Bielema’d

After getting run over front, back and sideways by Arkansas, Texas Tech fires its defensive coordinator.

It’s Bert’s first scalp at Arky.

“If Auburn hadn’t given him that chance, there’s a good chance Nick would be playing for Kansas State on Thursday night.”

Making tonight’s Auburn-Kansas State tilt the Battle of the Second Chance U’s.

They should come up with a trophy for that.  Other than Nick Marshall, I mean.

“What it does is it helps you keep up with the Joneses.”

Here’s another example of why there’s no money in college football to pay players.

“A lot of times you learn more in a loss than you do in a win.”

Reading between the lines of this Q & A with Jeremy Pruitt, I’d say the defensive staff didn’t do as good a job of washing out all thoughts of the Clemson game as they hoped.  Some of it sounds like the fault of Pruitt himself.

Q: It seemed you generally substituted less in this game. Is that true?

A: “That’s a mistake on our part. Going into the game we expected to play the exact same way. We got away from it a little bit. We’re going to get back to it because we feel like we’ve got guys who deserve to play.”

Then there’s this about Leonard Floyd, who had a quiet game Saturday:

Q: To what do you owe the lack of pressure and/or production from your edge rushers?

A: “Well, you’ve got to give South Carolina credit because they’ve got two pretty good tackles. Second of all, they played with some tight ends and kept them in on the edge some. They mixed up their protections and chipped a little bit with running backs. So those guys have got to learn from it. You know, when you have success like Leonard had the first week of the year and last year a little bit, that’s what people do to guys that can rush the quarterback. They have a plan for them. And the guy that was calling the plays for them (Spurrier), he’s one of the best in the business. He had a plan for them.

So, now we have to hope the South Carolina game was a valuable learning experience.  More than Troy will be, I trust.  Tennessee will make for an interesting test, though.  The Vols don’t have much of an offensive line, and that’s hurt their running game, but they’ve got some receivers who will challenge Georgia’s secondary.

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Thursday morning buffet

Dig in.

• Last Saturday marked the sixth straight conference game in which Florida failed to score more than two touchdowns in regulation play.
• I know this is tongue in cheek, but it reads like some of the comments I see here at the blog now and then.
• Ed Orgeron was reportedly offered the head coaching job at Nicholls State and turned it down.
• Forget who’s the #2 quarterback at Georgia… who’s the #2 tailback?
• Scott Albrecht takes a look at comparing recruiting and performance.
• Senator Claire McCaskill goes after Big Game Bob in a USA Today editorial.
• FSU’s got a weird sense of priorities when it comes to Jameis Winston:  no football suspension for theft or allegations of sexual assault (hell, no investigation, for that matter), but a half game suspension for talking dirty.  Is Jimbo Fisher getting tired of his antics?
• I’ve gotta give Russ Mitchell credit for one thing.  When it comes to Georgia bashing, he’s one consistent fellow.

“Just hasn’t been real pretty.”

Reading this, I’d say the coaches and players give an honest assessment of Georgia’s passing attack two games into the season.

Troy is 107th in defensive passer rating, so I’d expect Bobo to spend some time working on the timing kinks Saturday.  And don’t be surprised if Mason plays longer in the game than expected.  He and his receivers need the work.