Indy Bowl roundtable: a man-to-12th-man talk.

So close to "GATA," and yet . . .

One of the nice things about getting plugged into the wider community of sports bloggers is you make some pretty knowledgeable friends and acquaintances. This past summer, I consulted with Coach Beergut of Texas A&M blog I Am the 12th Man on coach Mike Sherman's employment status heading into 2009; five months or so later, guess who Georgia gets matched up with in a bowl game. Given the mutual curiosities between our two fanbases -- we haven't played the Aggies since the national-championship season of 1980, and have played them like all of four times throughout history -- he was more than happy to participate in a little Q&A exchange leading up to the Independence Bowl. My answers to his questions are up on his blog now, and his answers to my questions follow.

1. A&M is a program with a lot of heritage and a lot of proud traditions, but this decade hasn't been especially kind to the Aggies. Where does A&M see itself in the college-football firmament, and does a bid to this year's Independence Bowl qualify as a disappointment (as a lot of Georgia fans see it), or as a sign that things are looking up?

I believe we Aggies see ourselves as one of the top 20 porgrams in the nation, histoircally speaking. We are one of the top 20 winningest programs in college football history, we have a solid winning tradition, we have won a national title and boast a Heisman Trophy winner in our past, so we had the tradition to back up this claim. We are one of the programs where it is capable to win a national championship in any given year; we are one of the destination college football jobs where a coach can come and win big.

The bid to the Independence Bowl is not a disappointment in that I believe going to a bowl game and making the postseason was one of our preseason goals after the losing season we had in 2008. We made a poor hire in bringing Dennis Franchione to our program in 2002, and we are still recovering from that five-year mistake. When you spend half a decade standing still or moving backwards, you have a lot of catching up to do, and we are still trying to do that on the field. Making the postseason this year is a sign of progress, but only a small one in that we have merely accomplished a goal, not surpassed one.


Yeah, the rest of the country joins you in wondering what the hell happened with that one.

2. The Aggies have fielded an impressively balanced offense this year, which a lot of Georgia fans no doubt watched hitting on all cylinders against Texas on Thanksgiving. Of the many talented skill-position players in your arsenal, which one is the one you would recommend Georgia spend the most time watching out for?

Quarterback Jerrod Johnson is probably our most dangerous player, simply because the ball is in his hands on every single play, and he is the triggerman for our offense. If you slow down Jerrod, you slow down our offense, period. Moving away fromt he quarterback position, WR Uzoma Nwachukwu (coaches and teammates call him "EZ") is one of our most explosive players, scoring TDs through the air and on the ground. EZ averages 18 yards per catch, has 6 TD receptions this season, and 1 rushing TD.


Prince? Bryan? Have fun defending this, fellas.

3. At the same time, there have been games in which the Aggie offense has exploded (Texas, TTU) and times when the explosion was more like a backfire (Arkansas, Kansas State). Do you have any idea where the source of that inconsistency lies?

During the Arkansas and Kansas State games, we were still shuffling our offensive line around, and were trying to find the perfect lineup to throw out there. The result was poor pass protection for Jerrod, which helped those teams shut down our offense. The Kansas State game was the first true road game for a young team where everything that could go wrong did, and the result just snowballed. The Arkansas game was a game where we went up early, they made some adjustments, and once they got their pass rush going, we weren't able to protect Johnson.

4. On the flip side, which of Georgia's offensive players scares you the most in terms of what they might be able to do to the Aggies? (And does anyone scare you on our defense?)

All of your RBs scare me, because I watched y'all rush for over 300 yards against Georgia Tech in your win, and we don't have much of a defense. Washaun Ealey and Caleb King really worry me, because I am concerned y'all will be able to control the game on the ground, and keep the ball away from our offense.


For the Aggie fans out there who may have missed the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, here's a bit of what Beergut's referring to.

Defensively, anyone who can pressure the QB concerns me, so Justin Houston and Cornelius Washington worry me. I am hoping the loss of your defensive staff will help us here, but I'm not optimistic.

5. When I talked to you about Mike Sherman's status back in the summer, you said his job was pretty safe, with the minimum expectations being 6-6 and a bowl bid. Now that he's cleared that bar, what are the expectations for the bowl game, and for the 2010 season?

Well, I hope we can win the bowl game, but I don't expect to. Georgia was a top-10 team in the preseason, so y'all have some talent, and beating y'all will be tough. As for the 2010 season, we return a lot of people, so expectations to win 9 games and compete for the Big 12 South are reasonable.

(Thanks to Coach Beergut for participating in this. Good luck, and good health, to both teams this evening.)

Speaking with the enemy: Pickin' the brains of a Plainsman.

This Saturday will mark my 13th straight season of attending the Georgia-Auburn game, for as I mentioned in the game preview, I've always looked forward to this game as one of the friendlier, less bile-infused rivalries on the annual Georgia schedule. Not that I don't want the Dawgs to kick Auburn's ass up and down the field, of course, but as for the fans, there doesn't seem to be nearly the kind of rip-you-limb-from-limb hatred that exists even in a lot of rivalries that haven't lasted nearly as long as this one has (117 years and counting, to be exact).

As an example, I give you one Jerry Hinnen, Auburn grad, War Blog Eagle writer, podcast producer, and all-around stand-up guy. After numerous interactions over the past couple years, it only seemed logical to partner up on a roundtable to mark Georgia-Auburn week; my answers to his questions went up at WBE earlier today, and his answers to my questions can be found below. I think you'll agree we managed to pull this off with mutual respect, worthwhile insight, and minimal aspersions cast on each other's literacy or lack thereof.

1. Maybe I'm being naive here, but one of the reasons I've always liked the Georgia-Auburn rivalry so much is that there seems to be a truly congenial attitude toward the proceedings -- it's a friendly rivalry without the bitterness and nastiness of, say, Auburn-Alabama or Georgia-Florida. Of course, there are always those who disagree (cough Kyle King cough). What's your take on the "personality" of this particular rivalry?

My take is the same as yours and I think it's the same as a lot of Auburn and Georgia fans' -- when you find yourself spending most of the season trading barbs with Tide fans or Gator fans (and occasionally, for a change of pace, LSU fans or Vol fans), trading them with the generally lower-key, less-volatile folks who make up the Dawg (or, if you are not a Tide fan dealing with our regular baiting, Tiger) fanbase is a welcome relief. It also helps from this side of the aisle that Mark Richt -- whatever you think of his football coaching ability, especially here in 2009 -- is basically impossible to hate. Even Evil Richt has mostly saved his shots for the Gators, and Auburn fans (particularly those old enough to remember when the Gators were an annual foe and third only to UGA and 'Bama in rivalry significance) can appreciate that.


Ahh, Evil Richt . . . back when a black uniform accessory meant something (sniff).

That said: It's easy for me to say that when I grew up in rural Alabama and only knew one ostensible Dawg fan in school, and even he gave it up (after years of abuse) before we ever made it to junior high. (He converted to crimson, lousy typical front-running Tide bandwagoneer.) Several commenters at WBE this week who live and work in the Peach State have mentioned that they want a victory over the Dawgs more than they do the Tide, which to me is like saying you'd prefer to have long bank-teller lines eradicated before world hunger. But I think we do have to acknowledge that personal geography does clearly play a role in our football hate or lack thereof.

2. I was stunned to see that Georgia is favored at all in this weekend's game, to say nothing of the fact that the spread opened at five points. Is there some major weakness on the Auburn side of the ledger (or some simmering strength on Georgia's) that I'm completely missing here?

To be honest, I think you're not giving your Dawgs enough credit. Routs thought they might have been, there's a lot less shame in losing to Okie State, Florida, and Crompton 2.0's Tennessee than Kentucky at home. Both our teams played LSU; Georgia had to suffer what's still the worst call in an SEC season threatening to be defined by them to lose to the Bayou Bengals, while Auburn had to score a last-second touchdown to avoid losing by four full scores. The Dawgs beat Arkansas in Fayetteville; Auburn lost up there, and lost badly.


Above: Chris Todd, not enjoying the greater Fayetteville area.

Now, I know you can't just ignore the Tennessee comparison that works in Auburn's favor, the margin-of-defeat in the Dawg losses to the Gators and Vols, the turnover horrors the Dawgs have been inflicting on themselves all season, or that so many different teams have had so much success squaring off against Willie Martinez's defense this season. Still: Looking over the season as a whole, Georgia hasn't been much worse off than Auburn -- the Tigers won their big non-conference test, the Dawgs didn't, and that's about the extent of the gap -- and it doesn't surprise me at all that playing between the hedges, the Dawgs are the Vegas favorite. I don't think it's a matter of hidden strengths or weaknesses; I think it's just a matter of the game being a virtual toss-up and one team being at home.

3. Auburn got off a midseason three-game schneid by throttling Ole Miss and Furman in its last two games. How worried were you during that losing streak, and how confident are you that the Tigers have put it completely behind them?

I'd just about resigned myself to 6-6 during the losing streak; when your team's first-string offense scores 10 points in two weeks and one of those weeks is spent facing Kentucky at home, it's hard to muster up a lot of hope. The Auburn defense was still playing at right around the same adequate-if-hardly-"good" level they'd been at all year, but Chris Todd looked to have completely lost the swagger he'd discovered early in the season (he was particularly wretched against the 'Cats, missing a number of open receivers for simple third-and-short conversions), and with Auburn's inexperienced wideouts the passing game had crumbled to dust around him. You can write off one bad week as a fluke, but three straight? I figured that without a ton of help in the turnover and/or special-teams department, Auburn was headed for .500.

Naturally Todd came out and put up better numbers against the Rebel secondary than any other QB has done this season, then set a single-game Auburn record for completion percentage against Furman (17-of-18, and the miss was a drop). And now Auburn looks like their dangerous original selves again. As for how confident I am that Todd and the offense is back for good . . . I would say "reasonably" confident, since Todd did actually take some baby steps forward vs. LSU (no one noticed, what with his pass protection betraying him and the running game unusually inconsistent) and then built on those the next two weeks. As sharp as he looked against Furman, I'm guessing he'll be competent -- at least -- in Athens. But Todd also showed us midseason that he could revert back to his 2008 form at any time, so it's just a guess -- there's no real telling what we're going to see Saturday.

4. Chris Todd looked awful last season, masterful during Auburn's 5-0 start, horrendous over the ensuing three-game skid, and is back to looking just fine again. Which one is the REAL Chris Todd, for crying out loud, and is that the one we're likely to see on Saturday?


Above: Chris Todd, squaring off against BIZARRO EVIL CHRIS TODD.

Whoops, I kind of just answered that, didn't I? So I'll add this as a kind of bonus to the above: No one factor has been as closely linked to Auburn's success all season as Todd's performance and the success of the Auburn passing game. Auburn has won when the running game has produced and lost when it's produced; they've lost with solid defensive play, won with solid defensive play, won with weak defensive play, lost with weak defensive play; they've struggled mightily in special teams all season long and have won seven games in spite of it.

The one thing that's been markedly different in the seven wins and the three losses: Todd and the passing game. When it's been working, Auburn's won. When it hasn't, Auburn's lost. That such a huge component of Auburn's success can still be such a question mark is on the frustrating side, but it's better than having three or four factors be question marks, I guess.

5. Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and now Furman have all scored the majority of their points against Auburn in the second half. In your mind, does that validate preseason concerns about a potential lack of depth on Auburn's defense -- and if so, is it enough that Georgia will actually be able to exploit it, or am I just grasping at straws here?

Well, I think the Ole Miss and Furman "surges" are kind of irrelevant as far as matching up the Auburn D with the Georgia O goes -- the Rebels got 7 of their 14 second-half points on a kick return (meaning the offense scored the same in both halves) and Furman's second-half success came exclusively against a selection of Auburn second- and third-stringers, walk-ons, and even moonlighting offensive players. Georgia's not going to see very many of those guys Saturday, and if the Ole Miss game is any indication, Auburn's defense will actually get stronger as the game goes along (the Rebels failed to score in the fourth quarter despite a pair of drives that started in Auburn territory).

That's not to say that Auburn's defense doesn't have a depth problem, because it absolutely does. With JUCO corner Demond Washington moving into the starting lineup at safety, Auburn now has one -- ONE -- upperclassman on its entire defensive second-string (junior DE Michael Goggans). Everyone else is a freshmen or sophomore, and Auburn will apparently head into the Georgia game with one (one) scholarship linebacker and one (one) scholarship corner on the bench.


Then again, Michael Goggans has been known to make life difficult for some folks.

However: Auburn's proven against Ole Miss (and in a handful of other games) that that won't be a major problem if there's no injuries and the offense is humming along -- the starters are in excellent shape, they've been particularly stingy since weakside linebacker Eltoro Freeman came back from a one-week pseudo-suspension vs. Arkansas and started wrecking fools, and adjusting for the staggering increase in overall number of snaps forced on them by the hyperdrive offense, they've never been as bad as their reputation in some quarters has suggested.

However however: If the offfense stalls repeatedly? Auburn will be in trouble. The Arkansas and Kentucky games have illustrated what happens if the offense (which uses up a stunningly small amount of time in a three-and-out) doesn't get rolling: Eventually the defense will wear down and will give up big chunks of yards and points. The old saying about the best defense being a good offense gets flipped against this Auburn team; the best thing Georgia can do for its offense is to have its defense show up and get a string of stops. And as for injuries, there's simply no adequate replacements if one of the linebackers (or possibly a corner or safety) goes down.


I SAID, I AM SOOOO GLAD TO BE OUT OF AMES, IOWA!

6. So: Gene Chizik. What was your initial reaction to the hire, and how has that impression changed now that the Tigers are 7-3 and doing better than just about anybody expected? What are the most important things he's brought to this program?

I wish I could say I was one of the foresighted Auburn fans who passed on the Chicken Little act when Chizik was hired, but I wasn't. I was as baffled and disappointed and anyone and even a careful combing through of his tenure at Iowa State didn't help much; he was a little unlucky that second year there, but I still don't think there's any way to spin his time in Ames as anything but a failure.

But clearly Chizik had some good ideas he just wasn't able to implement at ISU, like, for instance, hiring Gus Malzahn and Ted Roof and Trooper Taylor and Jeff Grimes and Curtis Luper and Tracy Rocker and Tommy Thigpen. Frankly, those guys are the most important things he's brought to the program.

But that's not to sell Chizik short, since 1) there's an awful lot coaches out there who wouldn't have taken the risk of hiring a weirdo like Malzahn, or been able to sell coaches like Taylor and Thigpen and Luper on making what were just about lateral moves, and 2) if the staff's the best thing he's done, it's not the only thing. The 2008 Auburn team was as dysfunctional and fractured and miserable as college football teams get, and Chizik swept away all that to create a coherent, unified team that clearly enjoys playing together and rooting for each other. There was a moment in fall camp which I don't think has made a lot of waves outside of Auburn, where Kodi Burns responded to the news he'd been passed over for the starting QB job by asking to speak to the team as a whole. He told them he was going to support Todd as the starter, learn whatever role he could to help the team, and ask everyone else to line up behind Todd and the coaches going forward. For a player who'd had no previous connection of any kind to Chizik before his hiring to express that kind of loyalty is a huge credit to Chizik and, in my view, one of the turning points of the season.

7. I'll end things with a fairly obvious question: Which matchup do you see as being the "key" to this game, and which way do you see it breaking?


Above: Mario Fannin, the Auburn player within five yards of whom our defensive backs are least likely to be on Saturday.

Again, going back to the importance of the passing game for Auburn, I think it comes down to the Georgia secondary taking on Todd and the Auburn receivers. (To sum those receivers up briefly: the WRs are Darvin Adams and Terrell Zachery, with Adams more the tall possession guy and Zachery the explosive deep threat; Mario Fannin and Eric Smith get a lot of looks from H-back, especially on third down; and every now and then Tommy Trott will pop up from TE, though he mostly blocks on wide running plays these days.) It's not too tough to see Todd having an off game on the road, and if the Tiger receiving crew has had a hell of a year statistically they've also disappeared in a number of games. On paper, guys with as much experience and talent as Prince Miller, Bryan Evans, Brandon Boykin, and Reshad Jones should be able to hold their ground.

But of course it hasn't worked out that way for the Dawgs this year, has it? I don't think Todd's going to explode Crompton-style, but UGA's secondary has been so shaky this season and Malzahn so adept at putting pressure on secondaries like that (or even better ones, like Ole Miss's) that I don't see a Kentucky- or LSU-style sputterfest, either. I think Auburn will make enough hay in the passing game to keep Georgia honest up front, break some big runs, and ride the balance to victory.

But that's all just talk. We'll see Saturday. Good luck, Dawgs.

You take the passive road, and I'll take the aggressive road, and I'll get to Knoxville before ye:A (slightly leading) Hate Week roundtable.

With UGA-UT Hate Week upon us, some kind of roundtable was certainly called for, and I could think of no better and more available source for inside Vol dope than the prolific Holly at Snarkastic. While the initial purpose of this endeavor may actually have been to educate and inform, however, it . . . well, it kind of went downhill in a hurry, as you'll see. What follows are the questions I managed to ask Holly before our exchange devolved into a game of "Why're you hitting yourself" (or, in Tennessee's case, "Why're you intercepting yourself"); my answers to Holly's equally bitchy questions will be up at her joint shortly. Enjoy, if you can.

I came up with seven questions. I know that's a lot of questions for a Tennessee grad to deal with, particularly when none of them involve things like "Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you," but if you need me to pare any of these down just let me know.

Moonshinin' is winnin', son.

1. Tennessee's most notable performance this season has been its "moral victory" at Florida in which they held the top-ranked Gators to 23 points and lost by 10. By how many points will they need to lose to Georgia to ensure another suitably moral triumph?

I don't think that's something we need to be worrying about, frankly. If that's the kind of hurt we put on Tebow, just imagine what the Ginger Ninja will be feeling come 4 p.m. or so.

2. There has been a great deal of speculation as to why Lane Kiffin so frequently looks like a fussy toddler on the sideline, much of it focusing on Kiffin not getting the juice boxes some say he was promised. Do you feel this has anything to do with his attitude, and if so, what is Tennessee's strategy for ensuring Kiffin gets juice boxes at regular intervals against the Bulldogs?

We're switching him to milk, actually, for maximum soothage:



3. Other observers attribute Kiffin's crankiness to lingering resentment over the fact that his father, Monte, is the one actually coaching the team. Please confirm or deny.

I would like to defer this question directly to Coach Kiffin for rebuttal:



4. Top UT recruit Nu'Keese Richardson's name is spelled "Nu'Keese." Why?

Ask Rantavious Wooten or Bacarri Rambo.

5. You are given the choice between starting Jonathan Crompton at QB for the remainder of the 2009 season or being surreptitiously filmed in the nude by Michael David Barrett and having the footage posted on the Internet. Which do you pick?

Option C, for "Catfish," of course.

6. In one word or less, please list the accomplishments that Tennessee has achieved without David Cutcliffe on the coaching staff.



[Editor's note: Had I known Holly was going to include that clip in her answer, I would've added "Has any fan base ever been so proud of giving up a first down to Knowshon Moreno?" to the list of questions I sent her.]

7. The Volunteer defense has barely missed a step from last season's performance, ranking 19th in the nation in total yards allowed even after playing Florida and Auburn and boasting the SEC's third-leading tackler, safety Eric Berry. Speaking of safeties, how embarrassing was it when Georgia's Sean Jones returned a fumble 92 yards for a touchdown on the very last play of the first half against Tennessee in 2003, sparking a four-touchdown win for the Bulldogs in Knoxville? Please phrase your answer in the form of a vial of Casey Clausen's tears so that I may drink and savor them.

Let's see . . . having to reach back about half as far to find the last time we really fucked y'all up, I'm gonna say it's about half as embarrassing as having fifty hung on you in your own house. Kisses!

HJS thanks Ms. Anderson for her participation in this exercise, and invites her to go fuck herself.

Preseason BlogPoll roundtable: sleepers, statement games, and spending money.

Once again, MGoBlog proprietor/BlogPoll founder Brian Cook has (mis-)placed his trust in me to do the season's first BlogPoll roundtable, in which I get to stick my neck out and make a bunch of statements that have at least a 50-50 chance of looking dumber than dirt a few months from now, then all of you get to do the same. We only have THREE DAYS LEFT before the season actually kicks off, so let's get this thing started:

1. Without naming names, a few teams seem to have popped up frequently on everyone's "overrated" lists in the preseason, so let's forget about them for the moment and concentrate on a different group: sleepers. Which currently unheralded team are you currently putting at least a few of your chips behind in the hopes that you'll be able to say "totally called that" once they've accomplished big things by the end of the season?

Well, I put N.C. State at #19 in my preseason BlogPoll ballot even though both of the "official" polls relegated them down into the middle of the "others receiving votes" rabble -- they'd be 39th in the AP poll and 43d in the coaches', if we counted that far -- so I guess that makes the Wolfpack my top sleeper for this season. They've got a talented QB, Russell Wilson, who made phenomenal strides last season, as well as a defense that made similar strides and brings back five starters in the front seven; they've also got a favorable schedule that includes eight home games, beginning with a four-game out-of-conference homestand that has two I-AA scrubs sandwiched between South Carolina and Pittsburgh, both of whom are question marks. If the 'Pack sweep those, they could be 7-0 going into their midseason bye, and after the bye week comes a trip to FSU on Halloween, where they've split their last four visits. The only game the Wolfpack really need to be dreading is a November 21 trip to Virginia Tech, and it's not outside the realm of possibility for them to be eyeing a rematch with the Hokies in the ACC title game two weeks later.


A metaphor for State vs. the rest of the ACC in '09?

2. In a similar vein, pick a sleeper player on your team whom nobody's talking about right now and tell us why we will be talking about them by December.

You really had to be paying close attention to the box score to know who Aron White was last season -- he caught Georgia's lone touchdown in the Florida debacle, and caught another TD that helped break the Capital One Bowl open for the Dawgs -- but he is the latest in a series of impressive physical specimens Georgia has had at tight end. Two factors point toward White making a name for himself in 2009: One, the suspension of starting tight end Bruce Figgins means White will more than likely have that position to himself for the first six games, and two, a healthier and more solid offensive line likely will reduce his blocking responsibilities somewhat and free him up to do more pass-catchin'. Experienced receivers in general are going to be at a premium on the Georgia roster, too, so White could be a nice safety valve in blitz situations.

Another guy who's hardly a household name right now but could be by year's end: tailback Richard Samuel, who worked his way up through the depth chart over the offseason and was a bit of a surprise pick for the starting RB job earlier this month. Samuel rang up a 5.1-yard-per-carry average last year and will also benefit from a sturdier offensive line this season. Which is not to say any of us are going to be forgetting about Knowshon anytime soon, but the backfield situation in Athens may not be quite as dire as you've been led to believe.

3. Florida is about as big a consensus favorite as we've seen in recent years, but remember, USC got 62 out of 65 first-place votes in the AP's 2007 preseason poll and still managed to lose to Stanford. Given how difficult it is to go undefeated period these days, where do you think the Gators are most likely to stumble in the regular season?

I think the October 10 trip to Baton Rouge has to be the most obvious answer here, but even if the Gators succeed in knocking off the Tigers for the second straight year, they'd better take care not to relax too much when they get home: Their next opponent, Arkansas, should be packing just enough firepower on offense to make a game of it if the Gators come out sloppy. (And forgive me for gratuitously plugging my own guys here, but Georgia has a bye before the Florida game this year, just like they did two years ago, and are 7-1 all-time against defending national champions. Just saying.)


Including Florida in '97 and '07. Also just saying.

4. Which regular-season game not involving your team or conference are you most looking forward to this year?

As many of you already know, two of my best friends from college and I have made a tradition out of going to one big non-Georgia rivalry game each season just so we can say we've experienced it. Our first two outings, Ohio State-Michigan in '07 and USC-Notre Dame in '08 were duds as far as the games themselves were concerned, but this year I think we've picked a winner -- the Red River Shootout, Texas-Oklahoma for all the marbles. Well, a substantial portion of the marbles, at least. I fully expect this to be the de facto Big XII championship game, as it's been for four of the past seven seasons, but this year it could be a play-in for the national-championship game as well -- and with the Longhorn fans still fuming over being left out of the 2008 conference-title bout, this year we've got the added ingredient of some weapons-grade revenge-lust on the part of the 'Horns that's going to make "Inglourious Basterds" look like a Thomas the Tank Engine movie. It's going to be quite a weekend in Big D, and I vow to come back that Sunday with one of two things: a pair of hot pants from a Texas pom girl or a photo of me giving Tony Romo a pair of Norwegian goggles.

5. In honor of Georgia's opening-weekend opponent and their most prolific booster, let's say you somehow come into T. Boone Pickens money and can buy anything you want for your program -- facilities upgrades, an airplane for recruiting, buy out the contract of that coach you hate, you name it. Where does your first check go?


"That's your private jet? But it only has two engines."

Last week's $333,000,000 Mega Millions jackpot probably would've been worth about $210 million if I took the cash option; knock off $90 million or so in federal taxes and I'd still have more than enough to give UGA three million to endow a dedicated special-teams coaching position at two hundred grand a year. Currently, those duties are split haphazardly amongst three different assistants, with defensive-ends coach John Fabris taking a lot of offseason heat from Bulldog Nation for our lackluster performance in kick and punt coverage over the past couple years. I say hire a dedicated ST coach and clear up the confusion once and for all. (My first choice, coincidentally, would be to bogart Joe DeForest from Oklahoma State, which would really piss off T. Boone.)

Job number two would be extending the third deck all the way around the east end zone to the skyboxes and bumping capacity up over 100,000 once and for all. I figure a donation like that would at least get my name on the field somewhere. Doug Gillett Field at Sanford Stadium has a nice rhythm to it.

Respondents, if you wouldn't mind, throw a link to your answers in the comments thread, and I'll try to include them in a roundup next week.

BlogPoll roundtable #4: The home stretch.

Hokie blog College Game Balls has the honors of hosting the latest installment of the BlogPoll roundtable, and it's a pretty interesting mix of questions. Thankfully, "Who was the most overrated team in the preseason top 10" was not among them. Let us begin:

1. By now everyone has heard that if there is a three-way tie in the Big 12 South, the highest-ranked team in the BCS will play in the Big 12 Championship Game. That means the humans (66% of the BCS Poll) will determine the Big 12 South representative. Let’s assume Oklahoma sinks the pirate ship at home next week. Try to sway the pollsters by arguing which team you think should face off against the Big 12 North.


As you'll recall, Stoops didn't enjoy this handshake much last year.

If Oklahoma wins big, as in by double digits, and does the same to Oklahoma State the following week, then send the Sooners to the Big 12 title match. They’d be the first team all season to have outscored the diabolical Mike Leach offensive machine, and a big win over the Cowboys would be more impressive than Texas’s four-point victory earlier in the season, as well as a sign that OU is playing at a higher level than anyone in the conference at that point. And if there’s a three-way tie atop the division, in which each team has both beaten someone and lost to someone in that little love triangle, you might as well send the team that’s playing the best football at that moment.

However, if Oklahoma barely squeaks by the Red Raiders and/or loses to the Cowboys in Stillwater, then I think you have to send Texas. You can’t ding the Longhorns too hard for losing to TTU on literally the next-to-last play of the game, and you also have to give them at least a little credit for holding the Raiders to their third-lowest point total of the season. And, of course, you also have to take into account the fact that the ‘Horns beat Oklahoma by 10 earlier this year, a feat which (I think) would be more impressive than just barely beating Texas Tech, particularly if Oklahoma gives up a bajillion points in the process like I think they’re going to.

Does any of that make sense? Hopefully, if OU does knock off Texas Tech, they’ll at least go and lose to Oklahoma State and save us all a lot of trouble.

2. ESPN is aggressively bidding on the rights to the BCS when Fox’s contract expires after the 2009 season. My half baked theory is if they do win the rights they will push for a +1 system. Lucrative television deals have landed ESPN in bed with each of the BCS conferences. The revenue a playoff would generate could be a huge motivator for the four letter to be the common denominator and unifier among the conferences that finally helps them all to see the light of why a playoff would be good for college football. Help expand upon or debunk this theory.


Get out of here and take your extraneous marching-band shots with you.

Ehh, as much as I’d like to see some kind of plus-one implemented, I don’t see it coming that much closer to fruition just because ESPN has muscled the BCS rights back from Fox. There’s still going to be the same old inertia there due to the old “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy — which, in this case, might be more accurately depicted as an “If it ain’t broke and it’s making us an un-f%$#ing-believable amount of money, don’t fix it” philosophy. As long as millions of college football fans are still watching — and they will be — there’s less incentive for ESPN to push for any major changes, particularly as long as the Jim Delaney/Rose Bowl Axis of Douche is determined to stand in the way. And the one thing that might’ve prompted Delaney to get off his stubbornly traditionalist high horse this year — Penn State going 12-0 but getting left out of the national title game — isn’t going to happen.

3. Rivalry week is around the corner. How do you think your team will fare? Feel free to talk a little or a lot of trash.

I’d talk a lot more trash if a win over Georgia Tech was as bankable as it’s been the last seven years, but there’s no guarantee that we’re going to make it eight in a row. Overall, Tech’s talent level is significantly lower than Georgia’s, but then, we thought the same thing about Auburn and Kentucky. And the new triple-option offensive scheme that Paul Johnson implemented on the Flats this year just happens to match up with what has been our biggest weakness over the past few games, i.e. a rapidly collapsing run defense. Like Paul Westerdawg, I’m hopeful that even in the event of a big day from the GT running attack, Georgia’s balanced and supremely talented offense will be able to stay a step ahead of them. But I still think we’re going to need at least one big defensive stand, or a bunch of screw-ups (read: turnovers) by the Tech offense, to put them away.

God, what a miserable answer. I can’t believe I’m at the point where I’m sweating Tech. That’s like staying in your room with the door locked because you’re afraid your 10-year-old little brother is going to come in and beat you up.


Ooooh, is that a . . . pass rush? I remember those! They were awesome!

4. And now for a little fun … Assemble your dream announcing team. Pick a play-by-play announcer, color commentator, sideline reporter and for the hell of it celebrity guest that drops on by.

Awesome question. Well, my play-by-play guy would obviously be Ron Franklin, but I’m sure at least half the people answering this question are gonna say that, so if he’s unavailable, I’ll take Uncle Verne Lundquist. Both of those guys are absolute masters of their craft whose voices pretty much defined Saturday afternoons/evenings for me during my formative years as a rabid Georgia fan.

As for the color guy? Call me crazy, but I really like Kirk Herbstreit. He knows his shit, and he’s enthusiastic without being overbearing; with a lot of guys in that particular chair, you can kind of see/hear the wheels turning in their head as if they’re thinking, “Ohh, this is big, how can I be sufficiently bombastic that people will forever associate my voice with this game?”, but Herbstreit doesn’t do that. He’s still got a little bit of that Big Ten homerism to work out, but he’s gotten better at that. Runner-up: Ron Jaworski, who’s finally getting his due props for being an absolute master of the game, analysis-wise, with his gig on Monday Night Football. Don’t know how well he’d carry over from the NFL to the college game, but I wouldn’t mind finding out.

Sideline reporter: Sorry, I’m gonna have to go with another likely common answer, and that’s Erin Andrews. She gets the nod by being a) hot and b) smart enough at her job to deserve it even if she wasn’t hot. My left-field answer, though, is Holly Anderson, who would bring the halftime interview to a whole new level of entertaining.


"Where are we this weekend? Oklahoma-Texas Tech? Fine, let me gas up the Ferrari and I'll be there in thirty minutes."

And finally, my special celebrity guest: The Selleck. Has to be. He went to USC on a basketball scholarship, but the Trojans won the national title his senior year, so I’d be surprised if he was completely oblivious to football. The one caveat, though, would that he’d have to appear in the booth wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a Detroit Tigers cap. This would not be negotiable.

Auburn Q&A: Chatting with a Plainsman in exile.

One unexpected acquaintance I made while getting the full Big Ten Xperience up in Ann Arbor last year around this time was one Jerry Hinnen, an Auburn grad who got transplanted up to Annerber due to his wife attending medical school up there. Earlier this week, Jerry -- obviously undaunted by what could charitably be described as a rather taxing season of Auburn football -- asked me if I'd be interested in doing a Q&A exchange over GMail chat, and that sounded like fun. Actually, pretty much anything related to the Georgia-Auburn rivalry is fun to me, but anyway, here's the half of the exchange in which I picked Jerry's brain; meanwhile, he also got the chance to pick mine over at his blog, the Joe Cribbs Car Wash. Here we go:

So anyway, earlier today you seemed a little surprised that I was so focused on Auburn's motivation (or lack of same) for this game. So sate my curiosity -- I know you're not exactly in close proximity to the Plains at the moment, but what's your take on their mental state at this point? Are they still fired up to try and go out with a bang, or are they in danger of packing it in, as Tennessee's players appear to have done?

Yeah, I suppose I was a little surprised, which I think comes from having watched Auburn all season and knowing that -- not to spoil the entire remainder of your interrogations -- that no matter how motivated they are, this just isn't that good a team. If they play up to the uppermost level of their abilities, yeah, they're going to be competitive. (That in itself is a big if, however.) There's a reason they squeaked by Tennessee and Mississippi State, though, and that's that top-to-bottom they're not all that different from the Vols of Croom's Bulldogs. I wish it was otherwise. But they're just not. As for their motivation level . . .

If Auburn can come out as they did against West Virginia or LSU and put together a good drive on offense, maybe take an early lead, they'll hang together and I think you'll see the same amount of passion and energy we've always seen Tubby's teams play with. But when things have gone south for this team this year -- the second halves against Arkansas or West Virginia, for instance -- they've really gone south. Like, Tierra del Fuego south. If the Dawgs come out swinging and put them on the mat in the first quarter, Auburn'll get up -- but they probably won't have the same force behind their punches either, so to speak. Especially at home, Auburn's got to have a good first quarter and a good first half.


Above, Tierra del Fuego, where Auburn's offense has apparently been mingling with the penguins for the past couple months.

So when you say "this just isn't that good a team" -- and you've said it a few times today -- is that a talent problem, or is this team still good enough that they could've made something of this season if the coaching situation had been more stable?

You don't end up having the kind of season Auburn's had -- the worst of Tubby's 10-year tenure by light-years, his inaugural 1999 campaign included, unless Kodi Burns channels the spirit of Ben "400 yards in a half or whatever between the hedges" Leard -- without breakdowns not just in one or two areas but in all of them. Yes, outside of what is still a fairly solid offensive line, the offensive lacks playmakers. Burns is still greener than the Libyan flag. RB is usually a strength, but Brad Lester and Mario Fannin (the team's most talented RBs) have been hurt while Ben Tate just doesn't have the jets. The receivers all go through bouts of the dropsies. So there wasn't/isn't a ton for Tony Franklin/Steve Ensminger to work with.

That said, it's not all that different from what Borges had last year and he put together something that wasn't an embarrassment, even if it usually wasn't anything to keep DC's up at night, either. The Franklin experiment was a complete disaster -- by now it seems pretty clear he never found a way to get the position coaches on board, Tubby wasn't willing to step in and iron things out, and the whole thing got pulled in so many different directions it wasn't able to ever get pulled back together again, so to speak.

As for the defense, they've been hammered with injuries and kept on the field for way too long. They haven't been good, but the rot started on the other side of the ball.


Kodi Burns makes a play against Tennessee-Martin, who is no relation to Curtis, Doc, or Lockheed.

Well, at least they put up some points on UT-Martin. How much can the rest of us take from that game? I know it was a gimme opponent, but it looked like Kodi Burns really took things over and made some plays -- is this becoming his team? Are the Tigers any closer to finding an offensive identity now?

Yes, they are, and that identity is pretty much "Hey, let's see if Kodi can pull something out of his rear end." He's got major footwork issues, his decision-making killed Auburn against Ole Miss, and he's still going to be making just his fourth-ever start-to-finish performance Saturday. Against quality defensive lines like LSU's and Ole Miss's, the traditional straight-ahead ground game has gotten Auburn nothing. After the Kentucky game I'm hopeful Auburn can get more push up front against the Dawgs than they did against the Tigers or Rebels, because if they can loosen up that front seven just a bit, get those safeties to creep just a little closer to the line of scrimmage, I think Burns can hit a couple of downfield passes.

Third downs, however, are all about Burns's legs, either scrambling for a first on his lonesome or buying time to give his receivers a chance to get open. Auburn will put the ball in his hands and hope something good happens. He's got the talent that it's possible something will more often than not. He could really use the help from the big uglies and the ground game -- I'd like to see Fannin get a few more carries than the past couple of weeks -- but the offense is still probably going to go about as far as Burns can carry it.

One thing that's really puzzled me about Auburn's offensive struggles is the fact that that running game, usually such an integral part of the offense, has been pretty meh for the past few weeks. Again, is it the coaching situation that's holding them back, or has the Auburn backfield really fallen off that far from the Cadillac/Ronnie days?


On a side note, Bulldog Nation is still mulling the idea of making the day these two guys declared for the NFL a schoolwide holiday.

Certainly the talent at tailback isn't what it used to be. Lester and Fannin have both shown flashes in the past, but both have been hobbled or otherwise slowed -- Fannin spent half the season at receiver, for instance, ostensibly to protect his shoulder and give Franklin someone to throw screens to -- and haven't ever really lived up to the promise Lester showed in '06 or Fannin showed at the beginning of last year. Tate's a workhorse and if he was at Wisconsin they'd probably turn him into a god, but Franklin's system required a back who could hit the hole a little quicker and with Ensminger at the controls it's been an eight-in-the-box extravaganza that Tate doesn't have the foot skills to navigate.

But that also speaks to how the running game has suffered due to schematic problems, too. Franklin was never a rush-first guy and so this particular Auburn team never got a good foundation for a ground game. Now neither our linemen nor our backs look as comfortable as they did in the past firing off and getting a good push, as I mentioned particularly against quality D-lines. It would have taken some really, really special coaching to turn the wreck Franklin left behind into a traditional punishing Auburn ground unit, and Ensminger's just not that special.

So it sounds like Georgia is gonna have to get some pressure on Burns early and often to put this one away. and clearly that's something that we've struggled with all year long. How has your O-line held up against the pass rush? Were there any teams in particular that seemed to be successful in getting to Burns?

Actually, this is one thing Franklin did seem to manage to accomplish -- the pass protection has by and large been good to outstanding. Left tackle Lee Ziemba has been playing hurt and has had some issues late in games, but aside from that, that's been pretty much the very least of Auburn's worries. If I was gameplanning against Auburn's offense, I'd plan to do the opposite on passing downs -- I'd rush three or four and drop everyone else into a zone, both forcing Burns to make the right decision throwing the ball and theoretically limiting his ability to break loose running the ball.

To hear Dawg fans tell it, this means Willie Martinez will dial up a steady diet of blitzes, so maybe that's something we've got going for us. (Just FYI, as an example: Auburn held Ole Miss without a sack.)

As far as the Tiger defense is concerned, who's likely to have more success against them on Saturday, Matt Stafford or Knowshon Moreno?

Moreno. After reviewing the West Virginia and Ole Miss game tapes pretty closely, it's pretty clear the linebackers are the secret Achilles heel of the Auburn D. Oh, the secondary's banged up and terrifyingly young and the D-line -- also not exactly a picture of health -- hasn't quite lived up to its billing at times.


He did it in the black jersey; can he do it in white?

But the linebackers have just not made plays over the last few weeks. Tray Blackmon's out hurt, so sophomore Josh Bynes stepped in at MLB and looked awfully passive. Sophomore Craig Stevens is generally solid in pass protection but hasn't excelled at run-stopping, and his backup is unheralded (though a future stud) true freshman Spencer Pybus. On the other side, seniors Chris Evans and Merrill Johnson are probably our steadiest LB performers, but both have nagging injuries and both have had their moments of madness as well. Unless our D-line absolutely manhandles the patchwork Dawg O-line (which I don't see happening as long as Stacy Searels is on your sideline, damn you), Moreno's going to have some big openings to run through.

This is more for my own curiosity than anything else, but what's the general mood of the fanbase regarding this game? Have THEY written off the season, or are they still hoping to salvage something from it?

Depends on whom you talk to. Some are still predicting Tubby to wave his magic wand and sweep the Amen Corner; some are expecting two humiliating blowouts that sweep Tubby out the door. As with all fanbases where a long-time coach is struggling, there are some pretty deep divisions between the fans who are convinced Tubby should be dismissed yesterday vs. those who are adamant he's the right guy who just made one really, really bad decision in hiring Franklin.

There are, of course, plenty of fans who are hanging out in the middle, too, which is I guess where I'd be. No, there's not a whole lot of rational reason to expect a victory in either of these last two games, but Tubby's won an awful lot of games over the past decade where rationality didn't hold a whole lot of sway. If there's any coach out there who could take this ragtag bunch and find a way to upset a Georgia or Alabama, you look at his track record and you have to think that guy is on Auburn's sideline.


He's ripped my heart clean out of my chest before, it could certainly happen again.

So that brings me to my last question: You think Tubby's coaching for his job this weekend?

No, not this weekend, and probably not two weekends from now, either. A third straight blowout in a rivalry that Auburn fans do care an awful lot about (even if that other one does tend to occupy our thoughts a wee bit more) won't help him, and if there's one thing that I think could chase Tubby out of the program, it might be an obliteration at the hands of Nick Saban, Coach of the Year. At that point I think there might be enough broad support for doing something drastic, coaching-wise, to seize some of Saban's momentum away before it gets completely out of hand. Or so the argument would go.

My completely non-insider guess, though, is that Tubby agrees to clean house on his offensive staff and gets one more year regardless of how these last two games play out. However nauseating this season has been, however incapable of creating a consistently, uh, consistent offense he might seem to be, Tubby's still won more consecutive Iron Bowls than any coach Auburn's ever had. That and the lingering memories of the 2004 juggernaut should be enough to get him a chance to clean up the mess he's made.

Well all righty then . . . I guess that about wraps up everything that was on my mind at the moment. Just for the record, I'm still biting my nails about this game, and probably will be until the clock hits four zeroes on Saturday.

(My reasons for the nailbiting, and a bunch of other stuff about the game, will go up in the Auburn preview on Thursday. Thanks to Jerry Hinnen for suggesting this, and anyone wanting to know more about the Tigers in general would be well served by a visit to the Joe Cribbs Car Wash sometime in the near future.)

A punching bag no more, the Vandy fan base speaks.

Earlier this season I did roundtables with Alabama and (after a fashion) Tennessee bloggers, and there can be no surer sign of the Vanderbilt Commodores hitting the big time than the fact that they, too, are getting a Q&A exchange in preparation for their matchup with the Bulldogs. PhilipVU94 of Vandy blog Save the Shield covers VU sports and did so even before the football team was good, so you know he's not just some bandwagon jumper, and you can tell he went to Vanderbilt because he uses phrases like "deus ex machina" in the course of discussing SEC football. (I asked an Auburn fan, a Tennessee fan, and an Georgia fan what they thought that was, and they all answered "a wrestler on 'WWE Raw.' ") My answers to Philip's questions are here, and his answers to my questions follow below:



1. People all over the country have been analyzing Vanderbilt's 5-0 start, and I'm sorry, the reason can't be as simple as "best turnover margin in the division." What else, if anything, has been the cause of the Commodores managing to win so many games?

Well, don't underestimate the importance of the turnovers. With each of [Vanderbilt's] SEC games decided by a TD or less, netting 1.17 takeaways per game is huge.

But there are other factors too. There's no doubt this team plays with more poise at the end of close games than past Vanderbilt teams, but it's harder to tell exactly why. I tend to be sort of skeptical of what I see as sports fans' need to force outcomes into a certain narrative -- in other words, a team who gets more lucky breaks than its opponent will still be praised for "wanting it more," for "showing great toughness" or whatever. And to be sure, we've been getting our share of breaks so far this year, which is just as well since the universe owes us big-time.

Both our red zone offense and defense have been excellent (2nd in the SEC in both). We've already made two or three goal-line stands in conference play, and I'm told that our secondary is coached to play rather soft coverage in the middle of the field. So although I have my rather geeky doubts that a "bend but don't break" defense is sustainable for the long run, this seems to an intentional defensive philosophy for Vanderbilt.

2. Has the VU fan base come to expect wins now, or are people still pretty surprised and grateful whenever the team can pull off a victory? As far as you can tell, has that changed any in the wake of the loss to Mississippi State?

One implication of the loss to State is that it took away the feeling of invincibility that comes when your team has remained undefeated through really improbable twists. Keep in mind that both Ole Miss and Auburn looked like they were in the process of blowing us out in the first quarter! Once you see your team pull off goal line stands and sudden pick-sixes to win games, you start to expect the deus ex machina, that someone will pop up to save your team just in the nick of time. Just one loss, especially one loss to a team with a bad record, is enough to puncture that illusion!

I'm always pretty grateful for VU wins, and each of our SEC wins has been a legitimate surprise for me. Beating Duke, and possibly Kentucky or Tennessee, won't be a surprise this year, but I try to avoid the feeling that the team owes me success. If we keep winning and our bandwagon gets bigger, I'm sure you'll sadly see more of a sense of entitlement, but that takes a few years to develop.



3. Mackenzi Adams burned the Bulldogs on a number of big plays last year in Nashville, and personally, I'm a lot more worried about him as the starting QB than I would be about Chris Nickson. If I'm Willie Martinez, what kind of defensive game plan do I need to set down to make sure Adams isn't allowed to be the hero this Saturday?

Vanderbilt fans would pretty unanimously agree that Adams poses more of a threat, too. Although he's not a spectacular passer, he certainly has been throwing it a lot more effectively than Nickson. Though not as good a runner, he still possesess pretty good mobility.

From Martinez' perspective, I think an effective game plan would include some blitzing and some changing coverage schemes to try to exploit Adams' lack of experience and force him to prove himself. Although I think he's been making pretty good decisions (except for the desperation pick against State), we really haven't seen how Adams reacts to a whole game against a defense as good as Georgia's.

I also suspect Vanderbilt's game plan for him will rely on a lot of short passing (in addition to, if past experience is our guide on what to expect from OC Ted Cain, WAY too many QB draws). Georgia might want to take away screen passes and short routes and force Adams to prove himself with longer throws.



4. Regarding the matchup of Georgia offense vs. Vanderbilt defense, which Georgia player should expect to find the biggest target on his back?

Our most likely target is Matthew Stafford and the offensive line's pass protection. We lead the SEC with 19 sacks, and although, as you noted, Georgia's OL has done a good job of coping with injuries, it's only logical to test them in light of Vince Vance's injury.

That said, I'm also really interested and a little scared in seeing how we cope with Knowshon Moreno and the rest of the Georgia running game. So far this season, the pattern has been for Vanderbilt to come out unable to stop anyone's running in the first quarter. Then the defense makes the obvious adjustments of putting eight men in the box and perhaps some other adjustments too subtle for me to grasp. And from the second quarter our run defense tends to be pretty good. So I'll be really interested in seeing if Georgia's rushing is just too powerful for us to cope with, or if we follow this same pattern of adjustment.

5. What's the VU fan base's general expectation for this game (would covering the spread be enough, or do they expect an outright win?) and for the season in general? At this point, what would constitute a successful season based on what the Commodores have already accomplished, and what would come as a disappointment?

A few people are picking an upset over Georgia, but I don't think many people are outright expecting a win. We've thought all season that this game and Florida would be our toughest games of the year. Covering the point spread isn't going to bring any Vanderbilt fan a lot of joy, because as you well know, close losses to good teams is nothing new for us. But if Georgia wins I will be more concerned with how Adams looked and what our play portends for the future than with the fact that we lost to one of the top two opponents on our schedule. So in that sense, losing by 3 or 7 would suggest some success in the second half of the season.

Most of our fans are still pretty aware of the big picture of Vanderbilt futility, and I don't think anyone's predicting 5-1 in the back half of our schedule. But the fast start has certainly changed expectations. One of our more knowledgeable fans wrote the following recently:

[I]f for some unfortunate reason we're not even participating in bowl season, then I don't think Clemson would be looking at [Bobby Johnson] anyway (and at which point I'd probably be happy for them to take him off our hands!)

I don't think that parenthetical part represents the view of most people, and to be honest I found it a little shocking. But there's no denying people are going to be really disappointed if we finish 5-7 or even 6-6. Once people are projecting you for the Outback Bowl, the Papa John's would be a bit disappointing. But hey, we're Vandy. We haven't been to a bowl in 25 years, so it still sounds freakish to talk about disappointment with any bowl. Personally I'd be delighted if we hung on and got to Birmingham or Shreveport.


OK, the bowl name might be idiotic, but Birmingham is actually kind of fun. Promise.

Success relative to where we are now would be winning three of the four "winnable" games remaining (Duke, at Kentucky, Tennessee, at Wake) to finish 8-4. But if we finish 6-6, I'll continue to remind people that all the national pundits had us several wins below that. We haven't won six games in a season since 1982, so I would consider 6-6 paradoxically both disappointing (from the standpoint of now) and a qualified success.

SEC Power Poll Roundtable #2: Taking stock at the halfway point.

We're just shy of the halfway point in the 2008 college football season, which means everyone's had a chance to take stock of their own team (as well as plenty of other people's) and get a read on their chances for a decent bowl game or even a conference title. Obviously some people are going to be happier with that read than others, but that's one of the reasons why we have these roundtables among Power Poll voters -- to see who's feeling good about themselves and who's already lunging for the Pepto. At the moment, I'm doing a little bit of both.



1. What's your prediction for the matchup in the SEC championship game, and has that changed at all from what you were predicting in the preseason?

LSU was my pick to represent the West in the preseason, but having had a very up-close and acute experience with the Crimson Tide a couple weeks ago, I'm reasonably confident in switching that pick to Alabama. The Tide aren't a perfect team, and they're certainly no less prone to a post-big-win loss of focus than anyone else, but they're the most complete team in the conference, at least at the starting positions, and have the strongest body of work so far. I wouldn't put it past Les Miles to somehow engineer a big upset in Baton Rouge, though; either way, Bama-LSU is starting to look like the best conference game of the year.

In the east, Georgia's still my pick, though that has more to do with the struggles of some of their main division rivals than it does with any huge achievement they've accomplished on their own. And even with Tennessee struggling and Florida working out some unexpected kinks on both sides of the ball, an SEC East title is hardly a done deal for UGA; the Alabama game showed that "send 'em out there and pray" really isn't a productive solution for the ongoing personnel issues on both the offensive and defensive lines. The O-line, in particular, has a lot to prove with some very scary defensive fronts looming on the schedule. Whoever represents the East Division in December, I don't see that team being favored over either Alabama or LSU.

2. Knowing what you now know about your team, how have your expectations for this season changed? What would constitute a successful season in your eyes, and what would be a disappointment?

Again, with Georgia's weaknesses on both lines having been demonstrated to be rather more serious than we thought, it's a lot harder for me to see the Dawgs as a serious national-title contender now than I did in the preseason. A BCS bowl isn't out of the question, but there might be one or even two more losses waiting down the road for the Dawgs if the offensive-line situation doesn't improve. With that in mind, I think a bid to the Capital One or even the Cotton Bowl would be a decent reward at the end of the season, but anything lower than that would be kind of a bummer. No offense to any of my Badger readers, but I think I speak for a lot of Dawg fans when I say we don't want to play Wisconsin in another freaking Outback Bowl.



3. If your team has Vanderbilt coming up at some point on its schedule, are you worried? If not, which team should be the most worried?

Uh, yeah, I'm a little worried. As we heard so many times in the lead-up to the Vandy-Auburn game last week, the Commodores are #1 with a bullet in turnover margin, currently leading the country at +9; Georgia has been pretty good about avoiding turnovers, coughing up the ball only four times in five games. However, Vandy has been extremely dangerous on offense when handed favorable field position, and giving opposing teams a head-start on offense is something Georgia has had a problem with. We're still not dropping kickoffs consistently in the end zone, which doesn't bode well against a Vanderbilt team averaging 20.5 yards per KO return; the 'Dores are also 10th in the country in punt returns with an average of 19.4 yards. I'm a little comforted by the fact that Vandy's offense is still so one-dimensional -- their passing offense is still languishing at 116th in the nation -- but that obviously hasn't hurt them too badly yet. And given that the Commodores scored a shocking upset the last time they came to Athens, I don't envision them feeling all that intimidated when they march into Sanford Stadium on the 17th.

4. Other than perhaps Alabama's season-opening win over Clemson, the SEC doesn't really have any marquee non-conference wins thus far, and a couple of traditional powers (Auburn and Tennessee) are struggling in high-profile fashion. Is it too early to call this a "down year" for the conference?

"Down year" is a relative term, of course, and I dare say the ACC, Big East, and maybe even the Pac-10 might still be a little jealous of the SEC's depth right about now. But I don't think the conference as a whole is as strong, top-to-bottom, as it was last year. In 2007 you had a pair of elite teams, three or four that were a small step down from "elite," and only one real bottom-feeder, Ole Miss; this year we've got two really bad teams at the bottom of the conference, and the drop-off from "semi-elite" to the middle-of-the-pack muddle is, I think, bigger than it was a year ago.

But I think the SEC still has a reasonable claim to "best conference in D-IA" status, with the Big 12 also having a pretty strong case to make, and there's a big drop-off from those two "superconferences" to the Big 10 and Pac-10. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the SEC and Big 12 champions matched up in the national-title game, though of course the Trojans will have something to say about that.

Poll voters, leave me a link to your responses in the comments thread and I'll have a roundup of those answers posted up here sometime next week.

BlogPoll roundtable #3: Them's what still got a shot, and them what's plum out of bullets.

In the wake of last week's top-five upset-a-palooza, Nebraska blog Big Red Network is pickin' up the pieces and attempting to separate the teams that are out from the teams that are merely down. My best stab at classifying them follows:

Q. Of the four presumed national title contenders to go down this past week -- USC, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin -- which team has the best chance to get back in the race by the end of the year?

Don't kidnap, rape, torture and/or kill the messenger, but if only by process of elimination, it's the Trojans. Dr. Saturday may be right that, without a guaranteed rushing threat in the mold of a LenDale White or Reggie Bush on the roster this year, the Trojans may be due for one more inexplicable face-plant in conference play before all is said and done, but anyone who saw Georgia or Florida play last week knows they're not exactly problem-free themselves at the moment. And considering that both of them may have another conference loss in store -- in addition to the fact that one of them has to take the other out in Jacksonville on Nov. 1 -- their odds grow even longer.


As long as nobody else in the Pac-10 has any running backs shorter than 5'7", USC will be all right.

As for Wisconsin, we'll know more about their chances after seeing what they're able to do against Ohio State on Saturday, but if they can't hold a 19-0 lead against Michigan's struggling offense, it's safe to say they've probably got another loss ahead of them, too. Which is particularly damaging when you consider that Big 10 teams probably aren't going to get a lot of benefit of the doubt in any BCS discussions thanks to the Buckeyes' back-to-back national-title implosions.



Q. But what does this mean for Ohio State? Are they back in?

In theory, yes, but the Bucks have to run the table in the Big 10, period, no exceptions, to have a chance. And even then there's no way that they'd get the invite over a one-loss SEC team, nor would they get a nod over the Trojan team that lambasted them a few weeks ago. (They might even get stuck behind a two- loss SEC team if the poll voters are feeling particularly vindictive.) So not only do Buckeye fans have to be rooting for an 8-0 conference run, they've also got to pray that Alabama, LSU, and Southern Cal all crap the bed at least once in the next couple months. Rotsa ruck with that one, fellas. So I guess the short version of my answer is "not so much."


Which, after the last couple years, might come as more of a relief to Buckeye Nation than anything else.

Q. Did the week that was open the door for any of the undefeateds out of some of the non-BCS conferences like the Mountain West or the Big East? (Yup, that's a cheap shot. Thanks, Virginia Tech, for not allowing me to make it about the ACC.)

Not as far as the national championship game is concerned, no. I'm still reasonably confident that someone out of the BYU/Utah/Boise State triumvirate will find a way to go 12-0 and sneak into a BCS bowl, but when it comes to the big game, any undefeated mid-major is still going to be waiting in line behind a one-loss champion from the SEC, Big 12, Pac-10, or Big 10. Consider that Hawaii went 12-0 in the regular season last year, yet they barely got mentioned as a national-title contender in a BCS season where a two-loss SEC champion got tapped for The Show -- and nobody (in the lower 48, at least) saw anything wrong with that at all. The three teams I mentioned all play tougher schedules than Hawaii did in '07, certainly, but they're all still lacking the kind of marquee upset over a major-conference team that they'd really need to be seriously considered for the national title.

On that note, it's kind of interesting that just a few weeks ago, we were all marveling at how the Mountain West had just completely eaten the Pac-10's lunch, yet that weekend o' domination might ironically make it harder for an undefeated MWC champ to make its case for a national-title bid. "We deserve a shot at the national championship!" "Oh, really? Did you beat any major-conference teams?" "Uhh, yeah, Washington and UCLA!" "Oh, pffft, the Pac-10, they suck." I guess what I'm saying, Cougar/Ute/Bronco fans, is take solace in the fact that your trip to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl will be relatively short; there won't be any need to book tickets to Miami.


It's hard out there for a mid-major. And a Mormon, for that matter.