No, they can’t take that away from him.

I only hope that each of you is loved by someone as much as Mark Bradley loves the fact that Paul Johnson is the last coach to beat Kirby Smart in Athens.

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Kicking a program when it’s down

Man, Pete Fiutak really piles it on here:

You ready for pain? Since 2008, Tennessee has as many bowl wins as Vanderbilt.

And it gets worse.

After last week’s loss to BYU, Tennessee has gone 9-17 since opening up the 2017 season with a thrilling win over Georgia Tech. Over that time, the Vols have a grand total of two wins over Power Five programs.

And it gets even worse than that.

Even with the losses to Georgia State and BYU, Tennessee barely gets on the radar to be among the nation’s biggest early disappointments, mainly because no one really expected anything in the first place.

Ouchy ouch.

Not that he’s wrong about any of that.

Today, in brevity is the soul of wit

Stewart Mandel, a man of few words ($$):

The school: Tennessee.

The problem: The Vols are a hapless, poorly-coached football team. Even worse than usual.

Is it fixable? I seriously doubt it.

As the Talmudic scholar once said, all the rest is commentary.

Great minds think alike.

From Junior to Bianchi:

We sometimes chuckle and roll our eyes at some of the outlandish statements that come from the mouth of FAU coach Lane Kiffin, but in this case, the Lane Train is absolutely correct when he says UCF belongs in the SEC.

Actually, after watching some SEC teams embarrass themselves in Week 1 of the college football season, UCF probably belongs at the top of the SEC — just below Alabama and Georgia and right there with Florida, Auburn and LSU.

During a teleconference with reporters earlier this week, Kiffin talked about this week’s game against UCF and playing the Knights last season when they handed the Owls a 56-36 loss. Before last year’s game, Kiffin recalled an on-field conversation he had with UCF coach Josh Heupel.

“I remember talking to Coach [Heupel] and I was like, ‘You guys look like an SEC team over there,’” remembered Kiffin…

One day, Gus Malzahn needs to pay, and pay dearly, for the sin of having Auburn not show up for a bowl game.

“Did you see what those two did? That has to make (Smart) sick.”

Matt Hayes must have been feeling threatened by the spate of this weekend’s stoopid hot takes to join the party with this incisive observation:

There’s no way around it, so we might as well get it out in the open.

If Ohio State gets to the College Football Playoff and Georgia doesn’t, that’s a bad look for Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart.

If Washington gets there, it’s disastrous.

I don’t care about who has the harder road to the CFP, or who plays in the toughest conference (did you watch the SEC East Division in Week 1?). This is all about a decision Smart made – not once, but twice – that will define his time in Athens.

It was easy to ignore the decision to choose one almost 5-star quarterback (Jake Fromm) over two 5-star quarterbacks (Jacob Eason in 2017 and Justin Fields in 2018) when Fromm was the only guy on the field to protect that decision. Now that Fields (Ohio State) and Eason (Washington) are playing at major Power 5 schools since transferring from Georgia because of Smart’s decision to hitch the program to Fromm, the fallout could have far-reaching implications.

Ooh.  The retort to that is so obvious… well, obvious to anyone not named Matt Hayes.

Fields and Eason looked unique. As well as Fromm has played at Georgia, he hasn’t been unique. That’s not an arguable point.

His numbers (55 TDs, 13 INTs) are strong; his numbers in big games are uneven – most notably, 2 losses to Alabama.

He struggled in the National Championship Game in 2017…

As a true freshman, Jake Fromm quarterbacked his team to within a whisker of winning a national championship — and that was after heading up an epic Rose Bowl comeback.  By comparison, showing up FAU and Eastern Washington is supposed to give Kirby Smart heartburn?

C’mon, man.  Would Smart like to have Eason or Fields still on his roster?  One would presume so.  Is he kicking himself for making a bad choice by sticking with Fromm?  Pundit, please.

Your Daily Gator is convincing.

Among national pundits, USA Today’s Paul Myerberg was relatively unimpressed with Florida this preseason, placing them fifteenth in his initial team rankings.

Now, with their epic win over Miami in hand, Myerberg has seen the light, ranking the Gators in his top ten dropping the Gators all the way down to 28th in his post-Week 0 list.

Andy Staples on Feleipe Franks

Franks has progressed. Sacked once and threw a pick while getting hit. (First pick was throwing to an open WR and another open WR thought it was for him and jumped and tipped it.)

In the past, the kind of pressure he faced last night would have led to far more negative plays. https://t.co/r0ynzROqdx

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 25, 2019

“Doesn’t suck as much as he used to” may not be the take you need, but it’s certainly the one you want.