Yep – that really was Vanderbilt going down to Auburn to shat the bed. Effectively a five-touchdown loss (a garbage-time drive for a TD against Auburn’s fourth-string D hardly counts), it’s becoming painfully obvious that this isn’t going to be the year. Kentucky’s a fraud as a top-10 team, but they’re still better than us, and Georgia won’t be caught sleeping again. There are a lot of games left to play, and 3 wins in the next 7 could get it done, but there aren’t 3 wins out there to pick up.
Meanwhile, the SEC…Arkansas lost to Alabama lost to Georgia lost to UT (BADLY) who lost to Florida lost to Auburn lost to MISSISSIPPI STATE. Auburn whales on Vanderbilt and Florida but spits the bit to MSU and South Florida? (Don’t come talking up South Florida. Nobody ranked 6th in the country should be tied 7-7 at the half with Florida Atlantic. Another fraud team.) I don’t know if the whole SEC is really that good or if everyone’s that inconsistent, but right now, if Florida goes down bad tonight, I think you have to consider the possibility that the SEC this year consists of LSU and a bunch of spastics.
Speaking of fraud, Wisconsin at #5 loses on the road? Badly? Add the Kentucky loss, the substandard South Florida performance*, all the top-10 losses last week, and you have to start considering the very real possibility that nobody knows anything, and that the foreordained LSU-Pac 10 matchup is really going to happen. (Consider, too, that the #3 team in the Pac-10 could conceivably go 11-1 and wind up in the Sun Bowl, and you will have proof once and for all that the Pac-10 doesn’t take care of its teams.)
I wish I had an answer for Vanderbilt, but short of a trade to the ACC, I don’t.
* South Florida is this year’s Rutgers: feel-good team out of a mediocre conference, with one or two good wins and an utterly diabetic schedule otherwise. They were sweating the fourth quarter against Florida Atlantic, and if you have to hang on by your nails against a Sun Belt team, you’re not a top 10 program. Anybody who votes the Bulls up this week deserves to lose their ballot.