The Sunday Blog comes at you after a weekend of cool weather and a hot football game in Baton Rouge.
1. It’s amazing that Florida had a chance to win Saturday night’s game despite getting nothing from the running game. Take away the 55 yards on scramble runs for Treon Harris and the Gators ran 18 times for 35 yards. LSU has a really tough defense, but the Tigers played two deep safeties for much of the game which should have opened up the running lanes a little more than it did. In the end, the Gators only had two real drives for scores (one score came on a short field and another on the punt return). Still, it wasn’t a terrible offensive performance and it’s not like the Gators have been great on offense all season. More than anything, Florida was seal-clubbed the last two times it came to Baton Rouge and the Tigers know they might see UF again in Atlanta.
2. So one of the liabilities of being at a game is that you miss the moment of the season. That would, of course, be Michigan State’s improbable win over Michigan. People were freaking out on Twitter and fortunately, about every third person posted video. How in the world does that happen? And then the guy who is the hero — Jalen Watts-Jackson — gets injured in the dogpile. So here’s my question — which was more incredible, the Auburn Pick-Six from 2013 or the Michigan State Miracle? Discuss.
3. Look, a running back seems destined to win the Heisman and my bet would be Leonard Fournette (although shouldn’t he have been penalized for swinging at a Florida defender who was trying to tackle him?) But I’ll be happy to start a Paxton Lynch-for-Heisman campaign. The guy is having an amazing season for unbeaten and — I assume — the finally-ranked Tigers. It doesn’t hurt when Hugh Freeze goes for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 34 and runs his best defensive player on offense and it backfires. It makes things easier.
4. Very quietly, our old friend Larry Fedora is 5-1 with the only loss being a blown chance against South Carolina in the opener. It’s quiet because the Tar Heels really haven’t beaten anybody, but guess what? They won’t have to. UNC plays only one ranked team all year — No. 25 Duke. In an unrelated note, all of the criticism that was heaped on Steve Spurrier, the only coach to beat Fedora this season, for quitting halfway through the season was understandable, but nobody seemed to get this point — he was helping the interim coach in a huge way. Spurrier could have hung around and beaten Vanderbilt, but he let the new guy gets the win.
