There’s nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning with a houseful of happy people and a breakfast of fruit, sausage, eggs, coffee cake and pancakes waiting for you.
Mostly, it’s just nice to spend time with Gator fans who aren’t on the ledge.
Around the country, of course, there are fan bases who are ready to jump … or push their coach off of it.
THE NOT-READY-FOR-PRIME-TIME
COLLEGE FOOTBALL TOP 25.
1. Alabama: Tide rolled in and out of Knoxville without breaking a sweat.
2. Oregon: How many teams can go on the road against a quality opponent and shut it down at halftime?
3. Florida: For their next trick, the Gators will try to make the SEC East race disappear.
4. Kansas State: Gotta say that the Wildcats’ win over West Virginia was the most impressive of the week.
5. Notre Dame: Every week is a challenge when your offense is struggling.
6. LSU: The showdown is looming in two weeks.
7. Oregon State: Watched most of their late game Saturday. They won. That’s about it.
8. Ohio State: Back-to-back wins over Indiana and Purdue less than impressive.
9. Oklahoma: Sooners embarrassed Charlie Weis’ Kansas team.
10. Southern Cal: Some have Matt Barkley back in the Heisman race. I do not.
11. Georgia: Dawgs had quite a scare against Kentucky, which is surprising.
12. Mississippi State: And some people had the Bulldogs on upset alert.
13. Florida State: Nice, solid win over a bad Miami team.
14. Louisville: Give Charlie Strong credit for winning another tight game.
15. Clemson: The Tigers added to Virginia Tech’s woes.
16. Rutgers: Might be the team that knocks off Louisville.
17. Texas Tech: That great defense was torched by TCU.
18. Michigan: Wolverines seem to have righted the ship.
19. Boise State: Talk about an under-the-radar team.
20. South Carolina: Two straight losses against two pretty good football teams.
21. Ohio: Unbeaten and underappreciated.
22. Duke: The Dukies are bowl eligible. Hooray.
23. Stanford: Nice bounce-back win over Cal.
24. Penn State: Bill O’Brien could be the coach of the year.
25. Texas A&M: No shame in losing close games to Florida and LSU.
THE SEC FOUR-PACK
1. Will Muschamp talked Saturday night about how turnover margin has flipped this season. The Gators were minus-12 last year and are plus-11 this year. It’s not a coincidence that the three unbeatens in the SEC are in the top 10 in turnover margin. Mississippi State is No. 1, Alabama is tied for third and Florida is tied for 10th. South Carolina is now a minus-2 and the two biggest disappointments in the league — Auburn and Arkansas — are tied for 116th.
2. Timing is important if your a head coach and it couldn’t be much worse for Gene Chizik. Not only is his team collapsing all around him but Alabama appears to be steamrolling to a third national title in four years. And Tommy Tuberville, who was let go by the brilliant minds at Auburn, is 6-1. I don’t see how Chizik survives this … unless he beats Alabama at the end of the season. So we’re saying there’s a chance.
3. Did you see where Tyler Bray blew off the media after his latest poor performance? Bray has now thrown eight interceptions in Tennessee’s four losses. “Our quarterback didn’t play well,” said Derek Dooley. “I don’t know why.” I’m going to guess some of it had to do with Alabama’s defense. But Bray has a tendency to mope when things don’t go well.
4. Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray warmed up for the mighty Gators by throwing for 427 yards against Kentucky and breaking the school record for career touchdown passes. But the Georgia defense continues to be less-than-stellar. It gave up 329 yards to the offense-less Wildcats and had to recover an onside kick to preserve the win.
