Saturday was an emotional day in The Swamp. If you don’t think so, ask the Gator who suffered the most serious injury of the day.
Tight ends coach Derek Lewis delivered the pre-game speech to fire up the Gators. At one point during a wild and crazy speech, he punched a white board that was in front of a wall and ended up breaking his hand. You may have noticed the coach on the sideline Saturday with his right hand and arm bandaged.
Hey, I guess his speech worked.
The Sunday Blog didn’t use previous rankings to pick this week’s top 25, but rather just went with body of work.
THE NOT-READY-FOR-PRIME-TIME
COLLEGE FOOTBALL TOP 25
1. Alabama: Tide enjoyed week off, which is what playing Missouri will feel like.
2. Oregon: The Ducks roll out of bed and score 50 points.
3. South Carolina: The Ball Coach won his 250th game and surprisingly not all have come against Georgia.
4. Notre Dame: Speaking of body of work, the irish have been very impressive.
5. West Virginia: Still not much defense, but plenty of scoring.
6. Florida: I said we’d find out about Gators in October and so far, so good.
7. Ohio State: Gotta hand it to Urban Meyer, the man can coach.
8. Kansas State: Wildcats destroyed Charlie Cheeseburger’s Kansas team.
9. Oregon State: The Beavers keep finding ways to win games.
10. Southern Cal: Despite struggling with Utah, the Trojans are moving back up the rankings.
11. Oklahoma: The Sooners but Texas Tech in its place this week.
12. Louisville: Not sure how good the cards are but they could go undefeated.
13. Mississippi State: Bulldogs handled Kentucky and game vs. Tennessee this week will be interesting.
14. Texas: Longhorns might have won if not for a botched shotgun snap.
15. LSU: It doesn’t get any easier with South Carolina up this week.
16. Georgia: Bulldogs were manhandled by South Carolina.
17. FSU: There’s no explaining what happened to the Seminoles in Raleigh.
18. Rutgers: Scarlet Knights just keep winning.
19. Clemson: Tigers continue to score a lot of points, but still mediocre on defense.
20. Stanford: Can the Cardinal derail the Irish Express this week?
21. Cincinnati: Bearcats handled Miami of Ohio with ease.
22. Louisiana Tech: I’m telling you, this is a good football team.
23. Texas A&M: And that good football team plays this good football team this week.
24. Duke: The Dukies are 5-1. I’m going to rank them.
25. TCU: Talk about a season going in the dumpster quickly.
THE SEC FOUR-PACK
1. Gee, Georgia fans must hate Steve Spurrier. He tormented them at Florida and now has become the first South Carolina coach to beat the Bulldogs three straight times. Spurrier is now 15-5 against the Dawgs. “They are a team that used to beat my alma mater pretty well,” Spurrier said. “I have been very fortunate against a coach as them, not so much as a player, but as coach, so that was special.”
2. Meanwhile at Auburn, Gene Chizik says he isn’t worried about his job even though his team is 1-4 and 17-14 in non-Cam Newton years. Maybe it’s because he knows he can throw up offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler as a sacrificial lamb. Auburn’s offense is terrible. Chizik said of fans leaving the stadium early, “I didn’t see them leaving, but I don’t blame them.” It would take Auburn $7.5 million to buy Chizik out of his contract and feel free to insert your own Newton joke at this point.
3. LSU has bigger problems than one loss on the road in a hostile environment. The Tigers can’t get their offense going at all. They have scored one touchdown in two SEC road games. Maybe the answer is to cut Zach Mettenberger loose. LSU misses left tackle Chris Faulk more than anyone thought they would. But it’s more than that. The Tigers have 27 penalties in their last three games.
4. Texas A&M had six turnovers against Ole Miss, which is one reason they trailed by 10 midway through the fourth quarter. But Johnny Football came to the rescue. Johnny Manziel ran 29 yards for one score and threw a 20-yard pass for the game-winner. He finished with 320 yards of total offense.
