Tua got beaten by a surfer boy last night

It wasn’t his father who gave Tua the belt on Monday night – it was the Clemson defense. Tua’s first interception – a pick-six – was awful enough, and his second quarter interception was even worse than that. In the end, he finished 22-34 with 296 yards, 2 TDs and 2 INTs, and was pulled before the game ended. His replacement Jalen Hurts (0-2, 0 yards and -4 yards rushing) wasn’t good either, as he – like the man he replaced- struggled to deal with an on-fire Brent Venables defense, starring Christian Wilkins. And like the horror show 4th-and-6 trick play, it didn’t come off. This was supposed to be the crowning of Tua Tagovailoa. But it wasn’t.  Tua had

Read more

Alabama – Clemson IV: A very quick National Championship Game preview

This Monday is the College Football finale between two teams that EVERYBODY thought would get there: Alabama and Clemson. It’s no secret that both teams are amazing. Both teams are stacked with first round draft picks. Both teams have five-star quarterbacks who been revelations. Both teams have insanely good wide receivers and running backs. And their defenses? Whoa. The only bad thing about the National Championship is that it’s going to be played in Santa Clara, California. My brother – who lives there – said to me: “Why in the hell are they having a massive college football game during rush-hour on a weekday? The place is hard to get to and isn’t a great stadium experience? The 49ers can’t even fill

Read more

SEC bitchiness took over the College Football Play-Off

If you believe in such thing as social media noise, then Twitter shouted the loudest. And in particular, the insufferable yelling came from the SEC – and most particularly Georgia and Alabama fans. RANT NO.1: WHY WASN’T GEORGIA IN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY-OFF AHEAD OF NOTRE DAME? Georgia fans were screaming their nuts off about the fact that Notre Dame’s blow-out by Clemson meant that they should have been in the blow-out instead of the Irish. “They don’t even have their own conference” said some. “How could the Committee talk about the best four teams? Sure Georgia, in their loss to Alabama, showed that they are one of the best teams in the country?”, groused another. “Notre Dame didn’t play anyone this

Read more

Why EVERY SEC team will win its bowl game

I love the bowl time of year. I get to ignore politics for a few hours and sit and balance a beer on my belly and watch college football. This is a beautiful time to be a SEC fan. We get to generally see a National Champion, and we get to celebrate by haunting others with our war cry: “SEC! SEC! SEC!”. I was going to go for a long, weaving preview of every bowl, but I realised that this (might) suffice. So here we go – Why EVERY SEC will win its bowl game. Why Vanderbilt (-4)will beat Baylor: Vanderbilt can stop someone, Baylor can’t. Vanderbilt’s got one of the most underrated running backs in college football in Ke’Shawn Vaughn,

Read more

National Signing Day: It’s an Alabama and Georgia World

Stop if you’ve heard this before about recruiting: It’s an Alabama and Georgia world, and everyone else just lives in it. Every time there was a tweet from the two schools’ Twitter during the National Signing Day flurry, there was another four or five-star recruit that wanted to play for Nick Saban or Kirby Smart. Everywhere you looked, the Crimson Tide and the Bulldogs were in everyone’s thoughts, and it seemed a rarity when a player decided to go elsewhere. Alabama pulled in five-star RB Trey Sanders, OT Evan Neal, and DE Antonio Alfano, while Georgia celebrated the signings of five stars OC Clay Webb, DE Jermaine Johnson, CB DJ Daniel, while DE Nolan Smith, LB Nakobe Dean, DT Travon Walker,

Read more

Between the Devil and the Ball: The reign of Urban Meyer

Football loves winners. Sure, there are the celebrated losers (Charlie Weis in his time in Kansas), but we care more about the trophies, the Heismans, and the winners. After all, schools build their cathedrals because they like winning and let rich people know that they like winning, and will do anything for that. The rich people then put in their money for winning, and coaches are hired. Hopefully, the coaches win, and statues are created in their image, and the congregations bow down. Urban Meyer was a skilled high priest. He won three of them. The first two were at Florida, a program that was still recovering a little from Steve Spurrier’s departure. He took home two National Championships, three SEC Championships,

Read more

Can Auburn’s season get worse? Week 8 SEC predictions

The mathematics of a monster contract like Gus Malzahn’s might not show it, but the Auburn head coach’s job status is fragile. The offense is sputtering (76th in the country), and because of that, the defense – although it’s one of the best in the country – can’t get a break. This week the offense wil hope to rebound against an Ole Miss team that hasn’t really heard of defense. But the Tigers are on the road in Oxford, and everybody’s scenting blood. Elsewhere, the Ed Orgeron train will keep on truckin’ against Mississippi State in the only ranked match-up in the SEC this week, while embattled Missouri coach Barry Odom will try and pick up his team against high-scoring but

Read more

Alabama 2018 Preview: Will the QB dance become a mess?

January 9th, 2018. Tua Tagovailoa replaces Jalen Hurts as Alabama’s quarterback mid-game after Hurts fails to show up, and wins the game for the Crimson Tide in overtime. Tuscaloosa celebrates (again). Athens mourns (again). Nick Saban breathes a sigh of relief. After all, he’d lobbied the program ever since the Tide lost to Auburn and didn’t get into the SEC Championship Game and might not have gotten into the danged play-off. Rammer Jammer was played, sung, and chanted. A lot. Someone swore that they saw Bear Bryant in heaven, crying. Roll onto August 2018 and a controversy still reigns around Tuscaloosa. Who’s going to be the starting quarterback when the team kicks off against Louisville? Will it be ‘Tua’ or will it

Read more

Arkansas Preview 2018: Can Chad Morris resurrect the Hogs?

So much for the #winning. Bret Bielema is now out after never finishing higher than 3rd in the SEC West, and finishing 7th in three out of seven years in his reign. Oh, and he went 11-29, which probably didn’t help him. Anyway, Chad Morris has been ‘prized’ away from SMU, and he’s an exciting prospect for an offensethat depended on a heavy line but really went nowhere (94th in the country) and a defense that went nowhere too (102nd last year). So what do we think will happen in 2018? OFFENSE Giant QB Cole Kelley (he’s 6-7) is loved by just about everybody, and we really like him, too. He threw for 1,038 yards and 8 TDs, and if

Read more

Is Alabama or Auburn the best team in the SEC? Week 11 SEC rankings

Right, Week 11 is done and dusted in College Football Lore, and all you’ll hear for the next two weeks is: “Miami is back” and “I can’t ****ing wait for the Iron Bowl”. While we know about the media excitement about Miami being back, the thought that Alabama visiting its two-loss rival before the Georgia game wouldn’t have given the insides a lot to stir about – especially from a College Play-Off perspective. And then Georgia came to visit, and was slaughtered – so much so that Auburn’s QB Jarrett Stidham didn’t stay in the whole game. The Dawgs couldn’t stop Kerryon Johnson, who savaged Georgia’s front four in a way very similar to the way their own Bulldog pairing

Read more
1 14 15 16 17 18 27