Your morning gallows humor

This message board wrap up of the Georgia-South Carolina game is classic.

And this, sad to say, is spot on.

You know, 12 years removed from watching Lou Holtz run an offense centered around a linebacker playing QB and running the QB draw, I’m amazed that we’ve come full circle. We’re a veer offense team now.

A Spurrier coached team, running what amounts to a single wing.

Damnedest thing.

It’s definitely not what they thought they were signing up for, that’s for sure.

Run the damn… on second thought, do whatever you want, Schotty.

If you scan Bill Connelly’s box scores for all of last week’s games, you’ll find four schools that averaged more than nine yards per offensive play.

Georgia was the only one of the four to do it against a P5 team.

“I’m having a lot of fun.”

Good on ‘ya, Malcolm Mitchell.

Chubb and Michel are special.  But it’s hard not to think that Mitchell’s successful return doesn’t add that element that was missing last season from Georgia’s offense, that spark of a downfield threat.  True, Georgia didn’t have to deploy the deep pass against South Carolina, but I think Lambert’s shown on occasion that he’s got enough of an arm to take advantage of it when needed.

Upon further review, ‘Cock clubbing edition

I sat down and watched me some replay last night.  A few things I noticed:

• Pruitt’s chess match with Spurrier was everything I expected, starting with running four extra guys out at times to leave SC guessing as long as possible about personnel and alignment.  Mauger was fantastic in disguising looks as to whether he was coming to the line or dropping in coverage.  Floyd’s versatility is a handy weapon, too.  One area where Pruitt didn’t get too exotic was in Georgia’s fronts.  The Dawgs played with four on the line for most of the night, and played well there because Mayes and Atkins have improved substantially from last season.
• I noticed it during the game, but it really came out watching again how little faith Spurrier has in South Carolina’s passing game.  I’m sure some of that’s because he was forced to start a former walk-on at quarterback.  But the reality is that outside of Cooper, there really isn’t much of a receiving threat on that team.  I’ll be surprised if at some point soon, Spurrier doesn’t throw in the towel and play for next season by starting Nunez and running a lot more option football.
• Georgia’s offensive line and tight ends blocked their collective asses off.  Really, it’s a thing of beauty to see how those guys operate.  What’s really making things click is that both guards can move well for their size.  Georgia was pulling linemen most of the night, much of the time to devastating effect.
• It wasn’t just Schottenheimer’s run/pass play mix that went dramatically against his tendencies from the first two games.  It was also formations.  Early on, there was very little of the twin tight end, two back sets that we saw a bunch of against ULM and Vandy.  Instead, SC was treated to a sizeable dose of the single back, three wide sets Bobo made much use of last year.
• Just to cut off the first set of smart ass responses I’m guessing are coming, yes, it’s clear the coaches worked on how Lambert positions his feet in the shotgun.  I saw very little variance between his stance for pass plays and runs.
• And for those of you who wonder how you can tell whether a quarterback is going through his reads, you need only watch Georgia’s third play from scrimmage to see a case where Lambert clearly checked off and threw to a secondary target.  (Hint:  watch his head move.  See?  It’s not that hard.)
• Seriously, if you’re looking for one area of Lambert’s play that’s dramatically improved from his time at Virginia, it’s in his ability to process pre-snap reads.  Those quick passes were deadly because he knew at the snap where he’d be able to go.  And he was invariably right.
• Which leads to my other observation about South Carolina.  True, that secondary isn’t good, but Hoke’s scheme was a poor choice, too.  Soft coverage was just what the doctor ordered, as it played right into Lambert’s strength.  I will be surprised if Alabama doesn’t play more press coverage, just to see if it can disrupt Lambert’s timing.
• Lambert got very comfortable quickly, and it showed as the game went on.  He made some great throws, particularly on one to Jay Rome near the goal line and another on a roll out to Reggie Davis that sucked in most of the Gamecock defense.
• The scoring drives that ended the first half and started the second half had something of the feel I used to experience when Georgia’s offense would get on one of those seemingly unstoppable rolls with a hot Aaron Murray and Todd Gurley.  You get the feeling that Schottenheimer is really starting to appreciate what he’s got to work with in his tool belt.

That’s all I got.  If you’re looking for more detail, check out these second looks from Seth Emerson and Jason Butt.

There’s nothing like a big loss to bring out the best in people.

Okay, so Saturday wasn’t a good day in Alabama.  How do I know?

Well, they’re writing open letters to Junior.

Kirk Herbstreit, of all people, gets in a Twitter bitch slap fest with The Blind Side’s Leigh Anne Tuohy.

Auburn?  Well, there’s…“Tammy is next.”

One can only imagine what’s in store if ‘Bama actually loses in Athens in two weeks.

More on the cream rising to the top

And the top of the SEC is, indeed, very good.  I pointed to Sagarin’s ratings on Sunday.  Bill’s and Brian’s F/+ ratings tell much the same story, with four of the top five teams listed there being from the SEC.

Team	Rec	F/+	Rk	Last Wk	Change	S&P+	Rk	FEI	Rk
Alabama	2-1	71.8%	1	1	0	32.8	1	0.285	1
Ohio State	3-0	64.2%	2	2	0	29.3	2	0.255	2
Georgia	3-0	55.9%	3	5	2	27.5	3	0.211	6
Ole Miss	3-0	53.2%	4	7	3	24.2	5	0.213	5
LSU	2-0	49.9%	5	10	5	22.7	6	0.199	10

Not too shabby.

“But after that, the SEC is just kinda there.”

Ed Aschoff has a level-headed take on the current state of the conference here.

After a third, exciting weekend of college football, we’ve figured out that there are currently five truly worthy challengers for the SEC title/playoff this season: Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Behind them, well it’s just a race for relevancy.

In what was supposed to be a banner year for a league we thought was so deep and so good, it’s come to our attention the SEC is just like everyone else these days. Depth is what has made this league so fearless, but it’s suffering in 2015.

As he goes on to say, it’s not like the SEC is suddenly bad.  It’s simply more of a case of it coming back to the pack this season.

The basic problem is that the two teams expected to take the big leap up, Arkansas and Tennessee, have both spit the bit (admittedly, to varying degrees so far) and the one preseason national contender, Auburn, has proven to be what Auburn usually is in years of great expectations… overrated.

There’s still more depth at the top than in any other conference.  But four of those five teams face off against each other, and Alabama picks up Georgia, as well.  The SEC could very well wind up eating itself this season.

Eh, what’s a little terminal disease between friends?

PAWWWLLL’s audience is living down to expectations today, I see.

But one Auburn fan phoned took his displeasure over the top, calling in to Paul Finebaum’s daily radio show and comparing defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to cancer.

Hey, he can’t say bad things about Agent Muschamp.  Only we can say bad things about Agent Muschamp.

Don’t do it for the children.

If there’s anyone in college sports who really ought to keep his mouth shut more than Bob Bowlsby, I’d like to know whom.

Bowlsby: "You can't play college football on Tuesday nights and say you care" about education

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) September 21, 2015

Thursday nights, on the other hand…

“He’s our starter right now…”

The Jeremy Johnson for Heisman campaign is juuuuust a little outside… right now.