enough leadership reps this week.

Let’s look at the rest of the Vol schedule. I’m trying my hardest to find two wins.

September 28: Bye Week. Tennessee is 1-3 now, but I swear, if anyone could figure out a way to register a loss on the bye week, it would be the Vols.

October 5: Georgia. It’s going to be 63-0.

October 12: Mississippi State. The Bulldogs aren’t good. Neither are the Vols.

October 19: @Alabama. Gulp.

October 26: South Carolina. Will Muschamp is 7-0 against Tennessee and the Gamecocks, even with freshman quarterback Ryan Hilinski, have shown the ability to move the football.

November 2: UAB. If they don’t have a second win by this point, this will probably be it.

November 9: @Kentucky. The Wildcats are on a backup quarterback but were still able to score 21 points against the same Gator team that Tennessee just scored 3 against.

November 16: Bye Week. Again, if anyone could find a way to lose on the bye week, it would be the Vols.

November 23: @Missouri. The Tigers have the better quarterback and are at home.

November 30: Vanderbilt. The Commodores have beaten the Vols three years in a row. Granted, they are awful so far in 2019 but hell, so is Tennessee.

Realistically, we’re looking at a 2-10 or 3-9 season at this point. Derek Dooley was a train wreck, but even he managed to win 5 games in every season. Butch Jones botched so many games that it’s hard to remember him winning anything, but even he made three bowl games.

And if they do go 2-10 or 3-9, what’s the argument for Jeremy Pruitt to get a third year? Seriously. The program will have just had its worst season ever despite having back a majority of the starters on both sides of the ball from a team that beat two ranked teams last season. All of the issues with the team are worse than last season. Pruitt was AT BEST the eighth choice when he was hired in 2017; no one was thrilled when he got the job, which made his leash pretty short. It was even shorter when he lost to Georgia State. It might be completely gone now after today's performance. If/when he does get fired, I think whatever roster turnover and recruiting losses there is after the season can be mitigated by the fact that Jeremy Pruitt is no longer around the program. Why keep someone employed as the football coach when the team is only getting worse the longer he is in charge?

So in November, when the season is down the toilet, you fire Pruitt, and then you call either Matt Campbell at Iowa State or Mike Leach at Washington State and pay what it takes. Campbell isn’t even 40 yet; plus, he's been able to make Iowa freaking State competitive in football. Leach would’ve taken the job in 2017, and I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t want it now. I don’t know if either are capable of restoring the Vols to national prominence, but I’m pretty confident they wouldn’t be going without a touchdown in their 16^th game against what is going to end up being a four loss team.

My Never Ending Crusade To Fix The College Football Schedule Plus Week 3 Picks

Another college football weekend is upon us, and if I’m being honest, it’s one of the poorer Saturdays I can remember in terms of the on-paper schedule. There are no games between ranked teams, #1 Clemson at Syracuse (who just got Seagal'd at Maryland last week) is the ABC Saturday Night Game, and College Gameday is going to Ames, Iowa, for the first time ever because the Cyhawk Trophy is up for grabs. Nothing against Ames, but come on… if Iowa-Iowa State is among to the two or three best games of the week, then you know it’s a pretty bad on-paper schedule. I love college football almost more than I love my wife (ALMOST BABE! ONLY ALMOST!) so I’ll be watching, but the weakness of the on-paper schedule isn’t unique to this Saturday so far in the 2019 season. I mean, it’s a crime that we’ve only had three games between ranked teams so far this year. Plus, Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” so far has featured FAU at Ohio State, Army at Michigan, and this week, Ohio State at Indiana. Wow! Can’t wait for that one!

The college football schedule is an atrocity. The NFL makes sure that each and every week, they’re putting quality games on the field that the fans want to see. I'm sorry, but nobody wants to watch Arkansas State at Georgia this weekend, not even 'Dawg fans, and certainly no one wants to go. No one in the history of humanity has ever said, “You know the matchup I’ve been dying to see? New Mexico at Notre Dame! Let's get on Stubhub. No matter the price, it's a bargain!”

Listen, just elect me the college football scheduling czar and let me fix everyone’s September scheduling woes. I promise I'll eliminate all this Chattanooga at Tennessee BS that no one wants to see.

I like Nick Saban’s idea of playing ten conference games and then two others against Power 5 opponents, but can we at least get every SEC and ACC team playing nine conference games? Guys, it’s time. Every other league does it. And the fans don’t want to go/stick around for Sandwich Tech at LSU or Directional School Nevada at Florida. They really don’t. Let’s get it together for our fans. And don’t give me the “SEC is a gauntlet” argument. Please. Not when you’ve got schools in your league losing to Georgia State and Wyoming.

So here’s the proposal: every Power 5 League plays nine conference games. If you want to play more, great! But at least nine. Then, you know what, the other three games have to be against other Power 5 opponents. That way you’ve got 12 legitimate teams on your schedule each and every season and you’ve now given your fans a reason to want to go to the games. That way you don’t have lunacy like the Alabama athletic department tracking students on their phones to make sure they stay at games that no one wants to go to or sit through for four quarters.

“But Matt! But Matt! But Matt, if Alabama doesn’t pay Weber State a million dollars to come to Tuscaloosa and get their ass kicked, then how are they going to fund their athletic department? You know that million dollar check and ass kicking basically pays for Weber State’s entire athletic department budget for a year, right?”

Uh yeah, if Weber State can’t fund their athletic department without Alabama subsidizing them, then that’s Weber State’s problem, not Alabama’s. I shouldn’t have to pay with a wasted Saturday because the folks in Ogden, Utah need their athletic department paid for. Plus, aren’t there better uses of a million dollars of athletic department money than shipping it out West to fund someone else’s athletic department? I can think of a few… like maybe the players on Alabama’s roster get that? And then you invite Texas or Ohio State into your stadium in place of Weber State and make ten times what you would’ve made had you kept that crappy school that no one wants to see on the schedule.

Some of you reading this right now are probably thinking to yourselves, “Wait a second, why should Alabama players get paid by the school when they’re already getting paid to be there by the boosters?” Oh whoops, I’m not allowed to say that. Everyone on college football does everything on the up and up. Definitely everything is above board. No one cheats in college sports! No one!

Now, I guess we’ll move onto the Week 3 slate….

Chattanooga at Tennessee

I can’t believe this game is even being played. Tennessee benefits in no way here. If they win, great, they paid Chattanooga a million dollars to come to Knoxville so the Vols can get a meaningless victory. If they lose (oh my god), then Jeremy Pruitt gets fired as he’s walking off the field. Wait a second, maybe that is a benefit….

Prediction: Tennessee

#20 Washington State vs Houston (at NRG Stadium in Houston)

Not technically a Houston home game since this one is at the Texans’ stadium, but for all intents and purposes it is. If you’re at your house tonight drowning yourself in Natty Lights, stop doing that and flip over to ESPN at 9:15 for this one, because this game is going to be a fireworks show. 70-63 is in play here. I’ll take almost Tennessee coach Mike Leach here to squeak this one out because Houston’s defense is about as sturdy as a wet paper bag.

#6 Ohio State at Indiana

I know I know, I cited this game earlier as an example of the crappy football schedule, but I’m grasping for straws here folks! There’s not a lot to choose from!

The Buckeyes are 18 point favorites here in a series that they lead 74-12-5. They’ve won 23 straight against the Hoosiers and haven’t lost to them since October of 1988. They’ve tied Indiana (1990) more recently than they’ve lost to them. I’d love to see Ohio State lose here, or at least have Indiana make it competitive, but I don’t see any way the Buckeyes don’t win by four touchdowns unless the Ohio State bus gets struck by a meteor on the way to the stadium.

#2 Alabama at South Carolina

Incredibly, this is Alabama’s first game against South Carolina since the Tide lost in Columbia as the #1 team in the country back in 2010. (This is another reason why the SEC needs nine or ten conference games. Alabama hasn’t played South Carolina in almost an entire decade? Tennessee beat Auburn on the road last year, but they won’t return there for another 12 years? What? Madness.)

This is our first SEC on CBS game of the season, but I think it’s going to be a dud. The Gamecocks lost their veteran quarterback Jake Bentley before last week’s game, and even when he played, South Carolina looked really bad against UNC in their opener. I don’t think this is a great Alabama team, at least not yet, but they should still go in there and take care of business. The only potential issue I see here for the Tide could be if the weather is so hot and humid that Nick Saban sweats his hair plugs out. But even that shouldn’t slow them down. Plus, Saban has played games in brutally hot temperatures before (like at Texas A&M in September) and those plugs held strong. So he should be fine.

Prediction: Alabama

Stanford at #17 UCF

Good on Stanford for traveling all the way across the country to play this game against a legitimate opponent. The Cardinal always challenge themselves out of conference; this year, for example, their non-conference schedule was Northwestern (Big Ten), the best Group of Five team (UCF), and a team they play every season that also happened to make the 2018 college playoff (Notre Dame).

With all that said, getting credit from me for traveling to play an opponent has no bearing on how this one will play out on the field tomorrow. Or will help the Cardinal after last week, where they allowed USC with a freshman quarterback to go on a 42-3 run to end the game. Sure, quarterback KJ Costello will be back for Stanford, but before he got knocked out of the game against Northwestern two weeks ago, he’d only guided the Cardinal to 10 points. It’s not like he was lighting it up out there. So I’m not sure how much of an upgrade it really is.

Prediction: UCF

Pittsburgh at #13 Penn State

Pittsburgh got blown out by Virginia in Week 1 and then beat Ohio by ten last Saturday. So I’m not sure how good they actually are, though I’m guessing not that good. Meanwhile, Penn State has scored 124 points in two weeks against… Idaho and Buffalo. Great. Who cares?

Fun, crazy fact here: Syracuse and Dino Babers were the last ACC team to beat Clemson, all the way back in 2017 at the Carrier Dome. The ACC team and coach before that? Pittsburgh and their current coach, Pat Narduzzi, in 2016. He did it with Nathan Peterman at quarterback! Does that have any bearing on how tomorrow will turn out? Nope! Just thought I’d mention it.

Prediction: Penn State

#24 USC at BYU

Clay Helton really is going to go 3-0 isn’t he? I can’t believe I’m going to say anything nice about a team that Helton coaches, but wow, that beatdown against Stanford last week was impressive. Frankly, it’s about time the Trojans put it on someone, considering they have significantly more four and five star recruits than everyone they play (And yes, I know Bubba in Bulls Gap is reading this right now and saying to himself, “Stars don’t matter, the only thing that’s important is HOW MUCH DAMN HEART YOU HAVE! DALE JONES AT TENNESSEE!” Bubba’s wrong, but I appreciate his contribution here).

 They’re going to be 3-0 because that BYU team is really pretty mediocre. You know, the BYU team that Tennessee had all but defeated until the Cougars inexplicably completed a 60+ yard pass to set up the game tying field goal that sent the game to overtime? Unlike the Vols, USC actually has the capability of playing well at the line of scrimmage, as they showed last week. They should be able to overwhelm BYU.

And when that happens… I mean good lord, how can Tennessee lose to a team last week that’s going to get blasted tomorrow by a squad that’s got Clay Helton, a traveling tube sock salesman, running the program?

Prediction: USC

#19 Iowa at Iowa State

As mentioned before, College Gameday will be here for this one, the first time they’ve ever been to Ames, Iowa. Who in the world is going to be the “celebrity” guest picker? Are there any famous Iowa State grads I don’t know about? Famous Iowans? Or are they just going to put a corn husk out there and let it pick games? To be fair, the corn probably has about as much college football knowledge as Lee Corso does at this point.

Onto the game, I’m going to pick Iowa State because their head coach Matt Campbell should be the first guy Tennessee calls if (or more than likely, when) they fire Jeremy Pruitt.

Let’s face it guys. Tennessee, at least at this point, isn’t going to get the top name that everyone always throws out for them. Whether it’s the lack of want to pay for a name like that, or the fact that the program is in ruin (and has been for a decade-plus) and isn’t attractive right now, not getting the flashy name is pretty much exactly how it’s gone down there during the last three coaching searches. So why not Campbell, who is young (he’s only 39) and has made a nothing program in Iowa State relevant (he won 8 games in both 2017 and 2018). Winning 8 games at Iowa State is like winning 11 at Tennessee; it’s really impressive and it also never happens. Drive to his house in Ames or whatever corn-fed Iowa town he lives in with a briefcase full of millions of dollars of cash. Ring the doorbell, and when he answers, hand him the case with an attached note that says, “Please, please, save our god forsaken program. Here’s millions of dollars. Also inside is step by step instructions for how we want you to do a blood sacrifice of a goat to the football gods, since apparently we’ve pissed them off, which is the only reasonable explanation to the decimation of our football program over the last twenty years.” Then Campbell takes the money, does the blood sacrifice, goes to Knoxville, and returns the Vols to glory. Everyone wins. Except the goat.

Prediction: Iowa State

#9 Florida at Kentucky

UK finally broke their 31 game losing streak to Florida last season with a 27-16 victory in Gainesville. Not that last year means anything for tomorrow, of course.

Kentucky lost their starting quarterback Terry Wilson to a season-ending injury last week. Meanwhile, for Florida fans, it must feel like their quarterback has a season-ending injury every time they watch Feleipe Franks attempt to play the position, because that’s the only way someone could have that much experience and still play that badly every week.

Sawyer Smith will make his first career start tomorrow at QB for the Wildcats. Sawyer Smith. Yes, that’s his name. He sounds like one of those rough kids you went to middle school with who all the sudden stopped showing up to school and was never heard from again. Regardless, I can’t imagine that his first career start is going to go all that well for him. A fast defense with a ton of pros... yikes. Even if Feleipe Franks throws three picks and misses 10 open receivers, the Gators are going to win this game.

Prediction: Florida

#1 Clemson at Syracuse

#5 Oklahoma at UCLA

These are our two marquee night games? Really? The combined score here is going to be 150-14. Syracuse’s crappy defense is exactly the medicine that Clemson needs to jumpstart their offense. Meanwhile, UCLA lost to San Diego State last week. How are they going to slow down Jalen Hurts and OU? They’d struggle against them even if Superman was their middle linebacker.

 Prediction: Clemson and Oklahoma

Enjoy football this weekend. Let’s get this damn schedule fixed.

The Week In Football: Tennessee Collapses, LSU Has An Offense, And Scott Frost Flounders

It was another awesome college football Saturday, full of comebacks, overtimes, and… another… Tennessee loss…

As always, we’ll start there… I guess….

Tennessee Butch’d The Hell Out Of The BYU Game

I can’t believe I didn’t invoke the name of Butch when I wrote about this debacle the other night, but it’s certainly an appropriate way to describe what happened on Saturday. The Vols had over a 99% chance to win the game with 30 seconds to go according to statistical projections, and yet, they allowed a 60+ yard pass that put the Cougars in field goal range. The kick to send it to overtime made it by only about six inches. From there, the defense collapsed, and BYU escaped Neyland victorious.

Frankly, I’m still at a loss for words. The game, the state of the program, everything. I just can’t believe they lost that way again. No other program in the country has taken this long to “figure out how to win”, and yet, that always seems to be what is said after these meltdowns. We heard that throughout the entire Butch Jones tenure, and it’s being postulated again. So I guess Tennessee “knew how to win” when they went to Auburn and knocked off the Tigers last year? Or when they dominated Kentucky in Neyland last November? They’ve just forgot how to win now? BS.

Every Vol fan hates Jarrett Guarantano more than the Taliban, and while he was really poor on Saturday night and probably cost them the game just as much as that 60+ yard pass, I don’t think they’re better if he’s on the bench and someone else is playing. You think there’s some magic quarterback on this roster who is going to drastically change their fortunes? Who? There’s not a Josh Dobbs-level guy sitting on the bench waiting to come in and make plays. Guarantano might be below average, but, and as sad as this might be, he’s probably the best quarterback they have. Otherwise, why the hell would he still be playing? The goal is winning right? Some Tennessee fans act like Guarantano is only out there because he caught Pruitt with a horse in his bed. Come on guys.

There are no easy fixes in Knoxville apparently. Just more losing forever until they fold the program.

LSU Went Into Austin And Knocked Off Texas

LSU QB Joe Burrow played the best game of his career (471 yards, 4 TDs) as the Tigers scored 45 points to win by a touchdown over a top ten Texas team.

Sam Ehlinger was great also (401 passing yards, 60 rushing yards, 5 total TDs) as he torched the veteran LSU defense, but ultimately the game swung in the fourth quarter on a Joe Burrow 61 yard TD pass to Justin Jefferson on 3^rd and 17.

As long as Saban remains at Alabama, this season will probably be Ed Orgeron’s best chance to win the SEC West, the SEC, and make the playoff. The Tigers are loaded with veterans on both sides of the ball, and this is best passing attack they've had since Zach Mettenberger was under center for them in 2013. LSU’s toughest games before they travel to Alabama on November 9^th are Florida and Auburn, but both schools come to Baton Rouge. Assuming the Tigers win both of those games, that showdown in Tuscaloosa against what will probably be an undefeated Alabama team should decide the division. True, the Tide have outscored Orgeron’s LSU teams 63-10 in the last three meetings, but the Tigers also haven’t brought an offense this good in a long while into that game either.

Do I really think the Cajun Swamp Monster is going to beat Saban in a football game? No. But if there was ever a year for hell to freeze over, it’d be with this LSU team.

Michigan Needed Overtime And A Missed Field Goal To Beat Army

This would’ve been a back-breaker for Jim Harbaugh in what is an extremely important fifth year for him and the program. If Army’s kicker could’ve hooked his 50 yard attempt just a little bit more to the left at the end of regulation, the Black Knights leave Ann Arbor victorious while Michigan is forced to answer all kinds of questions about Harbaugh’s long time viability as the head coach of this football program. Instead, everyone will eventually forget about the details of this game and instead remember that while it was tight for a while, the Wolverines survived. Never mind the fact that Shea Patterson was horrific (2 lost fumbles and some really bad throws) or that Michigan questionably went for it back to back possessions on fourth and short in the final period and were stopped both times.

This was the year, with Urban Meyer off doing TV, that Michigan needed to beat Ohio State, win the Big Ten, and contend for a playoff spot. Instead, it looks like another 9-3 or 8-4 type season for the Wolverines. Their next game is at Wisconsin in two weeks, a team that has yet to surrender a point to anyone this season. If they struggled to move the ball against Army, how are they going to do against that defense? And honestly, who has looked like the better team between the Buckeyes and Michigan the first two weeks? One shut out a good Group of Five Team in Cincinnati on Saturday; the other needed overtime with Army.

Scott Frost Is Now 5-9 Through 14 Games At Nebraska, The Same Record As Jeremy Pruitt Through 14 Games At Tennessee

That record comes thanks to Colorado, who trailed 17-0 at halftime but scored 34 points after the intermission, including a TD with 46 seconds left that sent the game to overtime, where the Buffaloes eventually won. The Huskers were the media’s pick to win the Big Ten West before the season, but that doesn’t look probable now with how the first two weeks have turned out. Throw in Chip Kelly at UCLA (who lost to San Diego State by 9 on Saturday to start 0-2) and Willie Taggart at FSU (who needed a missed extra point in overtime to beat Louisiana-Monroe), and we’ve got a plethora of second year coaches at big time programs who have struggled to get things off the ground.

The only one of these four that I’m 100% sure isn’t going to work out is Taggart at FSU. The fan base has already turned on him and no one was shocked at all at how the ULM game turned out on Saturday. I definitely wouldn’t bet on either of the remaining three to ever win a conference championship. Kelly hasn’t had a winning season since 2014 with the Eagles, Pruitt lost to Georgia State and blew the BYU game, and Frost has gotten a ton of hype because he’s the most handsome man in college football coaching.

Who survives the longest? I guess I’d bet on Frost, who is an alum and has had the most high level success recently out of all four with what he did at UCF. I see the administration being slightly more patient, meaning he could be disappointing next season and still get a fourth year, whereas I’m not sure about the other three places.

Clemson’s Defense Destroyed Texas A&M

This game wasn’t as close as the 24-10 score would suggest. The Tigers defense held Texas A&M to less than 300 yards of offense, forced two turnovers, sacked Aggie quarterback Kellen Mond twice, and must have hit him half a dozen other times or more.

Despite their offensive woes, A&M was actually pretty good on defense, as they held the high powered Clemson attack to 389 yards, and even picked Trevor Lawrence off once.

The good news for Clemson is that they get to play a Syracuse team next week that gave up 63 points to Maryland on Saturday. After that, it’s nothing but cupcakes until whoever their playoff semifinalist opponent is.

As for A&M, they’ve got a lot of things to figure out on offense before they host Auburn in two weeks. The Tiger defense held that Oregon offense with future NFL quarterback Justin Herbert to 21 points; what do you think they’ll do to the A&M offense led by Kellen Mond?

USC Outscored Stanford 42-3 To End The Game

So I guess because Clay Helton got bailed out again by a freshman quarterback, this time Kedon Slovis, that means he’s a good football coach? This means he’s doesn’t belong in freshman baseball dugout? Come on guys. This was a nice win for the Trojans but there will still be a new coach at Southern Cal next season.

My Top Four

I think it’s safe to do one of these now after two weeks of football.

1.      Clemson

The offense has been a bit clunky, but if Lawrence can get things figured out they’ll be back to where they were at the end of last season. And even if he doesn’t, this team will still win every game on their schedule by double digits until the playoff.

2.      Alabama

I wanted to put LSU here, but with the whole “there’s no way in hell that Coach O is beating Saban” thing, I’ll put the Tide here until they do something to convince me otherwise. They face their first real “test” this weekend at South Carolina.

3.      LSU

The Tigers had the best win of the entire season thus far with their victory over Texas in Austin on Saturday. If the Longhorns run the table and win the Big 12, while LSU finishes 11-1 with their only loss being on the road to Alabama, how could you justify putting Texas in the playoff over the Tigers?

4.      Oklahoma

Why not the Sooners here, who have scored 119 points in their first two games. OU goes to UCLA this weekend, a game that they’ll probably win by 100.

237. Tennessee

And that might be too high.

Tennessee Chokes... Again...

At this point, after all the bad losses, all the heartbreaks, and all the gut punches, I really don’t know what to say. Tennessee, once again, pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Only Tennessee would struggle to defend a team without timeouts on a third down deep in their own territory. Only the Vols would give up a 60+ yard completion in that situation. That throw was just like the one in the Florida game in 2017 or the Georgia one in 2016 before the Dobbsnail Boot.

You’ve got one job as a defender in that situation with the clock winding down: don’t let someone run by you. Just don’t! It’s not difficult! I don’t understand how every other team in the country understands that fundamental concept except for Tennessee. You’d think they would’ve learned that by now SINCE IT’S HAPPENED THREE TIMES TO THEM IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS! YOU’D THINK DEFENSIVE “GURU” JEREMY PRUITT WOULD HAVE HIS DEFENSE PREPARED TO DEFEND AGAINST THE ONLY POSSIBLE PLAY THE COUGARS COULD RUN! BYU HAD A SECOND AND EIGHTEEN FROM THEIR OWN SIX YARD LINE WITH NO TIMEOUTS AND LESS THAN A MINUTE TO GO AND STILL SENT IT TO OVERTIME.

Instead, it’s just another loss. Another gut punch. I don’t know where this program goes from here. Great, Chattanooga comes to town next week. An FCS team. I’m sure there’s a lot to learn from that one.

I think it’s official that Jarrett Guarantano is a below average to bad quarterback. I've been a defender of his but it's pretty much impossible to be now. This was the best protection that he’s had in a game in his entire career, and he was just really awful. He missed Jauan Jennings for a wide open TD in the second quarter, and his first TD pass to Jennings happened on a lucky deflection that should’ve been picked off. Outside of whatever the hell defense they were playing on that long pass play, he was the biggest reason they lost tonight.

The running game was awesome for three quarters, but it floundered late. Greg McElroy was literally calling them out from the broadcast booth for their predictability. I think it's safe to say that Jim Chaney has been pretty underwhelming as the offensive coordinator thus far.

The defense was strong for most of the night, until that play. After that, they took a giant dump in both overtimes.

When the kicking game is the best part of your team through 2 games, it makes sense that you're 0-2.

Pruitt is 5-9 through 14 games with two horrible/inexcusable losses to start his second year. It’s hard to hear excuses from the staff after this one when there are a ton of coaches in their first and second years who are winning games. Mel Tucker at Colorado, for example, a guy who was a finalist for the Tennessee job that Pruitt got. He’s 2-0 in his first year with the Buffaloes, with both wins coming against FBS teams, including a 17-point comeback today against Nebraska. Mike Locksley at Maryland has put up 79 and 63 points in his first two games with the Terps, including a blowout win over #21 Syracuse this afternoon. Mack Brown, who has been out of coaching for five years, took over at UNC and beat South Carolina last week in his first game. Then, he knocked off Miami tonight. None of those programs have the resources that the Vols do, or as much talent (based on recruiting rankings), and yet, they’ve been far superior doing the only thing that really matters, winning, up to this point. When do we just say to ourselves, “Wow, maybe Pruitt is nothing more than a defensive coordinator masquerading as a head coach”?

So here’s what’s going to happen. Tennessee is going to go to Florida in two weeks and get the hell beat out of them. The same is going to happen at Alabama. And at home against Georgia. And maybe to everyone else the rest of season.

I’m all out of answers. This is one is worse that last week. With Georgia State, it was shocking, but GSU kicked their ass for most of the second half. It was a slow burn. Tonight, the Vols had the game won. They had BYU pinned inside their own 10 yard line and screwed it up. Just inexcusable and predictable all at the same time. We’ve all said the same things over and over and over and over and over again, and the same stuff keeps happening. The program is cursed. The Vols are 0-2 for the first time since 1988. There is no hope.

The Most Important Game Of Jeremy Pruitt's Head Coaching Career Plus Week 2 College Football Picks

It’s been almost a week since Georgia State rolled into Knoxville and buried Tennessee's lifeless body with a shockingly dominate performance. Since then, we got to hear Jeremy Pruitt talk about “execution” 5 million different times, there was a players only meeting, and Jauan Jennings proclaimed himself the leader of the team. Great.

You know what really matters? Winning some damn games! I’m done with all the talk! I don’t care about anything that happens during the week leading up to the game anymore, and I haven’t for a while. Why? Because we’ve heard all these same talking points for over a decade now and the program is still firmly entrenched in the toilet. There are no excuses for what happened last Saturday, and there will be none tomorrow either if the Vols lose to an average BYU team.

BYU at Tennessee

This is unequivocally the biggest and most important game of Jeremy Pruitt’s young head coaching career. You think it was rough last week? Imagine the reaction if you lose your second consecutive home game and start 0-2 in a year where everyone thought you had an excellent chance to win 8 games. There will be 20,000 people at the Chattanooga game next week if that happens.

The good news is that the BYU team that's coming to town is pretty average. The Cougars are 20-20 during head coach Kalani Sitake’s tenure, and got pushed around by Utah last Thursday night in a double digit loss. The bad news is that BYU is assuredly better than the Georgia State team that whipped the Vols at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball last Saturday.

There is still an opportunity to salvage this season if you’re Tennessee. Win the games that you’re supposed to and a bowl game is still in play. Lose tomorrow, and oh boy, there’s a good chance that the season spirals out of control due to fan negativity/apathy and player disbelief.

There’s a chance linebacker Daniel Bituli could make his season debut for Tennessee tomorrow. The Vols leading tackler the last two seasons missed last week with a knee injury, but if he were to play, he’d certainly help stabilize a defense that looked completely lost Saturday. Of course, he probably won’t be 100% either, and even if he did suit up and play 30 snaps, he can’t plug every gap in a defense that embarrassed themselves in front of the nation last weekend.

I say this every week, but the offensive line has got to be better. No more wet paper bag blocking from that unit. The success of every offense hinges on O-Line being able to open holes for the backs and hold blocks long enough for the quarterback to find open receivers. I know every Tennessee fan hates Jarrett Guarantano, and they can’t wait to get on social media or call into radio shows and demand he have his scholarship pulled, but like I’ve always said, it’s almost impossible to evaluate him, considering he’s been behind the worst offensive line in the conference the last two-plus years. Am I saying he’d be Peyton Manning if he had consistent protection? Of course not. But could be an upper echelon starter in the SEC? Why not?

This game is really going to be dictated by what Tennessee team shows up. If it’s the slow, disorganized, confused, effortless one that was in Neyland last week, then it’s 0-2 and another week of being the national laughingstock. Because I’m an idiot, I’ll pretend I’ve never been burned by the Vols before.

Prediction: Tennessee?

Cincinnati at #5 Ohio State

This is an interesting game, as former Buckeye interim head coach and player Luke Fickell returns to the Horseshoe with a Cincinnati team that has won 13 of their last 15 games. Meanwhile, there’s Ohio State, who jumped out to a 28-0 first quarter lead against FAU last week, before slowing down drastically and actually getting outscored by the Owls 21-17 over the final three periods.

The Bearcat defense looked incredible last week despite the fact that they replaced almost their entire front four from last season. To be fair though, that performance was against a UCLA team with almost no players and a middling quarterback, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, aka DTR (@ my old man).

I don’t realistically expect Cincinnati to go into Columbus and leave victorious, but if the Ohio State has any kinks in their offense, this game could be much closer than the 16 points the Buckeyes are favored by. However, if Ohio State figures some things out on that end, they could put up 60.

Prediction: Ohio State

West Virginia at Missouri

Mizzou embarrassed themselves in Kelly Bryant’s quarterback debut last week by losing on the road to Wyoming. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers slogged through head coach Neal Brown’s debut on Saturday as they beat FCS opponent James Madison by only 7.

Barry Odom’s seat at Missouri is starting to warm. He’s 19-20 through his first 39 games in Columbia, and hasn’t finished better than tied for 3^rd in the SEC.  Plus, they gave up 297 rushing yards to Wyoming last week. If he can’t win this game, at home with a better, more experienced quarterback (Mountaineer junior QB Austin Kendall has just 1 career start, last week, and only 81 pass attempts), then the pitchforks might be out for him on Saturday night.

Prediction: Missouri

#25 Nebraska at Colorado

The Huskers struggled last week with South Alabama, winning by only 14 points, while Colorado, under first year coach Mel Tucker, beat Colorado State in Denver by three touchdowns.

Nebraska got a ton of preseason love in the national media, but after last week’s performance, I’m convinced it’s solely because their head coach Scott Frost is good looking. 

Has the college football media been taken over by chicks? His Husker team on Saturday looked like a slightly better version of the squad he trotted out last season that went 4-8.

Colorado beat the Huskers in Lincoln last year, and I expect them to do it again tomorrow as well. Their quarterback Steven Montez is in his third year as the starter, and they have an abundance of experience on the offensive line.

Sidenote: I don’t want to write the story on Jeremy Pruitt after 13 games, or Mel Tucker after 1, but it is worth pointing out that Tucker was one of the finalists for the Tennessee job that ultimately went to Pruitt. If Tucker gets things going at Colorado, and Pruitt continues to struggle in Knoxville…. I mean, wow…

Prediction: Colorado

#23 Stanford at USC

USC’s Clay Helton is one of my favorite punching bags. The guy has held onto the Southern Cal job longer than he ever should have. You want to know why the Trojan program has deteriorated into mediocrity? Because they’ve been led by a tube sock salesman/freshman baseball coach since Steve Sarkisian got fired for being a drunk back in 2015. Their performance against Fresno State last week was abominable.

The bad news for Trojan fans is that their starting quarterback JT Daniels is out for the rest of year with a torn ACL. I know Stanford struggled to score against Northwestern last week, but if USC can’t move the ball with any consistency tomorrow night (and I don’t think they’ll be able to against a Stanford defense that only surrendered 7 points and 210 yards of offense last week), then the Cardinal really only need to get to… 14 points? 10? I know their quarterback KJ Costello will also be out, but backup QB Davis Mills should be more than serviceable against what this USC program has become.

The good news for the Trojans? Urban Meyer is doing television this season and is potentially only a phone call and a certain dollar amount away from moving to L.A. and becoming the Trojan football coach. 

Prediction: Stanford

Now, onto our games of the weekend, at least on paper….

#12 Texas A&M at #1 Clemson

Clemson went to A&M last season with their quarterback situation in flux and escaped with only a 2 point victory against the overmatched Aggies.

I desperately want this game to be competitive, and I think Jimbo Fisher will eventually build an excellent program at A&M, but I don’t see it this weekend. Everyone lost their minds with how good QB Kellen Mond looked last week, but come on guys, they were playing Texas State. Clemson has an NFL quarterback and future #1 pick in Trevor Lawrence, arguably the best running back in the country in Travis Etienne, and six other returning starters on offense from last season. They didn’t even play that great against Georgia Tech last week and still put up 52 points.

The only way I see A&M competing here is if they can take advantage of the relative inexperience the Tigers have in their front four. They’re going to have to win the line of scrimmage, control the time of possession, and keep Lawrence off the field; plus, Mond is going to have to play the best game of his career. And even if they do that, I don’t think they’ll be able to slow down the Tigers. Can they get pressure on Lawrence? We’ve never really seen him under fire in a game before. Good luck.

Prediction: Clemson

#6 LSU at #9 Texas

No one on the internet has made fun of LSU head coach/Cajun Swamp Monster Ed Orgeron more than I have, but I’ve gotta say, I love the Tigers on the road here this weekend. Ole Coach O has taken a lot of crap for not being able to beat Alabama and Saban, but outside of those three defeats, he’s actually been pretty good with the Tigers, going 26-6 against every other opponent. LSU is the only team in the SEC that returns 8 starters on both offense and defense, and quarterback Joe Burrow has a year of starting under his belt now. He’s not great, or as good as Texas QB Sam Ehlinger, but he’s made enough big throws in enough big games where he’s not a liability.

The Longhorns were a trendy pick for the Big 12 and the National Championship coming into the season based almost solely on how much they dominated Georgia in the Sugar Bowl for three quarters at the end of last season. I’m not saying Georgia didn’t want to be there, but let’s be honest, bowl games are mostly about motivation. Texas had their best season in almost a decade and hadn’t been to New Years Six Game since the 2009 BCS Championship Game. Georgia, on the other hand, thought they deserved to be in the playoff, and would’ve been if they hadn’t botched the SEC Championship Game against Alabama. It’s hard to get up for Texas when you thought you should’ve been playing Oklahoma or Notre Dame in the playoff. There’s no question about LSU’s motivation for tomorrow night. I like the Tigers by a touchdown.

Prediction: LSU

Enjoy football this weekend. You deserve it!

The Week In Football: The SEC Gets Their Teeth Kicked In

How great is it that college football is finally back? How amazing was this weekend? Oregon-Auburn was incredible, Florida State blew a huge lead to Boise State, and Tennessee… lost to a Georgia State team that was…. 2-10 in 2018. That part wasn’t great.

Let’s just start there…

The Tennessee program is in shambles

I wrote about this extensively two days ago, but Saturday’s loss to Georgia State was one of the worst in the history of this once proud program. Jeremy Pruitt has lost any of the goodwill he had built up with the fan base. Sorry Coach, but that’s what happens when you lose to a bad Group of Five team at home in the opening game of a season that the fan base expected to be a year where the team was much improved. Saturday’s result makes the BYU game this weekend the most important outing of Pruitt’s young head coaching career. Lose that one and start 0-2, and there will probably be a fan revolt followed by 20,000 people showing up for the Chattanooga game on September 14^th.

I don’t have season tickets, and I would never own them, but if I did, there’s no way in hell I’d ever buy them again. Why would I waste my money and basically my entire Saturday going down there just to watch that crap week after week? The players have changed, the coaches have changed, the administrators have changed, and none of it has mattered because it’s been a decade-plus of the same exact BS every single year.

Isn’t it incredible to think that this program once went 45-5 from 1995-1998? That they’ve captured 16 total conference championships? That they used to beat Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and everyone else in the SEC with some consistency?

They’ve got 11 games to turn it around in 2019. Otherwise, Pruitt comes into next season on the hottest seat in the country unless Clay Helton somehow survives another year at USC (and we’ll get to him later). He might be there sooner if they lose Saturday night.

The SEC had a really bad weekend

Missouri went on the road and lost to Wyoming in Kelly Bryant’s quarterback debut, South Carolina lost as a double digit favorite to a UNC team that went 3-9 in 2018, and Ole Miss gained just 173 yards of offense in a 15-10 loss to Memphis. Throw in Tennessee’s aforementioned meltdown, Arkansas slogging their way through a seven point victory over Portland State, and FCS team, and Alabama’s slow start against a bad Duke squad, and it was far from the kind of start the conference would’ve hoped for.

Some wild Mizzou stats here: the Tigers under Barry Odom are now 0-7 when they have two weeks or more to prepare for an FBS opponent. Odom is also 5-19 at Mizzou when his team fails to score 40 points or more. They looked so pedestrian this weekend that it made me fee like Tennessee had a great chance to go in there and win in November, until I remembered that the Vols suck and couldn’t even beat a crappy Group of Five team.

The “Will Muschamp would be pumping gas somewhere if he wasn’t a football” coach is a drum I’ve been beating for a long time, and I think it’s safe to say I’ve been proven right in that. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to find a way to beat an at best average ACC team when you have a three year starter at quarterback and months to prepare for the game. The Gamecocks led 20-9 with 5:10 left in the third quarter and preceded to do this with their next six drives:

·         3 plays, 4 yards, punt

·         5 plays, 25 yards, punt

·         3 plays, -8 yards, punt

·         5 plays, 20 yards, interception

·         4 plays, 11 yards, interception

·         1 play, -10 yards, end of game

I know the expectations at South Carolina aren’t as high as they are at other schools, but I can’t imagine the school is thrilled with Muschamp now being just 22-18 overall and 12-12 in the SEC, particularly with a dynasty just down the road at Clemson.

Sure, the SEC still has Georgia and LSU who looked very impressive on Saturday night, and Alabama did end up winning by 39. The problem is that middle and bottom of the league, at least this weekend, looks significantly weaker than it was 5 years ago.

It is kind of hard to make the case that the SEC is a gauntlet that’s impossible to run through when one of the proudest programs in your league that has almost unlimited resources can’t beat Georgia State.

Auburn stole Oregon’s Soul

I don’t know how I’d get over this one if I was a Ducks fan. Oregon led 21-6 late in the third quarter and preceded to get outscored 21-0 after that. Auburn true freshman quarterback Bo Nix looked rattled as hell for large portions of the night, and threw up about twenty balls for grabs, including the game winner.

Oregon lost this game in the first half when they made two separate red zone trips and only came away with 3 points. One of the drives ended with a missed 20 yard field goal and the other with a fumble. If they ended those possessions with just two field goals, Seth Williams’s TD catch with nine seconds remaining just ties the game, and Oregon goes to overtime with the better quarterback in Justin Herbert, even if he struggled getting the offense going at times, particularly in the second half.

This game was basically a mirror image of last year’s Stanford game. The blown double digit lead after halftime, the redzone turnovers, and the dominance for 75% of the game were all present again. Sheesh.

The worst thing is that this loss has pretty much eliminated Oregon from playoff contention. Assuming that LSU, Alabama, and Georgia all beat Auburn, who is probably AT BEST the 3^rd best team in the SEC West. So if it came down to Oregon and one of those three who beat Auburn, how could the playoff committee in good faith put the Ducks in? If the Pac 12 wants to be in the playoff for the first time since 2016, they’ve got a lot riding on Washington and Utah.

Florida State crapped their pants against Boise State in the Tallahassee heat

Who would’ve thought that the Seminoles would be the ones that couldn’t handle the August humidity? Of course, I guess that’s what happens when you allow a road team starting a true freshman quarterback to come into your building and put up 621 yards of offense and control the ball for 40 of the 60 minutes. The ‘Noles scored all 31 points of their in the first half and followed that up by putting up just 52 yards of offense after the intermission.

Willie Taggart is another guy in the Will Muschamp-Clay Helton “How the hell did I get this job when I should be a tube sock salesman” class of coaches, and I think it’s fair to start speculating that he’ll be out of a job by the end of the season. He’s wildly unpopular, as evidenced by the fact that there were large swaths of Doak Campbell Stadium left unfilled for the opening game of the season against a legitimate opponent. Sure, the game got moved from Jacksonville last minute, but wouldn’t that make it easier for those around the Tallahassee area to travel to the game? If Taggart was popular, don’t you think people would show up?

Taggart has been a disaster from the day he was hired. Honestly, it’s probably not a great idea to hire someone with a career losing record (like Taggart had before he got the job) to run a big time program.

USC needed a late interception to hold off Fresno State

The Trojans were sloppy the entire night, and allowed a Fresno State team that returned just three offensive starters to hang around well into the Los Angeles night. A fantastic end zone pick by a USC defensive back was the only thing that prevented the Bulldogs from getting to attempt a game tying two point conversion.

More bad news for USC: their starting quarterback JT Daniels tore his ACL in the first half and will be out for the season. Here’s some more: the next five USC games are brutal. They host #25 Stanford, travel to BYU, host #14 Utah, and go to #13 Washington and #9 Notre Dame. Wow. If the Trojans struggled to put away Fresno State, how the hell are they going to deal with that gauntlet?

I guess the only good news if you’re a Trojan fan is that you’ll finally be rid of Clay Helton, maybe even by October! Of course, there’s no guarantee they’ll get the coaching search right, considering they’ve hired Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, and Helton as their last three head coaches.

Not breaking any new ground here, but when there is a change made, Urban Meyer has to be your first call right? Maybe he tells you no, but it’s worth a shot. There’s pressure at Southern Cal, but it’s nowhere near the same as what he’d faced at Florida or Ohio State. He can go there and kind of blend into the crowded L.A. sports scene.

The Oklahoma offense didn’t miss a beat

Jalen Hurts played maybe the best game of his college career in his OU debut, as he tossed three touchdowns, ran for three, and became the first Sooner to ever throw for over 300 yards and rush for over 150 in the same game.

Even the Oklahoma defense was better, for a time, holding the Houston offense scoreless until almost halftime. Granted, they did end up surrendering 241 rushing yards.

We’ll learn a lot about Texas this weekend when they host LSU, but assuming they have an impressive showing (and I think they will), it looks like the Big 12 is going to come down to the Sooners and the Longhorns again, and first place in the league will probably be decided at the Cotton Bowl on October 12. And the loser of that game will probably be in second place, which means they’ll play again in the Big 12 Championship Game.
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Have a great Labor Day, and enjoy Notre Dame-Louisville tonight! Or, enjoy it as much as you can enjoy a 30 point beatdown.