Kiffin watch: the loneliest boy in Knoxville.

Seriously, is there a sadder place to be than Jonathan Crompton’s backup?

… Only one team in the country has thrown more interceptions than UT’s eight, and all of them belong to Crompton. They’ve come from batted balls, bad decisions and a couple overthrows, but for now his job is safe and coach Lane Kiffin doesn’t have any plans to take it away.

The Vols aren’t going to split the workload either, which is as much a product of their youth at receiver as the belief that Crompton is their best option.

Al Groh channels his inner Orson Welles.

He gave himself the day off last Saturday, cracked open a beer, grabbed the remote, settled down on the couch, scratched himself in a couple of places and watched some football.

… Preparing for Saturday’s game against North Carolina, Groh watched the Tar Heels play Georgia Tech. He also watched Indiana-Michigan, Alabama-Arkansas, Texas-UTEP, Virginia Tech-Miami, Oregon State-Arizona, Purdue-Notre Dame and Houston-Texas Tech. He even caught an Ivy League game “for the fun of it.”

And after all these years of coaching (and presumably watching countless hours of game tape), he was suddenly blinded by this amazing insight:

“Certainly revealed that there’s probably far too many teams and players that are anointed way too early in the season and far too many teams and players that are condemned too early in the season to see the significant turnarounds that occur in so many games — that a season is to played out rather than to be seen in microcosm,” Groh said. “I realize that’s not the reality of the way things seem, but that’s the reality of the way things go.”

Too true.  Too, too, too, true.

Yes, a football season is meant to be savored.  It must be allowed to ripen in the fullness of time, so that another 5-7 year can be fully appreciated for itself.

Al Groh will judge no college football before its time.

Also, it probably needs to be allowed to breathe a little before consuming.

You can’t blame all the angst on turnovers.

I couldn’t see the end of this amazing play from my vantage point in the stands, but that’s no excuse for the officials who were in position to call it.

And exactly how does the replay official miss that?

Tuesday morning buffet

Not the biggest of selections, but still worth a look:

• Another complaint about the illogic of the Coaches Poll.  You know what we have to say about that here at GTP.
• Of course, you can argue that some of that is due to how unpredictable the early season has already proven to be.
• Strange factoid:  Georgia is the only SEC team LSU hasn’t defeated under coach Les Miles.
• We pondered the blatant personal foul rule after that questionable call against Reshad Jones in the OSU game, but it takes the GPOOE™ to catch Dennis Dodd’s interest.
• Tony Barnhart says the schedule will do in Boise State’s national title chances.  I agree that it should, but still think the screaming will be more intense than ever if two one-loss teams play in the BCS title game ahead of an undefeated BSU squad.
• Colorado isn’t big on anonymity.  (h/t The Wiz of Odds)
• So Charlie Weis tells us that “NFL people” swooned over Jimmy Clausen battling turf toe in the Fighting Irish’s epic win over Purdue (“Good to see a quarterback with some guts”).  Wonder what those unnamed sources thought about Baylor’s Robert Griffin playing most of the first half with a torn ACL that put him out for the rest of the season.

So, the last turnover didn’t matter.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a clip of A.J. Green’s game saving field goal block:

Nice Boss Bailey reference, by the way…