Must see SEC

The LA Times‘ Chris Dufresne has a piece up laying out the ten college football games he can’t wait to see this season.  It’s a fun list with a lot of compelling games – at least they look compelling in May.  I’m going to steal the idea, but get more parochial with it by just listing games involving Southeastern Conference schools.

So here’s my group of the ten regular season games involving SEC teams that I want to see most right now.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the ten best conference matchups, or that they’ll be the ten most memorable games of the year.  They’re simply the ones that I have the most interest in watching today.

10. Mississippi State at Auburn (9/12). The first newbie coach vs. newbie coach game of the season.  Early prediction:  the final score will not be 3-2.

9. South Carolina at Tennessee (10/31). A home stop on Junior’s “Can You Feel The Love?” tour, this is a game that Spurrier needs to win if he wants his program to be considered relevant in the SEC East.  Or at least more relevant than UT’s.

8. UCLA at Tennessee (9/12). I think this is going to be a fascinating game, and not just because last year’s debacle turned out to be the beginning of the end for Fulmer.  A Tennessee win means that Vol Nation starts crowing about how it proves that the Laner’s the right guy.  You’ve also got the Norm Chow-Junior face off, and you know the pupil would love to school the master here.

7.  LSU at Georgia (10/3). It’s a measurement game for both schools, right?

6.  Florida at LSU (10/10). We should know who the national contender is after this game.

5.  Virginia Tech-Alabama (9/5). Big non-conference season opener for both teams.  After last year’s big win against Clemmins, you’d have to think that ‘Bama has at least a psychological advantage coming in.

4.  Florida-Georgia (10/31). With a bye week, you gotta believe.

3. Alabama at Mississippi (10/10). It’s Ole Miss’ first big test of the year.  How does the Nuttster handle the spotlight?

2. Georgia at Oklahoma State (9/5). It’s weird to be putting an OOC game this high.  But aside from it being the season opener, it’s Big XII vs. SEC and it’s also an opportunity to see if Mark Richt has figured out how to survive losing two stars in the first twelve picks of the NFL draft.

1. Tennessee at Florida (9/19). The thing about this game is that you’ll watch even if it gets out of hand.  My prediction is that UT gets soundly beaten, but not as badly as last year, and Junior loudly proclaims the result  to be a moral victory proving that the Vols are on the right track and that the Gators have something to fear.  That’ll irritate the hell out of Meyer and the Gator Nation.  If you’re Kiffin, you take your victories where you can this season.

Memorial Day buffet

Dig in, folks.

• Dan Magill pays tribute to the Georgia athletes who lost their lives in service to this country.
• There really aren’t any SEC football coaches on the hot seat right now, according to the Knoxville News’ John Adams, who then tries to stretch reality to see if a case can be made for putting Mark Richt on one, “to fill the void”.  Whatever.
• Maybe Junior’s not on a hot seat, but he’s likely to receive a cool reception at this week’s SEC spring meetings.
• Matt Hayes jumps back on the Notre Dame bandwagon.  It’s the schedule, stupid.
• This isn’t a football story, but I love screwups like this.  Dumbasses.
• He doesn’t provide any specifics, but CFN’s Pete Fiutak alleges that Tebow’s family pushed Urban Meyer to mold the GPOOE™ into more of an NFL-style quarterback.  I don’t know what surprises me more about that – that someone can push Urban Meyer or that Tebow’s family doesn’t think the GPOOE™ is perfect as he is.
• You may remember this debate last year in the Alabama Legislature.  Well, the good news is that this year “the hops are free”.  No word on what Rep. Holmes had to say about the bill’s passage, unfortunately.