How will Dan Mullen’s return to Starville go? Week 5 SEC predictions

There’s nothing more fun than a head coach returning to his former team. Especially when it’s the SEC, where there is probably going to be a little more than polite booing directed at Dan Mullen as he takes his Florida Gators to ClangaVille to face Mississippi State. But other games are also intriguing on the SEC schedule. There’s LSU vs Ole Miss, which seems destined to be close even though Vegas thinking differently, and weirdly, Kentucky vs South Carolina because the Wildcats – right now – are the SEC’s Cinderella story. Then there’s the sorry tale of Tennessee, who have to travel to Georgia. Eesh. Missouri has the week off. So here we go with our SEC predictions: Florida (-7.5)

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Which SEC coach is on the hottest seat?

Right, it’s our annual hot seat conversation, in which we rank which SEC coach is on the hot seat at the start of the year. Ed Orgeron (LSU): ‘Coach O’ is beloved by his players, but his 15-6 record in Baton Rouge isn’t great, the Tigers have finished 2nd and then 3rd in the conference. If LSU fails to beat Alabama again (they haven’t beaten the Tide since 2011) there’s another major loss like they did to Troy, and seriously underperform with the talent that they have, then the tongues will be wagging. Having said that, if the Tigers fail to beat Miami on Monday night, then the knives could start getting pulled. Barry Odom (Missouri): Missouri’s defense was so awful

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Florida 2018 Preview: Can Dan Mullen improve Florida?

Trainwreck doesn’t cover just bad Florida’s 2017 season was. There was a bit of a smile when they beat Tennessee on a Hail Mary in one of the plays of the season, but that was it, save for Jim McElwain’s nudist battle with a shark. Dan Mullen arrived to the pomp and circumstance (and some new Jordans), but he’s had to deal with non-stop disciplinary crap – something that must be weighing on Gator Nation. You know, that and the rise and rise of one of their most hated enemies. OFFENSE Every time we think about UF’s offense, we get squeamish. The Gators were 110th in total offense, good enough for the second-worst in the SEC behind Tennessee (the third-worst

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Watkins ‘leaves’ Florida leaves after second arrest

Finally Dan Mullen has an Advil to lesson his current headache – Justin Watkins, his four-star freshman cournerback – has said he’s going to leave the school, according to the Miami Herald. According to the Herald, he said in a tweet: “I am leaving the University of Florida to better my opportunities“. Watkins has been arrested twice in the last three months since his arrival. The first – which happened in May – was when he followed a female student to her car and kicked her car – after following her to her high school. He was arrested there for illegal trespass. And then Watkins was arrested for a quadruple felony. This included two first-degree counts of kidnap (false imprisonment), a third-degree count

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Why Dan Mullen has to suspend, dismiss Florida players

Every year there’s a cup called the Fulmer Cup, named after the school that gets the most arrests during the offseason and season. And as much as fun as Florida’s former head coach Steve Spurrier has made fun of Georgia in the past for the Bulldogs behavior (“I don’t know. I sort of always liked playing them that second game because you could always count on them having two or three key players suspended), suddenly there’s a bit of egg on face in The Swamp. Because at the moment it’s a damned mess at Florida. First of all, there have been the dual arrests of freshman RB Justin Watkins – both of which are incredibly disturbing. The first – which

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SEC Media Days: The important parts

We missed the fact that SEC Media Days weren’t in Birmingham, Alabama this year. As much as people love Atlanta (apart from the terrible traffic, an even worse airport and a city climate during summer that you wouldn’t wish on Gary Danielson), it just doesn’t feel like SEC territory. SEC teams – apart from Vanderbilt in Nashville – are in small college towns all over the Southeast. The big cities don’t seem to suit them – unless they are getting paid millions to play season openers, hosting a Championship Game, or winning National Championships. Of course, the SEC regulars were there. Bespeckled SEC homer Paul Finebaum, fresh from a re-up in his contract after his agent started rumors that he was

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Mississippi State hires Joe Moorhead to be new head coach

Mississippi State has hired Penn State’s offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead to be the school’s new head coach, after Dan Mullen left for Florida a few days ago. Moorhead was an exceptional OC for Penn State, helping the school win the Big Ten Championship as well as a 10-2 season with an explosive, high-paced offense that starred QB Tracy McSorley and more’s the case, RB Saquon Barkley. He’s well-known for a run-pass-option offense, and it produces points. A ton of them. Penn State averaged 453 yards per game and 6.6 yards per play. He was 5th in the country for TDs, and 5th in the country for points per game with 41.6 – up from 37.6 last year. While Penn State

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Dan Mullen is going to Florida

After failing to land Chip Kelly, Florida went for their second option: Mississippi State head coach (and former Florida offensive coordinator) Dan Mullen. Mullen will take over from Jim McElwain, who was fired after the Gators were stomped by Georgia in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party earlier this season. The Gators will not make a bowl this year, finishing 4-7 overall (their Northern Colorado game had to be cancelled due to Hurricane Irma). Florida fans will be praying that Mullen – who is considered somewhat of a quarterbacks guru after his excellence with Dak Prescott and Nick Fitzgerald in Starkville – will be able to recruit some quarterbacking excellence. At the moment, Felipe Franks is not making the grade,

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Bret Bielema is out at Arkansas

Bret Bielema is out at Arkansas after five years at the helm. ‘Bert’, as he’s ‘affectionately’ known by social media, was fired after the Razorbacks were beaten 48-45 in a thriller at home to Missouri, leaving the school with a 4-8 record. This is the second coach that has been fired this season after a loss to the Tigers – the first was Tennessee’s Butch Jones. Bielema was fired almost immediately after the game. There were rumors that he had been fired as he walked off the field, but Arkansas pointed out that they hadn’t been that cruel – it was ‘actually in the coach’s office by the visitor’s locker room’, ESPN stated. Bielema was quick to protect himself, telling the

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Previewing The Iron Bowl and every other #RivalryWeek game in the SEC

Because it gives me a chance to ignore the extended family and watch football for three days, I love Rivalry Weekend. It starts with the Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving night, and then moves through like a hurricane until the regular season (sniff! Sniff!) winds up at the end of Saturday. This rivalry week for the SEC looks pretty damned special. There’s an Iron Bowl at Auburn, with Alabama visiting. We’ll hear the words ‘Kick Six’ mentioned a lot, and Harvey Updyke’s name may crop up ever so often. The story that’ll probably get missed this week is about Rodney Alexander, an Alabama fan who shot an Auburn fan this week over an Iron Bowl disagreement. That almost puts Updyke and

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