Who do you go out and get if you’re FSU?
Maybe. Maybe not. They are undefeated in games that an above average, but not necessarily great, team should win.
They haven’t really had any serious tests yet. They haven’t played anybody ranked. Their non-conference schedule was all Group of Five conference teams. Their Big Ten schedule to date has all been against the middle to bottom of the conference. Illinois, at 4-4 overall and 2-3 conference, is arguably their signature win. That’s based mostly on Illinois’ upset of Wisconsin. It’s the same Illinois team that also lost against MAC cellar dweller Eastern Michigan, though. If it’s not them then it’s Nebraska with the same overall and conference record. None of their other conference opponents even have winning records.
We’ll find out if Minnesota is for real in their remaining four games, IMO. They’ve got three ranked teams - Penn State, Iowa, and Wisconsin. There’s only one easy game left for the Gophers; that’s 1-6 Northwestern. They’d better enjoy their bye next Saturday. Their schedule gets real the next week.
Stoops from Kentucky would, I think, be an improvement.
The real story though, is that we’re broke. We blew through a ton on money trying to keep Jimbo by building facilities. We can’t afford the buyout AND a good new coach. My understanding is that part of the attractiveness of hiring Mike Martin’s kid to take over the program (despite having no head coaching experience) was that he came relatively cheap.
Figure on Taggert staying until:
[ol]
[li]The financial situation improves.[/li][li]His buyout gets down low enough that we can take the hit.[/li][li]He does something dumb enough to negate/reduce to manageable levels the buyout.[/li][/ol]
2 is the most likely with 3 being a real long shot. 1 would most likely involve some big booster or group of boosters and I think that well is currently semi-dry.
Evidently the voters are smoking the same substance you are, because this week they jumped from #11 to #7 on the “strength” of just barely squeaking out a win over the hapless Cougs in the last few seconds. A top ten team should be able to pull its starters in the first half against Wazzu.
What you can really figure is that I apparently don’t know what I’m talking about:
Florida State has fired Willie Taggart effective immediately
The article implies that the Booster’s signature investment in College Town was taking a huge hit from the team’s general suckitude and that it was pay the money now or lose even more waiting it out.
There are also quiet rumors that FSU may have some “moral issues” in their pocket to negotiate a lower buyout. Seems too good to be true, but you never know…
UCLA won their 3rd straight under the Chipper; USC got murdered on live TV in the Coliseum. Expect there to be recruiting consequences - and coaching consequences as well.
Georgia came up with a big win against Florida, which I wasn’t expecting. I thought Florida would take it.
Scott Frost is probably regretting that he left UCF.
Is it me, or is this year not that interesting?
The playoff race has been pretty predicable. Even preseason was always 4 of these teams:
Alabama
Clemson
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Georgia
I guess LSU has been a surprise, but gigantic SEC school doesn’t feel Cinderella-ish.
Heisman drama has been lacking. It will be the winning QB of LSU vs Bama. I don’t realistically see Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields or Chase “family friend” Young passing them.
It’s probably me, since Nebraska didn’t quite live up to the preseason hype as a playoff darkhorse. I admit I expected this second year under Scott Frost not be another 4-8 season. Maybe they can compete with USC-Florida State-Tennessee for a 1990s “Toilet Bowl Throwback Playoff”
I was just looking at a story about the Tigers/Tide game, covering some of the pre-game activities. There was a sign that showed a picture of, I think, the LSU coach along with what looked like gibberish: “po pieponator boopoo nong footbrawl bit bong” (along with “And Epstein didn’t kill himself”). Is that something like Cajun?
Ed Orgeron is from Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. If you wanna know what a backwoods, swamp thing Louisiana accent is like, go to Lafourche or Terrebonne Parishes.
We got to see some amazing SEC defense out there this afternoon.
Probably just illiterate Tide gibberish.
It’s 2019. It’s all about offence. Two Heisman candidates head to head. Try to keep up.
As much as I’d like to savor this victory, I’ve already seen LSU’s weakness: their defense. I’m not convinced that Dave Aranda is the defensive genius everyone seems to think he is. How the fuck they were playing man to man receiver coverage against one of the best passing attacks in the nation with a 2 score lead and just under 2 minutes to play…I will never understand. That 85 yard bomb is not on the players; it’s so totally on the coaches, and I question Aranda.
Not the first time we’ve been scammed by a supposedly good Big-10 coordinator who turned out to be overrated when he was coaching against real players.
LOL
It’s all about the talent.
In the end, it’ll be interesting to see of LSU, Bama, or Georgia has the talent to compete with Clemson. I’m an S-E-C chanting fanboy, but I’m also a realist: Clemson (not necessarily the ACC as a whole, but Clemson) has the goods. They’ve got the coach. They’ve got the most athletic players. Sure, they only play a handful of meaningful games during the year, but that doesn’t matter: they demonstrated last year that when they actually face the best in the country, they can keep up.
And I really hope the Deion Sanders rumors are just rumors. Adding him as a coach? Fine. But not as the head coach.
This post may turn out to be a dud, but I have a very weird feeling that LSU vs Ole Miss might be a lot more interesting than people expect. LSU is coming off an emotional win, and it’s visiting an old rival that has a history of playing the Tigers tough. Ole Miss’ record’s not that great but they’ve gone down swinging. If the Tigers take the Rebs seriously, then I suspect they’ll win as expected, but if the Tigers come out flat, this could get interesting. Ole Miss is kinda like the Iowa St of the SEC. You can’t ever overlook them.
None of it matters anyway. The ESPN Gods have spoken and the CFP will be Alabama plus whichever of LSU/Georgia survives the SEC championship (oh and Ohio State and maybe Clemson if they ask real nicely and continue the longest current winning streak in the country).
Seriously, LSU wins over Alabama and Alabama gets the bye into the CFP. Un-fucking-believable. I hope Auburn kicks the ever-loving shit out of the Tide.
Here’s the rule, you want to play? WIN YOUR FUCKING CONFERENCE. Or at least play in the damn championship game.
Except…suppose (“looks like somebody’s got a bad case of the supposed’tas”) LSU was in the SEC East. Would Alabama be any more or less deserving of a spot in the final four just because its loss to LSU happened to be in the conference championship game while Georgia’s would have been in the regular season?
Actually, based on past history, the answer is, “the later you lose, the more it affects things” - case in point: in 2007, back when Missouri was in the Big 12, it beat Kansas the week before it lost by 21 to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game, only to watch while the Orange Bowl took Kansas ahead of it - and thanks to the “sorry, only two teams per conference” rule the BCS had, Missouri ended up in the Cotton Bowl, which, at the time, was not a “big money bowl.”
I could be wrong, but I suspect that if LSU goes into the SEC title game undefeated, Alabama’s probably out, depending on how LSU plays, and of course how other teams from other conferences play up to that point.
But let’s say we’ve got Ohio State, Clemson and then Georgia narrowly defeats LSU in an epic game, I think Alabama’s out. I think the CFP would lose credibility if they selected a Bama team that got beaten by an LSU team that also beat 4 top ten teams.
Now if LSU beats Georgia, then UGA loses its conference and becomes a 2-loss team, which means that a lot of people would argue that Bama’s the 2nd rated team in the SEC, which isn’t an unreasonable conclusion (assuming Alabama remains a 1-loss team and finishes the season strong).
The question then becomes is Alabama more deserving of Oregon, or are they more deserving of the Big 12 winner, or even another strong Big10 team like Penn State. My guess is, yes, they would get the benefit of the doubt based on history.
I think that whether the rest of the country likes it or not, there’s a very good chance of having 2 teams from the SEC this year.
However, I’ve watched LSU choke before. They could still get suckered this weekend. Some writers have predicted that A&M will be a tough game, but psychologically, I think the Tigers will be pumped up at a chance for revenge from last year.