Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I don’t buy into the idea of “upset weekends”, but having the No. 1 and No. 4 teams go down to teams they should have destroyed drives home the most important point of all – what matters most is simply winning.

And watching Ole Miss make Florida pay dearly for its mistakes earlier in the day leaves me without much desire to pick apart LSU’s less-than-stellar win over the other Mississippi school.

We got past the Bulldogs, got valuable full-game experience for Jarrett Lee and would up after the poll shuffle sitting at No. 2 in the poll that matters. All things considered, that’s not too shabby.

Statistically, Lee had a really good night. 18 of 27 for 261 yards, two touchdowns and a pick. Behind the numbers, he’s still not quite there – his pick was a horrible throw, he should have had another soft swing toss picked and several throws were just off – but I think that’s OK. I would imagine the LSU coaches have a good sense of what he’s mastered and what he needs to work on, and they have two weeks until the Florida game to sharpen his reads and throws. Considering that we missed the Troy tune-up, I think Miles and Crowton have done a great job bringing him up to speed. Taking more risks with him against MSU was pretty smart as part of the preparation for the Gators. I like where he is now.

The Tiger running game was very solid again, putting 166 yards down to go with Lee’s 261 in the air. Charles Scott dropped his 4th-straight 100-yard game and served as the closer, carrying the ball eight times in the 4th quarter to put down any notion of a Bulldog comeback.

Defensively, injuries to Ricky Jean-Francois and Charles Alexander showed both their value – MSU’s 110 yards on the ground was more than they should have gotten – and the depth of LSU’s D-line because the Bulldogs didn’t get even more than that. I’m not bothered that they cracked 100 yards under those circumstances.

Against Auburn, the biggest problem for LSU was pass defense. LSU made Chris Todd look much better than he is and kept the War Eagles in the game by leaving receivers completely undefended downfield. So a close look at the coverage against MSU is very much in order.

New MSU quarterback Tyson Lee rang up 175 passing yards on 17 completions against LSU. Of those 17 completions, seven were for more than 10 yards and accounted for 139 yards. Looking back at those seven plays, just one was a result of poor downfield coverage – the 41-yard completion on MSU’s final drive (you’ll remember it because of the crap late-hit call on linebacker Jacob Cutrera at the end of it). Cutrera was left to cover MSU receiver Jamayel Smith and couldn’t keep up. But the problem there wasn’t with Cutrera, it was with Chris Hawkins and Curtis Taylor, who let the play get behind them.

But the defensive backfield play was much improved since the Auburn game, and – again – the coaches have two weeks to tighten things up for Florida. Also needing improvement is LSU’s outside tackling (MSU’s second-longest pass came on a screen pass that should have been snuffed out but ended up being a 29-yard gain). LSU is also feeling the loss of Darry Beckwith, as poor linebacker coverage led to a couple of MSU’s bigger gains.

It was a pretty ugly game last night, but I came away from it seeing some very good improvement from last week, impressed with LSU’s D-line depth, confident that the LSU staff knows where improvement is needed … and very happy to have the win.

Elsewhere in the SEC:

Mark Richt “calling a blackout” and then having his team get destroyed by Alabama is one of God’s greatest gifts to the world. Players dressed in black; coaches dressed in black; fans dressed and painted black; that stupid little dog in a black sweater – they painted the freaking end-zone lettering black, for Chrissakes. All to get your asses kicked by Fonzie. The world is a beautiful place.

I picked Bama, of course, but my 31-28 score prediction wasn’t intended to show Alabama’s first-half total and Georgia’s second-half total. It was, though, as I predicted – Bama exposed the piss-poor Georgia pass coverage and hammered them with the run because of it. And Georgia couldn’t do anything on the ground, and thus gave Alabama the ability to shut down the pass.

Give credit to Georgia for sticking around for the second half of the game, and Saban is thrilled to have something to hammer his guys on there. But the Dawgs have a long way to go to be a complete team. And the penalties – Jesus. Once upon a time, Richt was known as a disciplinarian – those days are long gone. It’s not surprising, I guess, that when the coach “loosens up” and starts ordering unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that his team would end up being the most penalized team in the country.

The bad thing, of course, is that Alabama is now the media darling (as reflected by the meaningless media poll – in which 32% of the nation’s sportswriters who make up the AP poll now consider Bama to be the best team in the country a week after none of them held that opinion. Only 3% of coaches in the meaningful poll do). Ultimately, that will not matter much, as LSU and Bama play each other Nov. 8, but heads are certainly swelling in and around Tuscaloosa.

Ole Miss beating Florida I did not predict. The Gators, of course, killed themselves. But credit has to be given to Ole Miss for actually having an offense. No. 3 in SEC total offense now, in fact. Of course, they have no defense and Florida is rightfully very embarrassed to have blown the game.

Tennessee at Auburn was as ugly as I thought it could be, and the War Eagles should be grateful for a rankings shake-up that actually saw them rise two places after a horrid game. UAB put more yards on the Vols than Auburn did, and the fourth-quarter of this game was like a reenactment of World War I. Nobody wanted to win it; it’s too bad somebody had to. But I got the pick right.

The pigs were killed by the bulls with the big horns, as I expected. The Hogs are now giving up 38 points a game and scoring 20 points a game. I know math isn’t encouraged in Arkansas, but that’s not good. Oh to have Houston Nutt back. Unsurprisingly, I got the pick right.

South Carolina and Kentucky both won their patsy games, which I figured they would.

For the week: 6-1
For the season: 36-7

- UGA’s “blackouts”. Yes, turns out they were going to a funeral.
- “Knowshon for Heisman”. 34 yards on nine carries tonight.
- The idea that Matthew Stafford has “lost a bunch of weight”. Tubby sure can throw, though.
- ESPN’s assertion that Jarrett Lee did not play football until he was a junior in high school:


Second week in a row they’ve thrown that graphic up. Seriously – not true.
- The idea that Alabama is the best team in the country. Oh, wait, that notion is just popping up now. Unfortunately with Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Arkansas State on deck before they play LSU, it’s an idea that’s likely to stick around a while. Big heads in Tuscaloosa, for sure.

USC’s loss to the Beavers last night sets this weekend up as Upset Watch ‘08, Part I. Last season led the college football world up to expect lots of top-5 upsets and general disarray in the season. So now we’re on watch for the Great Crumbling once again.

No. 6 LSU, of course, welcomes to town the kids whose parents aren’t upper-class enough for them to be accepted at Ole Miss – the Bulldogs of Mississippi State. Coming off the win over Auburn and looking forward to the big battle at Florida in a couple of weeks, LSU puts itself in a great position to be an Upset Watch favorite.

In this matchup, though, the Tigers give me no reason to look for an upset. MSU has no rushing offense (No. 11 in the SEC), an unspectacular passing offense (No. 7), is dead-last in SEC scoring, can’t stop the run (11th in the SEC) and gave up almost as many points against Georgia Tech (38) as Ryan Perrilloux’s new club did (41).

If you look at the stats, the shining star for the Bulldogs is their pass defense, ranked first in the SEC in pass efficiency defense and No. 2 in passing yards given up. That number, though, is heavily colored by the Tech game (62 yards given up in the air – 438 on the ground). MSU did, though, hold Auburn to 154 passing yards – the War Eagles put 250 on LSU.

So give MSU credit for a pass defense; it’ll hardly matter on Saturday. The Tigers sport the SEC’s No. 2 rushing offense and showed how dominant their offensive line is last week. LSU has yet to lose a fumble this season, so chances are not good that MSU stays in the game because of Auburn-like mistakes.

LSU 35 – 10

Elsewhere in the SEC:

No. 10 Alabama rides in to the pitch blackness of Athens to take on No. 3 Georgia: I want to pick Alabama here. I still don’t buy Georgia as a top-3 team, and I think Alabama has a great shot to win this game.

The numbers don’t support it – When the Tide has the ball, Bama’s got the No. 1 rushing offense in the SEC; Georgia has the No. 1 rushing defense. Georgia has the No. 11 passing defense; Alabama has the No. 11 passing offense. No exploitation for Bama by the numbers there.

When Georgia has the ball, the Dawgs have the No. 4 rushing offense against the No. 3 rushing defense but the No. 2 passing offense against the No. 8 passing defense. Opportunities abound for the Dawgs to riddle Bama’s secondary.

I don’t think, though, that you’ll see just the 15 passing attempts Bama put up against Arkansas. The Tide passing stats are stunted by 73 yards against Tulane and 74 yards against Arkansas. Both of those games were won by defense and special teams, and Bama had fewer offensive possessions and little reason to bust out the passing game then. Against Clemson, JP Wilson rang up 180 passing yards, and against Western Kentucky he put up 276. Not spectacular numbers by any means, but more of an indication of how Georgia should view the Tide passing game.

Execution-wise this game, I think, will come down to whether Georgia can exploit Bama’s pass defense better than Bama exploits Georgia’s. Past performance is with Georgia there.

But more importantly, I believe the game will come down to motivation. Mark Richt, of course, has “called a blackout” for the game, and the Dawgs will again storm the field in their awesomely-powerful black jerseys. I suppose the first time you do that as a surprise to the team and your fans and come running out in the awesomeness that is non-red clothing, it charges you up. Second time you do it when you announce it a week in advance? It’s probably charged up Fonzie and the Tide more.

So I look for Bama to open up their offense; hit Georgia with a strong passing game they haven’t seen on tape and hammer home the run. All in white jerseys, no less. If Bama’s secondary can come together and hold the Dawg air game in check, I like the Tide here.

Bama 31 – 28

Ole Miss at No. 4 Florida: Ole Miss would need a whole lot of help to win this one. Their offense doesn’t suck, but their defense does. At home in The Swamp, Florida isn’t likely to screw this one up.

Gators 38 – 20

Tennessee at No. 16 Auburn: Ah, lovely. Two teams who love to make mistakes. If Auburn plays like they did against MSU and Tennessee plays like they did against Florida, this could be ugliness for the ages. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Tennessee get itself together and pull and upset, but I’m not picking that.

War Eagles 2 – 1 (yes, I know)

Arkansas at No. 7 Texas: Die, pigs, die.

Horns 48 – 13

UAB at South Carolina: The Cocks managed to get by Wofford 23-13. Can they stand up to the massive Blazer attack? I guess this passes for drama in South Carolina these days.

Cocks 17 – 16

Western Kentucky at No. 32 Kentucky: Never have so few cared so little about a 3-0 team. I know Louisville looked like a decent game when you scheduled it, Kentucky, but I’m starting to understand why you were left off that SEC Schedule iPhone app.

‘Cats 34 – 17