Another good day for the genius

I heard two good smackdowns of Auburn in the last couple of days leading up to tonight’s game.

First, Thursday afternoon Jim Donnan took a shot at Tony Franklin on 680 The Fan – “he coached at Kentucky and I don’t exactly remember Kentucky tearing up the SEC East when he was there”.  Then, my oldest daughter, who goes to school at Vandy, texted her youngest sister this morning with:  “Auburn must be in town.  First mullet sighting at 11:15 AM.”

Nice, but neither holds a candle to Auburn stumbling to 208 yards of total offense against the lowest ranked defense in the SEC.  Tubby ought to send Ralph Friedgen a thank you card, though, for saving him from having the most embarrassing loss of the day.  Any port in a storm, and all that…

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17-14.

The Kentucky-Alabama game irritates the hell out of me.

Phil makes a move.

And it’s not from Krispy Kreme to Dunkin’ Donuts, either.  It’s at quarterback.

Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer announced at the Vols’ walk-through Friday that Nick Stephens would start at quarterback Saturday against Northern Illinois.

Fulmer said it was time to shake it up and that Stephens deserves a chance to show what he can do. Jonathan Crompton started the first four games for the Vols, but struggled mightily. He was 8-of-23 for 67 yards in the Vols’ 14-12 loss to Auburn last week.

Fulmer said there are no plans to play two quarterbacks in this game. If Stephens plays well and the Vols are moving the football on offense, he’ll be the go to guy the entire game. Fulmer said Crompton took the news well and will be ready to play if needed.

Yeah, I’ll bet he took the news well.

It’s pretty interesting timing.  Stephens takes a shot against a MAC team that you’d figure wouldn’t put up too much resistance, although N. Illinois’ stats aren’t too embarrassing at this point in time (not that it’s played anyone tougher than Minnesota to date).  But if he’s mediocre rather than successful, it introduces an element of uncertainty in Georgia’s preparation for next week’ game.  It’ll be worth seeing if Stephens displays any better skill at throwing the deep ball than Crompton has shown this season.

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UPDATE: Yech.