When you’ve lost Furman Bisher…

Let’s just say Chan Gailey’s tenure at Tech is more than a little tenuous right now.

The fog begins to clear…

in the SEC, at least a little.

In the West, it’s all but over, as LSU would have to lose to both Ole Miss and Arkansas to drop out of the race, and while Arky might have a puncher’s chance at the upset, I don’t see any way the Rebs do.

In the East, South Carolina and Vanderbilt are reduced to hoping for a six way tie at 4-4.  That’s about as likely as Mississippi beating LSU.

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Stayin’ classy

Between Nick Saban and Troy’s Larry Blakeney, I have a hard time deciding who was the bigger jerk yesterday.

Michael Elkon is right about how Saban’s “you have a great team” comment to Miles after the game came off.

But this quote from Blakeney…

“The crowd that stayed booed us for trying to execute, which was funny,” Blakeney said. “I think we certainly had the potential to win, and I doubt we’ll get any quick invites back here.”

… probably edges Saban out by a nose, because it manages to combine arrogance with a stubborn cluelessness (Troy wasn’t going to score eighteen points in eleven seconds; so much for that “potential to win”, coach) that grates especially in the wake of two kids getting hurt in the last, meaningless eleven seconds of the game.

Some good football last night

After getting back from Athens yesterday, I was able to settle down and watch some more football on the tube. I shuttled between Oregon-Arizona State (man, the Ducks are a fun team to watch), LSU-Alabama (I can’t believe the Tigers survived that idiotic move on fourth and inches) and Arkansas-South Carolina (if McFadden and Jones leave early, would the Nuttster want to be back as the head coach?).

The last game didn’t have as much on the line as the other two, but it seemed like the wildest ride of the night. Arkansas jumped out to a big lead, but South Carolina tried to claw its way back and was only down by eight mid-third quarter. But the Razorbacks took charge after South Carolina’s second (!) onside kick of the quarter. In the end, the two teams combined for 153 offensive plays and 1,139 yards of offense.

The game has some of the weirdest looking final stats you’ll ever see. Check these out:

• Despite running on 58 of their offensive plays, compared to 32 rushes by South Carolina, the Hogs were dominated in time of possession, holding the ball less than 22 and a half minutes.
• Arkansas had a higher average per rushing attempt (9.3 yards) than passing attempt (7.1 yards).

Is there any doubt that Darren McFadden is the best player in the country at this point? Last night he ran for 323 321 yards – which tied an SEC record – on 35 34 carries, threw a 23 yard touchdown pass and looked stronger as the game went on. If you doubt that last point, make sure you see his last touchdown run. 80 yards untouched, and he looked like he was at full speed before he hit the hole. After he scored, he didn’t even look like he was breathing hard.

By the way, going into that game, South Carolina was giving up 169.2 yards rushing per game. Last night, Arky rushed for 541 yards. So those yards weren’t racked up against Directional State University. Although the Ole Ball Coach suggested that DSU might have done a better job than his crew did:

“Obviously it was a mismatch tonight,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said. “Looked like a Division III team trying to play an SEC team. Or maybe a Division III team could have slowed them down a little bit better than we could.”

Oh, one more thing that Dawg fans should appreciate. With last night’s game, Darren McFadden joined Georgia’s Herschel Walker as the only SEC players to run for 1,000 yards per season as a freshman, sophomore and junior.

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UPDATE: I know it’s bad manners to wallow in the misery of others, but the South Carolina message boards are a hoot this morning. I do have a fine appreciation for gallows humor, and I had to laugh at two great lines: “Either Arky’s backs run 3.9 forties, or someone in Columbia’s been lying” and “I can’t even get 530 yards rushing on Playstation”. Classic!

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UPDATE #2: Here’s what I’m talking about. Click on it – it won’t take long.

The look on Cory Boyd’s face at the end of the clip is priceless.