SEC Talk

Say it ain’t so, coach.

Following the coach’s carousel, there was a report earlier today that Steve Spurrier was spotted on the Duke campus the other day. That sparked all kinds of speculation that the University of South Carolina head coach could be headed back to the school that game him his first head coaching job. While this is all speculation, there is definitely some very compelling reasons why Spurrier would go to Duke, despite their terrible current record.

First, the Gamecocks of USC are a mess right now. The team appears to have tuned out the Ol’ ball coach and it doesn’t appear the administration has been behind Spurrier one hundred percent. There was the fiasco earlier in the year before the season where the school administration ruled that several of Spurrier’s recruits were ruled academically ineligible despite being one hundred percent fully cleared by the NCAA’s clearinghouse.

Second, while Duke has been the laughing stock of Division I football, they play in one of the weakest football conferences in the country. Miami is nowhere near where they once were, Wake Forest was a one year wonder, and even Boston College has had up and down years. Spurrier can easily turn that thing around through his recruiting ability and just the Ol’ ball coach tactics.

Third, Spurrier always votes Duke #25 in the AP Preseason Poll despite the team they field. That goes to show you how much loyalty he has for the Duke Blue Devils. He turned it around once, a part of Spurrier is wondering if he can do it again. What does Spurrier have to accomplish at USC? They play in the toughest conference in the country which will produce a National Championship contender once every ten years because every year, the SEC teams beat each other up and don’t have the record to be considered.

It would be sad for USC fans to see him go, but for college football overall, it would be a really good story. For Spurrier to go back to where it all started, would be a fitting end to a great coaching career.

South Carolina, Steve Spurrier

Kentucky back on track??

This past week saw several SEC teams in action, and unfortunately for many of them, it was a bad week. First Tennessee got thumped by Texas, albeit on the road. While Florida who had just re-entered the top 25 AP Poll a few days prior, dropped a disappointing game to Florida State, perhaps payback for the Gators destroying the Seminoles on the gridiron.

Kentucky bounced back with three straight wins after the Gardner-Webb loss. The most recent win was a struggle though as big blue managed only 62 points and won by 10 over a much inferior Stony Brook team.

Two teams remain undefeated overall, the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Ole Miss Rebels. The Commodores are a dangerous team coached by a very underrated Kevin Stallings. I watched their win over Utah State in the South Padre Invitational and they have a great forward in Australian Andrew Ogilvie. They beat Bradley to claim the title at South Padre, and I watched the Bradley/Iowa State game and Bradley is a good fast-breaking team so for Vanderbilt to beat them is a very good sign for them. The Rebels at 5-0 look good but haven’t been tested, their first real test of the season comes this Saturday against New Mexico with the new head coach Steve Alford.

After a bad loss at Providence, the Arkansas Razorbacks came back with a solid win over Virginia Commonwealth. They have a huge test against the pressure defense of Mizzou tonight.

Here are the SEC standings to date,

Vanderbilt 0-0 5-0
Tennessee (11) 0-0 6-1
Florida 0-0 6-1
Kentucky 0-0 4-1
Georgia 0-0 3-1
South Carolina 0-0 3-3
West Conf All
Mississippi 0-0 5-0
Arkansas 0-0 4-1
Alabama 0-0 3-1
Auburn 0-0 3-1
LSU 0-0 3-2
Mississippi St. 0-0 3-3

Tennesse, Arkansas, Florida, Patrick Beverley

Houston Nutt is headed for Oxford, MS.

A few days ago, Houston Nutt was celebrating one of the best wins of his legacy at Arkansas by toppling LSU in OT and likely ending LSU’s bid for the National Championship. He resigned Monday and today he is the new coach for Ole Miss. Wow, what a couple of days.

Ole Miss Athletic director Pete Boone fired Ed Orgeron on Saturday following their narrow loss to Mississippi state. The Rebels had three straight losing seasons under Orgeron and Boone was under pressure to make a move after the Rebels were swept out of SEC competition losing all their conference games this season.

What’s odd about the hiring is that Arkansas’ season is still ongoing. They finished with a respectable 8-4 record and a likely Cotton Bowl appearance. But in this day and age, you go where the money is and that’s all that really matters. Ole Miss probably told Houston Nutt that if he didn’t accept a contract at this point, then they would look elsewhere.

And what about the move itself?? He’s going from one SEC team to another, Arkansas is probably better, and probably will be better going forward. Ole Miss has a strong tradition, but they’ve been terrible the past few year (I realize that much of that was probably Orgeron) and I don’t think Nutt alone is good enough to turn this thing around.

Much will depend on Nutt’s ability to recruit, and attract talent from the football rich state of Mississippi. If Nutt can keep some of that talent in-state, he could be successful. But he also has to compete with Sylvester Croom over at Starkville, and Croom has been slowly building the Bulldogs into a pretty decent SEC team.

Overall, it is a puzzling move, but again, it’s always about the benjamins and no doubt, Houston Nutt is about to get a nice bump in his salary after this season.

Arkansas, Ole Miss, Houston Nutt

Tuberville enjoys win over his adversary, Saban.

First, lets take a look at all the scores for all SEC teams in action yesterday,

Florida St. 12 at
Florida 45

Mississippi 14 at
Mississippi St. 17

Arkansas 50 at
LSU 48
Final OT

Tennessee 52 at
Kentucky 50
Final OT

Wake Forest 31 at
Vanderbilt 17

Georgia 31 at
Georgia Tech 17

Clemson 23 at
South Carolina 21

Alabama 10 at
Auburn 17

What a wild weekend of football in the SEC this weekend, absolutely crazy with it being rivalry week as well. Too much to talk about so I’ll just touch on a few points.

LSU losing to Arkansas was covered earlier. Obviously that was a big loss for the Tigers as they likely won’t be playing for the National Championship but with the Kansas loss, it’s still a slight possibility, I guess we’ll see after the SEC title game.

Tennessee over Kentucky. Wow, the Volunteers outlasted Kentucky through 4 overtimes. They did blow a 17-point lead, but they stayed with it until the final whistle. The win gives the Volunteers the SEC East title and the right to play LSU for the SEC title.

Auburn over Alabama. I bet Tide fans are suddenly not so impressed with new coach Nick Saban. After coming to Alabama with what amounted to a rockstar reception, Tide fans are getting a dose of reality, and a $4 million dollar a year coach that doesn’t appear to be much better than the less than $1 million dollar coach they got rid of last spring. For Auburn, savor the win as it very well could be the last in the Tommy Tuberville era.

Geno Hayes of Florida State said they would take it to Florida’s Tim Tebow and it appears they meant what they said. Tebow suffered a fractured hand, albeit his non-throwing hand, and will be out for at least 2 weeks. He should be ready in time for their Bowl game, but still, it’s a setback.

The best of the rest. Georgia beat Georgia Tech easily. Steve Spurrier is sputtering at USC with yet another loss, and Mississippi State beat Ole Miss.

Tennessee, Auburn, Florida

Darren McFadden back in Heisman hunt.

Thanksgiving always means football time and this late in the college football season any upset is bound to be huge. Tonight, the Arkansas Razorbacks played spoiler to the LSU Tigers’ hopes for playing in the National Championship by defeating the Tigers 50-48 taking the game to three overtimes.

In a performance worthy of the Heisman trophy itself, Arkansas Razorback running back Darren McFadden rushed for 206 yards on 32 carries scoring 3 touchdowns on the ground but was also 3-for-6 passing for 34 yards and 1 passing touchdown. The Tigers actually did a pretty good job defensively but this win was all McFadden who ran through the Tigers all night long. I guess we should’ve seen this coming for LSU after the loss to Kentucky and the comeback thriller against Alabama, both sub-par teams. Heck, even Ole Miss gave the Tigers trouble last week.

So what are the National Championship implications? Well, you can pretty much write off an SEC repeat now that LSU, the last of the SEC teams with a title shot, are now out of the running. Kansas of all schools, and West Virginia probably have the best shot of all the remaining top five teams. Ohio State has a slim chance but they need help from the other teams. I still have a hard time believing that Kansas will most likely be playing for the National Championship, would you have believed it if someone told you that in August?

Some big games tomorrow night in the SEC, the Iron Bowl and Florida matchups.

Arkansas, Darren McFadden, LSU

Lofton finally breaks out of an early season slump.

Tennessee Volunteer fans breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday night, as senior guard Chris Lofton finally broke out of a three game shooting slump to start the season. Heading into the game against Middle Tennessee State, Lofton was shooting just 6-of-28 from the field in the Vols’ first three games. Even worse was his 17.6 percent success rate or 3-for-17 from beyond the 3-point line. Not only was it the worst start of his three years at Tennessee, it was the worst three game stretch period for Lofton who many had predicted would be the Naismith Player of the Year by March.

Coach Bruce Pearl, a character in his own right, was speechless for the first time in probably his life. He simply had no answers and just like the rest of us, was just hoping and praying that Chris would find his shot again. Thankfully for Coach Pearl and the rest of the Tennessee Volunteer faithful, it looks like it has.

The thing with shooters is that it’s such a streaky thing. Much like in golf, you can be a terrific ball-striker and for some unknown reason you’ll start crapping out. Golfers call it the shanks. It is very much a mental thing more than any physical problem. For shooters in basketball, its the same analogy. Once you start thinking to much and trying all the little adjustments to get it back, it just seems to get worse.

While it is only one good game since the slump, the confidence was there on Tuesday. Chris was letting the shots go and he wasn’t worrying about his form or anything, he knew they were going down. That is a mark of a good shooter.

Thankfully for Volunteer fans, the slump hasn’t cost them any games and their RPI remains strong and is about to get stronger against a pretty good shooting team in Michigan tomorrow.

Chris Lofton, Tennessee

Happy Thanksgiving, SEC fans.

As many of y’all get ready to stuff yourselves full of turkey this Thanksgiving, I thought I would take a break myself from blogging and instead point you to what the SEC bloggers at SBNation are talking about.

Over at Sea of Blue, Kentucky fans are gearing up for the return to the hardwood. Two weeks after the Gardner-Webb fiasco that no doubt big blue fans are eager to forget as quickly as possible. Liberty University should, and I stress the word should, provide that relief. No question another loss here would mean a rather short-lived coaching stint for Billy Gillispie at Kentucky.

Jay Coulter of Track Em Tigers is giving thanks this Thanksgiving for being born an Auburn fan and having the privilege of seeing the Tigers won Alabama the past twenty of so years of the yearly Iron Bowl, the Auburn/Alabama showdown. With the way Alabama is playing right now, it looks like Jay will be a happy man for at least one more year.

The talk around USC has been the losing streak and Steve Spurrier’s possible status with the Gamecocks. Garnet and Black Attack thinks that Spurrier will stay at USC for the foreseeable future, citing the SEC as the only place Spurrier has really coached at (with the exception of Duke).

All of Gator nation is hating on Geno Hayes of Florida State and Alligator Army isn’t holding anything back calling Geno, Public Enemy No. 1. Hayes stated in an interview that he plans on ending Tim Tebow’s Heisman chances, and that he was going to take Tim Tebow down. As if the Florida/Florida State rivalry needed anymore bad blood.

Kentucky, Auburn, South Carolina, Florida Gators

Saban puts his foot in his mouth again.

Nick Saban did something really stupid today at the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, he compared his team’s loss to the Louisiana-Monroe WarHawks last Saturday to the attacks of Sept. 11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. I mean, how dumb does a guy have to be to make comments like that. He went on to say that it took the events of Sept. 11 and Pearl Harbor for America to wake up and take action, much like how he wants his team to do this coming Saturday in their annual rivalry game, the Iron Bowl against Auburn.

Now, Saban sympathizers are saying that everyone is just blowing this out of proportion. That what Saban was trying to do was to use the Sept. 11 attacks and Pearl Harbor incident metaphorically, as an analogy of the situation of Tide football and what the loss last week meant. Are we just blowing hot air over nothing??

Michael Wilbon talked about this today on his show, Pardon the Interruption. I like how Wilbon said, what if some widows and family members of those who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks would’ve reacted if they were at the press conference. I like to see Nick Saban say the same thing he said in front of that audience.

I totally agree with Wilbon here, Nick Saban is such a masochist, that nothing in the entire world matters to him except football and his team. It’s as if Saban has been living under a rock for the past 6 years and doesn’t know anything other than Sept. 11 and his football team.

Get real, Nick, get your head out of your you know what and don’t make stupid insensitive remarks like that, it just makes people take you less seriously as a person.

Nick Saban, Alabama

Billy’s Gators off to impressive start.

After a great start to the still fresh basketball season, the Florida Gators have re-entered the Associated Press top 25 coaches poll released today. The Florida Gators are 4-0 winning their first four games by an average of a whopping 29.2 points with the most notable of the wins coming against Rutgers of the Big East cruising to a 88-63 this past Saturday.

OK, now I realize that the Florida Gators haven’t really beat anyone of note, but still, they are looking very good. If you consider that other top division one programs even in the SEC like Kentucky and Arkansas have already lost, I don’t think it’s out of the question to give the defending back to back champions their respect. Especially since they’ve come out guns blazing dominating their first four games.

What this Gator team lacks in size, they make up with in speed. This is probably the fastest group of athletes that Billy Donovan has ever had in Florida. They get up and down the court with ease and can finish with the best of them. All three of the highly touted freshman have all delivered so far this year. Nick Calathes, Jai Lucas and Alex Tyus have all been fantastic so far, they look like they have a natural chemistry that you don’t see with teams playing for the first time together.

But the real reason why the Gators are back looking like final four contenders is Billy Donovan. He just understands the game and knows how to utilize the talent of his players. He uses a lot of pressure defense which is perfect with the players he currently has. I don’t think the Gators will be in the final four, as I think they are just too young now, but watch out, they could be National Champions next year.

Florida Gators, Billy Donovan

Glenn Dorsey led his Tigers over Ole Miss.

Another weekend, another fantastic football watching Saturday. Most of the SEC teams fared as expected except for Alabama who lost to Louisiana-Monroe, maybe Nick Saban and Billy Gillispie can start their own “save our jobs” campaigns. The other big surprise was the close win by Tennessee over Vanderbilt. In fact, I think Vandy probably should’ve won that game, but that’s the way football is.

Lets start with Alabama, just an embarrassing performance by the Tide. And the worst part of it was that they lost at home. Lets give the Louisiana-Monroe WarHawks some credit here, they came into a hostile environment, and outperformed a previously ranked opponent, no easy task by any imagination. But the turnovers, and mistakes by Alabama were just atrocious. The final game of the year will be a critical one for Saban and his team, the Iron Bowl against Auburn. You’ll remember that what lost Mike Shula his job was his inability to beat Auburn, well, Saban can save his season by doing just that next week, and even this terrible loss may eventually be forgotten.

Tennessee dodged a huge bullet yesterday barely edging out Vanderbilt. In fact, the Volunteers were 1 missed field goal away from conceding the SEC East title to the Georgia Bulldogs. But the kick was wide and the Volunteers can count their blessings and move on. Down by 15 points heading into the fourth quarter, the Volunteers came from behind to capture the win, including a big 3rd and short defensive stand. Give the Vols a ton of credit, it was a gutsy performance. They play Kentucky next week, if the Vols win, they go on to play LSU for the SEC Championship.

Georgia slugged it out with Kentucky and came out on top to keep their SEC East title hopes alive. Bulldogs running back Knowshon Moreno continued with yet another 100-plus rushing performance. More impressive though was the defensive performance by limiting the Wildcats to their lowest scoring output of the season.

LSU, though looked sloppy early, came away with another win, this time over Ole Miss. Arkansas continues their late season surge on the back of Darren McFadden’s tough running in a big win over Mississippi State. Finally, Florida stomped all over Florida Atlantic to win their non-conference matchup easily.

Final Scores:

Kentucky 13 at
Georgia 24

Florida Atlantic 20 at
Florida 59

Mississippi St. 31 at
Arkansas 45

Vanderbilt 24 at
Tennessee 25

LA Monroe 21 at
Alabama 14

LSU 41 at
Mississippi 24

LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Tennesse, Florida, Glenn Dorsey

Maybe Billy Gillispie’s stay in Kentucky won’t be so long after all.

No less than one week following one of the worst home defeats in Kentucky Wildcat basketball history, news that head coach Billy Gillispie does not have a signed contract. And while some might not jump at that news, that all adds to the scrutiny that Billy will be under this season, his first with Kentucky.

I’m not sure why Billy doesn’t have a contract, one of the reasons may be that he doesn’t have an agent and so he doesn’t have the time to talk directly with management. But I think it’s a cause for concern for Wildcats fans. Why? Because if the lights get too bright in the sea of blue, maybe he will bolt early. The loss last week to Gardner-Webb was a humiliating one and they’ll be talking about that one for quite some time.

You might recall that Thad Matta, the head coach at Ohio State, coached for almost a year without a contract. In the end, both parties worked it out and a contract got signed. But I think OSU basketball and Kentucky basketball are 2 very different situations. At OSU, Thad is basically the sideshow to that of Jim Tressel and the football team. At Kentucky, Billy is the main attraction, he has to deal with the reaction of every little move he makes.

Maybe, coaching without a contract is Billy’s way of leaving himself a quick exit strategy if this experiment goes south. He can bolt early if they have a bad season.

Kentucky basketball, Billy Gillispie

Can Woodson play spoiler on Saturday?

It will be a relative quiet Saturday for some of you SEC fans as both South Carolina and Auburn have a bye week for week 12. There are a couple of big matchups followed by several fluff non-conference games.

(22) Kentucky (Conf: 3-3) vs. (8) Georgia (Conf: 5-2)

This is the marquee matchup for the SEC this week as both teams head into this matchup with big bowl aspirations on the line. Georgia is looking to keep their slim lead over Tennessee for the SEC East title and the right to play in the SEC Championship game. Kentucky is out of the SEC title race but still hopes to improve it’s chances to get into a top tier bowl game and a win here would not only spoil the Bulldogs chances but improve theirs.

No question the big storylines will be the contrasting styles of offense with the Bulldogs preferring to pound the ball inside with redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno while the Wildcats will put the offense into the hands of quarterback Andre Woodson. Will the ground and pound or air attack win out?

Mississippi St. (Conf: 3-3) vs. Arkansas (Conf: 2-4)

While neither team is ranked, both are still looking to finish out the season strong. With the exception of a road bump last week, the Razorbacks were surging hard with four straight wins off the solid running of Darren McFadden who remains a Heisman candidate. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs of Mississippi St. are coming off of back-to-back wins over previously ranked teams and are playing their best football all year.

Look for a low scoring smash-mouth type game that will be won in the trenches. Whoever can control the line of scrimmage and win the time of possession battle should win this game.

Vanderbilt (Conf: 2-5) vs. (19) Tennessee (Conf: 4-2)

The Tennessee Volunteers have reeled off three straight impressive conference wins and it appears the players are playing for the pride of coach Phil Fulmer who has heard the rumors of his job in jeopardy. On the other side of the ball, the Commodores have been wildly inconsistent all season. Which Commodores football team will show up on Saturday, the one that shocked then number 6 ranked South Carolina or the one that got dominated in losses to Auburn and Florida?

For the Volunteers, the SEC East Title still within grasp by winning out as they hold the tie-breaker over Georgia should both finish with identical records.

(1) LSU (Conf: 5-1) vs. Mississippi (Conf: 0-6)

Though stranger things have happened, the LSU Tigers are poised to head to the National Championship game in January. The Tigers should easily dispatch Ole Miss who haven’t beaten an SEC team all year. Preventing injuries will be key for the Tigers in making sure everyone survives this game without any significant injury.

Other non-conference contests featuring SEC teams include,

Fla Atlantic
Florida

LA Monroe
Alabama

Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi St., Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, Mississippi

Les Miles hears the call of the Wolverine.

While the regular season for college football is a just a couple of weeks from its conclusion, the talk all day has been the potential coaching moves that will inevitably take place at the end of the bowl season. As usual, the SEC is one of the conferences most talked about and this season has seen no shortage of both coaches on the hot seat and coaches eying greener pastures.

Les Miles to Michigan

This rumor is not a new one. But with the official announcement by Lloyd Carr that he will in fact retire from the University of Michigan head coaching position, that opens up the discussion on whether Michigan-alum Les Miles is in fact, heading to his old school.

Obviously, this is a natural fit for Les Miles. No doubt, Michigan will go after him hard and with Les Miles being a Michigan alum, he will most certainly listen. For many LSU Tigers fans, he’s already made up his mind to go, it’s just a matter of how much and how long. Whether LSU wins the National Championship will go a long way in determining any potential future contract.

My personal opinion, Michigan will go hard after Les Miles and if the money is right, he will go. For the record, Les has stated that he loves it in Baton Rouge and that he is currently happy with his situation. He has not denied that he will go, or said that he isn’t interested in Michigan. Basically, he’s just avoiding the press, but he likes Michigan.

Tommy Tuberville to Texas A&M

As posted earlier, Tommy Tuberville will be the leading candidate for the A&M job once it becomes official that Dennis Franchione steps down at the end of the season.

A&M has a huge alumni fund and I think they’ll put it to good use by offering Tuberville a fat contract which he can’t resist. Yes, Tuberville will end up an Aggie by January.

Ol’ Ball Coach, out of USC

After four straight losses, the Gamecock nation has been reeling following a rollercoaster season. After their most promising start in the Steve Spurrier era, netting a sixth overall ranking, the whole thing came crashing down one month later with many calling into question whether the Ol’ Ball Coach is well, simply too old to coach a good game anymore.

The most troubling aspect has been the lack of defense, specifically run defense. That is a most fundamental part of football, it’s about tackling and being physical. It’s the most coacheable part of the game. Teams that can’t stop the run are usually thought of as badly coached teams. Has the time come for Spurrier to step away from the game? Has the Ol’ Ball Coach mystique vanished? A lot of questions being asked right now, and there aren’t a lot of answers to be had.

LSU, Les Miles, Auburn, Tommy Tuberville, South Carolina, Steve Spurrier

Billy Donovan prepares to go 3-0 on the season.

There are four games on the schedule today involving SEC teams in NCAA Basketball action today with all four SEC teams the favorite.

Florida faces NC Central at home. Florida is 2-0 on the season and early on its clear that the Gators will be an uptempo team that likes to run and shoot 3-pointers. They will press and force turnovers. They don’t have the great frontcourt tandem of Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer anymore but they replace them with a trio of guards that could be one of the best in the SEC in Nick Calathes, Chandler Parsons and Alex Tyus. Though young, the Gators look like a surprise team early in the season that everyone has written off. Don’t write off Billy Donovan, the guy can flat out coach.

Georgia faces Grambling State at home tonight. The Bulldogs opened the season with a huge 107-65 win over Jacksonville State, but that doesn’t say a whole lot especially when conference play starts in a month or so. The Bulldogs need some freshman to step up with the unexpected dismissal of forward Takais Brown and the suspension of guard Mike Mercer and center Albert Jackson for 15 and six games, respectively, for violations of the university’s new attendance policy for student-athletes. A specific reason was not given for Brown’s dismissal other than violation of team rules. And so heading into the season the talk was about the returning seniors, it appears freshmen like Jeremy Price and Jeremy Jacob will need to lead the way and so far they have. Just how good this young team can be as we get to conference play? I guess we’ll find out tonight.

Tennessee looks to bounce back from a lackluster first game performance in a 80-63 win over Temple. The opponent is Arkansas-Monticello but that doesn’t really matter as coach Bruce Pearl’s team is a top 10 team that really should be killing these early teams right now, which they aren’t. Lackadaisical and sloppy play plagued the Vols in their opener and hopefully they can turn it up a notch tonight. It’s not always the end result, but how you get there that is important sometimes, especially playing these lesser opponents.

Finally, LSU is host to McNeese St. tonight. The Tigers won their first game over Southeastern Louisiana 72-62 but clearly this will be a rebuilding year for the Tigers. With the departure of Glen “big baby” Davis to the NBA, the Tigers are relying on a pair of newcomers in freshman Anthony Randolph and junior college transfer guard Marcus Thornton to lead the way. If the game against Southeastern Louisiana is any indication, Tigers fans should be ready for plenty of ups and downs as this season progresses. Coach John Brady said that the rollercoaster first game was pretty much what he expected from his new players.

East Conf All
South Carolina 0-0 2-0
Florida 0-0 2-0
Vanderbilt 0-0 2-0
Georgia 0-0 1-0
Tennessee (7) 0-0 1-0
Kentucky 0-0 1-1
West Conf All
Mississippi 0-0 2-0
Alabama 0-0 2-0
Mississippi St. 0-0 1-0
LSU 0-0 1-0
Arkansas (18) 0-0 1-0
Auburn 0-0 1-1

Florida, Tennesse, Georgia, LSU, basketball

Can a late push put McFadden back into the Heisman race?

With only three weeks left in the college football regular season, it is prudent to take a look at the Heisman candidates from the SEC and also to preview the SEC player of the year candidates.

1. Tim Tebow, Florida
Tebow’s 7 touchdown performance including 5 on the ground and 2 in the air could be good enough to tip the favor to Tebow. Not only is the guy a phenomenal dual-threat quarterback athlete, but he is tough as nails. It’s not easy to play the way he does taking hits left right and center. But he just gets back up and keeps going. Florida is easily a bottom half SEC team without Tebow, he’s that valuable to them.

2. Darren McFadden, Arkansas
After a slow start to the season, Darren McFadden is starting to make some noise after consecutive 100 plus rushing yard games in the win over South Carolina and the loss to Tennessee this past week. McFadden was the consensus Heisman favorite heading into the season but he has had to fight through some injuries. Some compare him to Adrian Peterson who now plays for the Minnesota Vikings. While Peterson was probably more elusive, McFadden is a stronger back and can go north-south a little better. Compared with other running backs in college football, I still say McFadden is the best there is.

3. Knowshon Moreno, Georgia
While just a redshirt freshman, Moreno has emerged as not only the top back on the Georgia Bulldogs but is challenging McFadden for best in the SEC and indeed for the rest of the country. Moreno is a tough runner, Mel Kiper compares him to Cadillac Williams but I liken him to Joseph Addai. Not the biggest guy but very difficult to bring down and he finds the smallest of seams to run through. I agree, barring injuries, Moreno will be the best running back in the country next year.

4. Glenn Dorsey, LSU
Trying to be the first defensive player since Charles Woodson to win the Heisman on the defensive side of the ball, Dorsey is simply a man beast. Think Dwight Freeney but 50 pounds heavier. The man-child has been slowed by injuries but plays despite them and still performs better than most other defensive lineman playing at 100%. He is just a relentless pursuer of the quarterback and because he has the quickness to go with the size, even double-teams don’t always slow Dorsey down.

5. Andre Woodson, Kentucky
A few weeks ago, Woodson would’ve easily been the consensus top pick for the Heisman but recent losses has slowed his campaign. Still, Woodson is one of the best quarterbacks not only in the SEC but in the country. Though he is an accomplished athlete, it’s Woodson’s accuracy and ability to throw 60-70 yards which sets him apart.

Tim Tebow, Darren McFadden, Knowshon Moreno, Glenn Dorsey, Andre Woodson