[Ed. note: Edward Aschoff stole my thunder a bit, but I had planned this post for today, so screw it.]
It’s time for another reader poll and I thought this would be a good one: which SEC team proved to have the most disappointing 2011 season?
The nominees are, in alphabetical order:
- Auburn (7-5, 4-4). It’s not just that the Tigers dropped six wins down from last year. It’s that they looked so bad over the second half of the season doing it.
- Florida (6-6, 3-5). Not exactly the banner year under Muschamp Gator fans were expecting.
- Mississippi (2-10, 0-8). We knew they weren’t going to be good, but nobody expected Ole Miss to be that bad.
- Mississippi State (6-6, 2-6). If their rival hadn’t been so Gawd-awful, these Bulldogs might not have wound up bowl eligible.
- Tennessee (5-7, 1-7). Losing to Kentucky for the first time since the mid-’80s is the essence of disappointment. Losing to a Kentucky team led by a wide receiver making his first start at quarterback since high school doubles down on that.
And the winner is…
Get The Picture 
Ohhh, so many wonderful choices !
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Lemmie choose one!!! No, wait, where is the ‘I took great joy in them all’ option?
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Had to go with Dan Mullen and MSU.
I expected a huge drop off in G-Ville.
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I’m not a fan of MSU but just in the interest of fairness I’ll defend their record this season. In hindsight, they got the shaft this past year with their schedule being what it was. The Mississippi State losses (6 of ’em) were to:LSU (13-0 and ranked #1 in the nation); Bama (11-1 and ranked #2 in the nation); Arkansas (10-2 and ranked #3 in the nation when MSU played them); UGA (10-3 and SEC East champions); South Carolina (10-2 and SEC East runner-up) and Auburn (7-5 but defending National Champs and undefeated when MSU played them early in the season). MSU beat everybody on their schedule that they were supposed to beat and lost to everybody they were supposed to lose to–welcome to the SEC. This is exactly why Mississippi State is a coaches graveyard.
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Who was expecting Florida to do much better than 7-5? I would have gone with Ole Miss had Tennessee beaten Kentucky, but 5-7 with that loss to deny bowl eligibility is just awful.
As for Mississippi State, they’re Mississippi State. Making a bowl should be sufficient for a reasonably successful season. Also, not to brag, but I called them going 7-5 at best this season.
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I had to go with Tennessee. One SEC win, and a lucky one at that, is pitiful.
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Any Auburn fan with a brain ( and I know what you guys are thinking about that) knew that we would struggle mightily against that schedule with the loss of 25 seniors, 3 Jrs to the NFL (Newton, Fairley, and Darvin Adams) and 4 Felons.
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Yep. Felon attrition will do that to any school. 😉
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Had to go with my own team. I expected Florida to win at least 8 games in 2011. I also did not expect that offense to look like monkeys fornicating with footballs either.
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“monkeys fornicating with footballs”….is that worse or better than a “dumpster fire?” Now that youse guys have lost your big, fat schematic advantage, I assume there are glimmers of hope.
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Indeed. Hope always springs eternal
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While you’re springing eternal, Mike , we are trying to change the Jax Stadium name to “Everbark Field”. Just one itty bitty letter change. You have to take pleasure in your recruiting class ranking. It’s been pretty steady.
Hope Davis doesn’t go to Kansas. Hope Jaylen Watkins doesn’t get caught up in an NCAA investigation that affects your program. Hope Mich St’s new coach doesn’t embarrass FU’s new coach. Hope Muschamp doesn’t “Guarantee” any more wins. That springing eternal stuff starts getting a little tricky about this time. Remember, where there’s hope, there’s always fire. …uuuh, no …that doesn’t seem right…ssllooowwly remove needle.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas, Mike. At least that is meant in the best way.
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Don’t go soft on me Cojones.
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Ball Boy, thanks for your good wishes. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas too!
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Florida pulling a Space Ace to their pre-Spurrier selves was the biggest surprise to me, especially blowing a lead in Jacksonville in the process. I thought that was our job.
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I wonder how Tenn would have finished with Bray and Hunter not missing time.
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The same.
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Like Red Blackman, my vote went to Red Blackman. Auburn’s seven wins were one more than I would have expected them to get with the kind of losses they took after last year. Now, the blowouts were a little surprising, but I think that outside of the Auburn Family, everyone else saw the record coming. Florida fans aren’t just disappointed, they’re crushed. I certainly didn’t see 6-6 coming for the lizards, but it also wasn’t really outside of the realm of possibilities with a new coaching staff and new offensive philosophy coming in. We saw last year that switching schemes can take a little while to take hold. I personally thought that Tennessee might jump up and surprise someone this year (in fact, I had a bad feeling that it would be Georgia), but I still expected them to be mostly mediocre. I didn’t see Justin Hunter and Bray missing so much time this year, and I didn’t see the locker room discord coming, but I really did think they had it right when they painted “Opportunity is Nowhere” on the locker room door. Ole Miss? Not a shock.
But man, Mississippi State? Those jokers were thumping their chests so hard down there over the offseason that they put up billboards proclaiming ownership over the state. I have a couple of MSU friends, and I had some animated exchanges through friends of THEIRS on Facebook about who actually owned the moniker “Dawgs”, saying that outside of Georgia, everyone thinks Mississippi State when they see it (laughable). Sure, I should have seen the signs. Most of MSU’s “big” wins came against the weaker SEC East in 2010. Still, I figured they were poised to make a little noise this year. They did give LSU a game, but that was a trap game for LSU. It was a let down after spending the entire summer getting ready for Oregon, and they were still trying to get on track with the quarterback situation. Other than that? They needed OT to beat Louisiana Tech, they gave up 41 points to Auburn and Cam Newton wasn’t even in the building, and they only managed one win in the conference (all four non conference wins came against non-BCS teams). Dan Mullen is still hearing his name brought up in rumors about other jobs, but now it’s about places like Penn State. Impressive until you realize that Penn State is now a dumpster fire. The iron is no longer hot, he’s probably kicking himself for not getting out of Starkville last year.
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Ditto. MSU’s poor results were very far from expectations.
Granted, the others all made big sucking noises as they went down.
We must remember, though, that it wasn’t long ago that Georgia would be on the ballot. Georgia recovered fairly quickly because the coaching staff was tweaked with wonderful precision (well, adding Grantham is a little more than a “tweak”) and a few other factors which have been dicussed in great detail on this and other blogs. Make no mistake about this..THE LOUD SUCKING SOUND COMING FROM THE SOUTH, NORTH AND WEST ARE A BEAUTIFUL SURROUND SOUND MUSIC TO MY OLD EARS!
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Got to be UT. Year 2 is when most players start to “get it” and buy in to whatever the head coach is selling/teaching. They were bad on BOTH sides of the ball. QB getting hurt didn’t help but even with Bray they has some horrible stretches of bad offense. I thought they’d be 8-4 this year.
If Dooley goes 6-6 next year, he could very well be gone.
No excuse for the level of fail going on there.
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I don’t know how recruiting is going up in Knoxville, but there’s not a whole lot of talent in TN highschools, and now there’s the Vandy thing to deal with….and that loss to Ky…..TN has always had to dip into Georgia and other states for talent…Maybe some good players getting out of various prisons they could go after….(man, I hope Barb Dooley doesn’t come to Senoia and kick my ass!)
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LOL, she probably couldn’t find it.
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Ahh, Senoia! I love that town, my parents have a house in the city limits. My favorite thing to when I visit is watch the trains go by with my son and making a trip to Crooks to get some local produce. Ice cream shop there aint to bad either! Great place.
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When friends were chanting the Fire CMR crap at tailgates, my response was “careful what you ask for, have you had a look at the circus in Knoxvegas lately?” First SOD’s proper shower technique speech, followed by the horticulture Vince speech about growing bamboo. The fan base’s fascination with SOD’s fashion statement. Barbara’s defense of young Derrick on the sports talk show. The orange ceramic dog drug around the practice field. The loss to Kentucky. Back to back losing seasons. Open locker room rebellion. “Dogs sleeping with cats.” I’d be surprised if the whole team isn’t on prozac. They are in the ditch of despair and disappointment with a head coach in way over his head and coming unraveled.
“I’m afraid it will just be more than he can bear.”
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Based solely on the size of the gap between expectations and results, I had to go with Mississippi State. I didn’t expect much out of any of the other teams. I didn’t expect the Bizarro Dawgs to be great, but I did expect a lot better showing than we got.
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I agree with you and the others, Miss St. is the pick and it wasn’t close for me. I expected UF, UT, and The aU to struggle all the way through their schedule, and Old Miss was weaker than I thought, but Mullen and Company laid the biggest egg. More than the record, they just weren’t a competitive team in most game. You have to think this portends bad things in Starkville as their initial burst of enthusiasm has flamed out. If Mullen can get the PSU job he should take anything they offer; as bad as things are currently in Happy Valley, there is a much better chance they will recover over the next 5 years and the competition is less challenging.
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The Gators.
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Schadenfreude.
How could something so wrong feel so right?
I had to go with UT. I can only hope to be putting UF in this spot next year for year two under their new coaching staff. What a complete poo pile they were under The Precious for year two! Such incompetent lack of identity I have not seen since… well, I guess Notre Dame under Big, Fat Charlie? I know, I know. I should be feeding the orange dog, but I don’t even know what that means!
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I kinda understand the Miss St pick as the were supposed to be up-and-coming, but then you look at the SEC West and see LSU, Bama and Arkansas in front of them and realistically how good were they going to be (record-wise). I just couldn’t see anything better than 8-4.
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I always said when that UT head coach was hired, that he will DooleyTLE. UT is most disappointing although MSU is pin drop second considering a lot of Dawg fans were crowning him as the next HC to replace Richt.
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I wonder if DooleyTLE and Bobo can be good mix. LOL.
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The fact that both programs who have won the eastern division more often than Georgia are on this list speaks volumes to the state of the sec east and the opportunity presented to us. We need to get our shit together and put a stranglehold on this division.
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Sure like that attitude, Charlotte.
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Tie between UT (5-7; 1-7) and Florida (6-6; 3-5). Florida would have been 5-7 if the refs hadn’t interceded and given the Gators the game against Vandy. However, the possibility still exists for Florida to win sole possession of the “Most Disappointing” award this season with a bowl loss and a losing record of 6-7.
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