By
Brian Harbach
The SEC Bachstory will be a weekly SEC recap posted every Monday morning breaking down all the big events from the previous weekend. In order to eliminate all confusion, the Bach in Bachstory is pronounced like back (Back to the Future, The Empire Strikes Back, Back in Black), you get the picture.
This week we take a look at SEC Baseball played in September, game saving interceptions, and the lack of offense in the SEC. As usual the format is the same: please feel free to send me any comments or suggestions. Here we go…
The Weekend That Was
There were a lot of interesting events that took place this week like Tennessee getting back on track before Florida comes to town, Auburn and Georgia surviving tough road games and then falling in the polls because of it, LSU still looking for a QB and burning the redshirt of Jordan Jefferson, but there was one thing that stood out the most, Vanderbilt. For the second week in a row Vandy will be the focal point of this first section and it is very much deserved.
Vanderbilt beat Rice 38-21 in Nashville to get to 3-0 and what is impressive about the win is that this is a game the old Vandy would have lost. Even with Jay Cutler as the QB, the Commodores always seemed to lose that one game they shouldn’t have to not make it to a bowl. Last year it was a 5-7 season with a last minute loss to UGA, in 2005 Vandy lost to Middle Tennessee due to a blocked field goal that would have given them a 6-5 record. The game against Rice was a game Vandy would have found a way to lose, this year they won it and they look like a bowl team right now. There are four games left on their schedule that they could win (MSU, Ole Miss, Duke and Kentucky), it won’t be easy, but this looks like a different Commodore team and the win over Rice shows this year might be different.
The Weekend That Wasn’t
Arkansas vs. Texas was supposed to be played this weekend renewing an old Southwest conference rivalry, but it was postponed due to Hurricane Ike. The game was moved to September 27th when both teams have open weekends, but Arkansas is getting the short end of the stick in this change. That bye week was originally placed in the middle of a three game marathon with games against Alabama, Florida and at Auburn. Now with the rescheduling of the Texas game in consecutive weeks Arkansas will play 4 top 10 teams. They will play Alabama, at Texas, Florida and finish at Auburn. Brutal is not strong enough a word for this mess, Bobby Petrino better get his boys ready and ready fast because the best in the country has you next.
The Weekend That…What the Heck
Last year watching the Auburn at Arkansas game I thought this was probably as ugly an offensive showing as I will ever see. The score was 6-0 with Auburn ahead late in the fourth quarter until Casey Dick threw a late touchdown pass with 1:36 left in the game. It ended when Auburn drove down the field to win it with a 20 yd field goal. Two offenses struggling, two defenses playing well, but overall an ugly football game.
If that game was ugly, there has yet to be a word invented to describe the level of uglitude (yes, I just made that word up) in Starkville, Mississippi Saturday night. Neither team converted a third down in the first half, MSU didn’t convert a third down for the entire game and the there was more yellow on the field than in the stands of Lambeau Field. Sure the defenses were good, but a 3-2 final score is not how a football game should end. The end had some drama via Auburn trying to give the game away, but hopefully saying this was the ugliest game ever played will not be viewed as a challenge to Tommy Tuberville to see if he can prove me wrong.
The Weekend That Will Be
For the second time this season ESPN Gameday will be visiting an SEC Campus, this weekend they will be in Auburn for the match-up between Tigers. This will be the second game in a row when the LSU Tigers have visited Auburn and both teams are ranked in the top 10. In 2006 Auburn was ranked 3rd and LSU was ranked 6th. The last two games in Jordan Hare stadium were decided by 5 points and this year should be another close, low scoring battle.
This is probably the best weekend of games we have had in the early season, Ole Miss gets a visit from Vandy, Georgia heads out west for the first time in half a century to play Arizona State and Alabama travels to Arkansas to take on the SEC’s leading passer, Casey Dick. We haven’t even mentioned to the Florida/Tennessee game that should be a war between a desperate Tennessee team and a very rested bunch of Gators.
Big Man on Campus (BMOC)
Rashad Jones, Georgia and Walter McFadden, Auburn
These two defensive backs sealed their teams victories on the road with game saving interceptions. Jones made a great pick at the 5 yard line with South Carolina driving to score the tying touchdown and McFadden made a pick on the sidelines to stop Mississippi State from driving for an attempt at a game winning field goal. Both these defensive backs made huge plays to save the game for their team in a tough road environment and should be congratulated for their great plays.
Player Now Doing Charlie Work (PNDCW)
As a note to those who do not know what “Charlie-Work” is, do yourself a favor and start watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the episode called “Dennis and Dee go on Welfare” explains it perfectly).
Auburn Running backs
We have had ties in the past with the PNDCW, but this is the first time an entire position is getting put on Charlie Work. For the second consecutive week Auburn had three different running backs fumble the football. Last week against Southern Miss they lost 2 fumbles in the red zone, this week they lost 2 fumbles clinging to 3-2 lead while trying to run out the clock. Eddie Gran, Auburn’s running back coach, has his work set out for him this week to figure out why his backs can’t hold onto the football. If anyone sees Tristan Davis, Ben Tate or Brad Lester this weekend on the AU campus let me know if they are holding a football while walking to class. If not, they might find themselves in this part of the column forced to do Charlie Work again.
4 Downs with the SEC
First Down – South Carolina play Calling
Steve Spurrier has been beaten up pretty badly the last couple months by the SEC media and me in particular, but the play calling in this past weekend’s game against Georgia was atrocious. Chris Smelley was not great, but he wasn’t terrible either and the use of Stephen Garcia against Georgia was confusing and unnecessary. Garcia was brought in for three plays, two of which he threw incomplete passes. It makes no sense to bring Garcia into the game to throw the ball when you have a quarterback that was already having some success in the passing game. If Spurrier wanted to run a trick play or have Garcia run a draw like he did on his first play, no problem. But having him throw passes was pointless and terrible decision making like that probably cost South Carolina a shot to upset UGA.
Second Down – Five SEC teams in the top 10
Looking at the AP top 25 right now the SEC is taking up half of the top 10 with Georgia, Florida, LSU, Alabama and Auburn all taking up real estate at the top. A lot of these teams have match-ups with each other over the next 2 months, but Georgia is the only team to play all 4 of the other current top ten SEC teams. Of those four games that the Bulldogs have on their schedule, only one of them is in Sanford stadium and this is not even counting next week’s match-up with Arizona State. If UGA can go through the season unbeaten there is no question that they should be the number 1 team in the country over a very good Southern Cal. The way it looks right now the SEC champ will likely have at least one loss because the league is just too deep for anyone to go unbeaten.
Third Down – Auburn, we have a problem
Auburn fans made fun of Nick Saban when he started at Alabama saying that some of their losses and struggles were part of the process. That process was what it meant to rebuild a program that was very far behind a lot of the SEC. How ironic is it now that any day Tommy Tuberville should be muttering that same phrase regarding his offense. The regression of the Auburn offense has been astounding under new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin and the schedule is not going to get easier especially with LSU coming to town.
The amazing thing is that in 4 games with Franklin as the OC, the Auburn offense has looked worse in each one. They had season highs last year in plays run and yards against Clemson in the Peach Bowl, but since then the last three games have been a slow decline culminating with the baseball score we saw Saturday night. The worst possible candidate for the spread offense, last year’s starter Brandon Cox, looked the best of any QB Franklin has put played and the two guys who should excel in the new offense, Chris Todd and Kodi Burns, look lost and nervous. The first three games were supposed to get the offense ready for the LSU game, after three games it is hard to see them surviving it.
Fourth Down – Does Anyone want to step up?
It gets tougher and tougher to win road games in the SEC as witnessed Saturday with UGA traveling to Columbia and Auburn traveling to Starkville. Both road teams were at least touchdown favorites in the games and both barely survived to keep their unbeaten records in tact. As of right now there is not one team in the SEC that stands out as the team to beat and that is a pretty good thing for fans. As many as 6 teams can legitimately say they have an opportunity to play for a conference title and that is the way it should be.
The Big 12 looks like a great race that will go down to the end of the year, but the Big 10 will end up with another Ohio State coronation and the PAC 10 was decided before anyone put a helmet on. The depth of the SEC, as shown by the polls, will produce one probably the most exciting month of November in recent history. With games like Alabama/LSU, Auburn/Alabama, Florida/Georgia and Georgia/Auburn all scheduled for the last month, it is hard to see a favorite right now and that is the way SEC football should be.
Questions or comments? E-mail
me Brian Harbach
Y’all Play Nice - Week Three, September 11, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, September 8, 2008
Harbach’s SEC Picks Week Two, September 3, 2008
Y’all Play Nice Week Two, September 3, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, September 1, 2008
SEC Picks Week One, August 28, 2008
Y’all Play Nice, August 28, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 25, 2008
Y’all Play Nice, August 21, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 18, 2008
Has Spurrier Failed at USC?, August 15, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 11, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 3, 2008
Harbach's Top 5 SEC Offensive Players by Position, July 27, 2008
Harbach's Top 5 SEC Defensive Players by Position, July 27, 2008
Harbach's Top SEC Games, July 13, 2008
Championship Game Hurts SEC, July 6, 2008
Harbach's 2008 SEC Preview, June 30, 2008
Let's Get This Started, June 9, 2008
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