Things are not going well right now for Auburn and Tennessee. (“Aw, that’s a shame.”) Tennessee probably should be at 1-2; they’re bloody well not better than Cal, as proven on the field, and they’re definitely not better than Florida. (In fact, why a Florida team who returns from a national title with a better quarterback wasn’t even regarded as the best team in their own CONFERENCE boggles the mind.) But for Auburn to lose to South Florida, and then lose to indisputably the worst team in the SEC…well, let the fears and doubts and rumblings commence in the land of Tuberville. Five turnovers against Sly Croom’s Bulldogs should give them a nice shot of terror looking ahead to Florida, Arkansas, LSU, Alabama – hell, even Vanderbilt, who hung 31 on Ole Miss today, has to be considered a threat.
And then there’s Tennessee. Maybe David Cutcliffe is the answer to their offensive woes, but he can’t do anything about the defense, and Tennesse can’t stop anybody. 45 points given up to Cal and 59 more to Florida, and they still have to play a resurgent Alabama, a South Carolina team whose coach seems to own them, an Arkansas team that they can’t possibly slow down, and Kentucky, who may have the best pure passer in the conference. And let’s not forget – they lost their last home game against Vandy. The long knives are out for Phil Fulmer, because the Vol faithful have looked up from their corn dogs and moonshine long enough to realize that the man everyone else in the league refers to as “Jabba the Coach” hasn’t won a damn thing since the ’98 title – and didn’t win a damn thing in the four years he had Peyton Manning at the controls. 12 seasons out of 13 without so much as a conference title are an awful lot to try to wash away with a national championship that was won when the current seniors were in junior high.
Meanwhile, Alabama did the one thing they could never do under Mike Shula: come back in the 4th quarter. Let’s look at Nick Saban’s “Crimson Comeback” to-do list:
1) Beat the teams you ought to beat, and without making it exciting: done.
2) Get six points when you get into the red zone, not field goals – or worse: done.
3) Play the full 60 minutes without running out of gas, time or hope: done, as of tonight.
4) Beat UT and Auburn…well, at 11:45 PDT tonight, you have to say that one is looking promising.
And as for those aforementioned Commodores: 14-3 lead at the half. 200 yards passing and 57 more rushing from the QB. 3 touchdowns from the primary running back. Six sacks of the Ole Miss QB. Never lost the lead, even punching in the comfort-margin TD with under 2 minutes to play. They got the Rebels down and kept them down, they capitalized on turnovers, they recovered from mistakes. This was a critical checkpoint: if this is going to be the 6-wins-and-a-bowl season, this game was must-win. Now a week off, then Eastern Michigan at home, and then at Auburn – which, despite being a road game, has to be considered winnable after the events of the last two weeks. Given the resurgence of Kentucky, the Dores will probably need at least one conference upset (although the Kentucky game at home still has to be considered leaning Vandy’s way). On paper, there’s still every possibility of 8-4 given the right breaks, and given that Earl Bennett had 11 catches for 100 yards when everybody knew the ball was coming to him, you have to think he could make some of those breaks.
Obligatory Cal remarks: yes, 42-12, but Cal’s 3-0 record belies the fact that they have played two very shaky games in a row. They’re showing the classic tendency to start slow and play to the level of the opponent, which is the sort of thing that will bite you in the ass on the road in the conference. The defense is young and vulnerable, and Longshore still has streaks of inconsistency which should make the Zachary’s pizza sit uncomfortably in the tummy of any Old Blue. However, the Bears still have their secret weapon: Jahvid Best, who may be the fastest man alive. Three weeks in a row, Cal has run a play where everybody pulls right, DeSean Jackson gets double-covered, and the ball goes left to Best on a blind flip – and he shifts into Tachyon Drive and rips off fifty or sixty yards before you can even say “HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT.” Cal has so many offensive weapons that the temptation to just make everything into a track meet will be huge…but it’s an urge they have to fight, because at some point, you’re going to need to stop somebody.
Just ask Tennessee.