After being in the transfer portal, we’re baaaack!!!

Sorry for the radio silence. We weren’t renaming ourselves. Or firing people – because there’s one of us, and that’s me. It’s because I requested a transfer. Put myself in the transfer portal. And the wife and I have moved to the hot cooker of football – Texas. We’re in Houston, where the oil money flows like the water in the Bayou and the mosquitos are manic. It’s great because I can watch SEC games in the same time-zone, not sit there watching until 5am every morning like I have one in the UK. Our only problem has been the internet. AT&T sucks. But thanks to the next-door neighbors, we’re back. For half a season. But half a season’s better than

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The SEC is a megachurch, a denomination, and a religion

It’s nighttime in Death Valley. The War Eagle Flies. We’re running through the T. We’re chomping. We’re asking how ‘bout them Dawgs. We’re clanging, pig sooein’, rammer jammerin’, Ole miss by damn’. We’re a 12th Man, the ZOU in MIZ, a Commodore, and a Wildcat. There’s even 2001 or maybe a Sandstorm. Our churches aren’t small. They are megachurches, holding a screaming congregation that will bury you with noise. They’ve even been allowed some in-game communion wine to add to their palates during services now. It should make Saturday church a little louder. When they win with a God-given upset, they jump over railings, get stuck in hedges, surf goalposts through crowded streets and toilet paper trees. When they lose,

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The SEC needs a nine-game conference schedule

Beyond the transfers, the head coaches, the stadium reductions and the backhanders to recruits, the NCAA can change something else that would really take the sport a step forward: The schedules. The ACC and SEC play 8 in-conference games and 4 non-conference games, while the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big XII all play nine. Gus Malzahn and Nick Saban both expressed a preference for nine games. In fact, Nick Saban has been lobbying for it since 2012, while Gus Malzahn last year admitted he’s had a Damascus experience on scheduling (probably because Auburn’s is so arduous year after year): “Nine I think is best for us moving forward to make the schedules more equal across the conference.” Kirby Smart of

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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,

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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,

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SEC players going in their junior years for NFL Draft 2019

Right, this time of the year is a sad one, because we say goodbye to our greatest SEC playmakers, wishing that they would have one more year in college to make us smile. Some are seniors, but what the SEC Blog is focussing on is the juniors, who have decided to forgo their senior year, in an effort to make cash instead of being exploited for it (!). We don’t expect Alabama to have any declarations because they’ve got two big play-off games coming up (potentially), but otherwise… Alabama: Arkansas: Auburn: Jarrett Stidham (QB) Florida: Chauncey Gardner-Johnson (DB) Georgia: Kentucky: LSU: Greedy Williams (CB) Mississippi State: Missouri: Ole Miss: AJ Brown (WR), DK Metcalf (WR) South Carolina: Deebo Samuel (WR) Tennessee:

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Sophomore Vanderbilt TE loses fight with cancer

In news far bigger than any football game, Vanderbilt tight end Turner Cockrell has died of cancer aged 21, the school has announced. Cockrell was a redshirt sophomore, missing the entire 2018 season after he was diagnosed with melanoma. When the disease spread to his lungs, there was little the doctors could do. He passed away on Thursday. “My heart is broken for Randy, Noelle and the Cockrell family, for all of Turner’s teammates, and for all who came in contact with Turner,” Vanderbilt head football coach Derek Mason said in a statement released by the university. “Turner had a wonderful spirit and fought an incredible fight. He was a Vanderbilt Man through and through, and he will always be remembered here.”

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Iron, Egg, Bourbon and Hate: SEC Rivalry Week Preview

Of all the rivalries in the SEC, the best name for a rivalry is the Georgia – Georgia Tech game: “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate”. Nothing comes close. However, there are some badass hatred flowing through the SEC. Alabama and Auburn despise each other. Ole Miss and Mississippi State may be on a par with that….maybe worse. There’s no love lost between Clemson and South Carolina or Florida and Florida State. Tennessee – Vanderbilt always seems to pit the ‘Public School Hillbillies’ and the ‘Private School snobs’, and Louisville and Kentucky certainly aren’t fond of each other, even though the ‘Governor’s Cup’ makes it sound like a place where the fans drink sweet tea before the game, not ludicrous amounts of bourbon.

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NEWSFLASH: Alabama did NOT impress on Week 12

Breaking News: Alabama did not impress us on Week 12. At half-time of the game against Citadel in Tuscaloosa, with the much-less-than-the-reported-101,000 inside Bryant-Denny Stadium still sleepy, the game was tied 10-10. The Tide couldn’t deal with the triple-option, and the offense was poor to say the least. In the second half, Alabama adjusted themselves, scoring 40 to Citadel’s 7, and everything seemed good. I even posted on my Twitter that after Alabama’s putrid performance Clemson should be made No.1 if they comfortably beat Duke. And Clemson was awful in its first half against Duke before exploding for 45. Obviously, Clemson’s victory over an above-average Duke said counts for more than Alabama’s victory against a Citadel team, but the Play-Off

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Is every SEC team that’s not Alabama ordinary? Week 12 SEC Rankings

We didn’t want to admit it, but 85% (12 out of 14) of SEC teams are really, really ordinary. Some might be even worse than that. SEC fans will tell you that the ‘ordinariness’ isn’t in fact that, it’s the fact that ‘anyone can beat anyone on ANY GIVEN SATURDAY IN THE SEC’, and that’s what makes the SEC so great, and other conferences so suck-worthy. Of course, it’s the notion of ‘Every Given Saturday’ that makes college football so awesome, and not just the SEC. But in fact, the SEC, B1G and ACC have something in common: They all boast a team that hasn’t won an in-conference game all season (Arkansas, Louisville, Rutgers). And apart from Georgia and Alabama, everyone

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