Almost But Not Quite For Tennessee

I used to laugh about how bad Tennessee had become the past few seasons (I know, that’s mean-spirited, I’m not proud of it), but after their crushing 10-9 loss against Florida on Saturday, I think I’ve found a soft spot in my heart for the Volunteers.

I feel sorry for Tennessee. I feel sorry for Butch Jones, the players, and the fans.

The program hasn’t been nearly the same since the Phillip Fulmer era, in which it had nine seasons of ten wins or more, including two SEC championships and even a national championship.

During that era, from the latter half of 1992 to 2008, Tennessee only had two losing seasons. Since Tennessee made the mistake of running Fulmer out of town, Tennessee has only had one winning season out of five, a 7-6 mark in Lane Kiffin’s one season in Knoxville.

And, well, we all know how that turned out.

Since 2009, they’ve gone 6-7 (they went .500 in the regular season, but lost their bowl game), followed by a string of four straight 5-7 seasons, with three different head coaches along the way.

They have been so close in so many games since Fulmer’s departure, and as the losses have piled up, the tension has been steadily mounting.

It finally seemed to boil over last Saturday, as the Vols blew a nine-point third quarter lead against an inconsistent Florida team, prompting a rather unpleasant reaction from the Tennessee student section.

Heartbreaking losses have been the story of Tennessee football the past six seasons.

Just last week, Tennessee narrowly lost to 13^th-ranked Georgia 35-32, after falling to the Bulldogs (ranked sixth at the time) 34-31 in overtime last year.

In 2012, they lost to Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Missouri, all by ten points or less. They couldn’t pull off an upset of 12^th-ranked LSU in 2010, falling 16-14.

For years now, it’s been “almost but not enough” for Tennessee. In games that could swing a season’s momentum, the Vols always come up just short.

The last three seasons, the Vols got off to hot start against mediocre competition, and it looked like the situation in Knoxville was looking up. The players and coaches would get their confidence up, and the fans would start acting like Tennessee was ready for Atlanta again.

And then, the conference matchups started rolling in. Soon, the Vols found themselves spiraling out of control yet again, unable to get that signature win that could turn their season around.

In each of the past three seasons, Tennessee has had at least one four-game losing streak against SEC opponents. At least five of those matchups over three years were decided by ten points or less.

As of last week, their conference record since the end of the Fulmer era is now 12-31. Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Georgia are the only SEC teams Tennessee has beaten since 2008. Not exactly what you’d call conference powerhouses.

Tennessee just can’t seem to go toe-to-toe with the SEC’s best, a sad position for a program that used to be an annual contender.

The worst part is that it still won’t change, at least not this year. Tennessee is improved and close to contender caliber, but just not there yet.

Their past two games have proven that they have talent, but not enough experience, or a championship attitude. Late in the games they’ve lost, they played as if they were the inferior team.

Adopting the underdog role can be an effective tool at times, but at some point, you have come out onto the field believing that you can compete with any opponent, no matter you are or how highly ranked they are. Tennessee just doesn’t look like that team.

They make critical errors at the wrong times, catch incredibly unlucky breaks, and don’t bounce back with confidence that they can overcome those mistakes and bad breaks.

Butch Jones has them headed in the right direction. Truth be told, they were robbed last week against Florida. But that’s the thing about the SEC, there are no guaranteed wins.

Yes, the Gators should’ve been penalized for a delay of game, and possibly would’ve missed the field goal. But when the kick split the uprights, there were still six minutes left in the game. Plenty of time for Tennessee to drive down into at least field goal range.

All the talent in the world won’t matter if Tennessee can’t get out of its own way, and right now, they simply can’t.

This season has followed the exact same script as the three years before it. Win the first two nonconference games, drop a ton of SEC games.

For Tennessee to return to the ranks of the elite, they have start believing that they are a championship-caliber team at the end of the game, not just at the start of it.

I’ll say it again, I like the direction Butch Jones has the Vols headed in. He’s doing the best he can with a lot of young, mostly undeveloped talent, especially along his offensive and defensive lines.

Don’t be surprised to see a dramatic improvement out of Tennessee in the next couple of years, as long as the Vols give Jones enough time to work.

But as it stands now, Tennessee just isn’t there yet.

This Is Why We Love College Football

It started when Oregon lost its second straight game to Arizona on Thursday night. It ended with a late Saturday night upset of UCLA by Utah.

Three teams from the top five were toppled. Five of the top ten fell. Eleven of the top 25 were knocked down.

From start to finish, week six of this college football season was arguably the most exciting we’ve ever seen, and it reminded us of a very important lesson.

No team is safe. Ever.

That has never been truer than in this season. Don’t sleep on any opponent; doing so could cost you.

This past weekend was filled with thrilling finishes and an onslaught of upsets, and once the dust settled, the college football landscape had shifted dramatically.

Auburn silenced the critics and made a strong move toward the forefront of the national title, while Oregon, Alabama, and Oklahoma all fell from the top five. Texas A&M and UCLA dropped from the top ten, while LSU, USC, Wisconsin, and BYU completely fell out of the rankings. Stanford and Nebraska also lost, but stayed in the top 25.

With teams in the top 25 getting hacked away with a machete, a small trail of unranked teams trickling down into the polls was inevitable.

The most notable of which was Arizona, who made an incredible rise from just outside the top 25 to number ten after their upset of second-ranked Oregon.

Arizona State, Georgia Tech, and Utah also broke the top 25 after being unranked, and the College Football Playoff picture looks dramatically different now than it did to start the season.

Mississippi State and Ole Miss are both tied for third in the nation, TCU made an astronomic jump from 25^th to ninth, and Alabama, Oklahoma, and Oregon are all on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

And that’s the beauty of college football.

The postseason picture is an ever-changing tapestry in the hands of a splatter painter. Frankly, you just never know what it’s going to look like when it’s done.

Because the small schools continue to get better with the continuing emergence of young, innovative coaches and spread offenses, traditional powers are becoming less and less invincible.

And while upsets seem to be more common these days, there’s still a reason they’re called upsets. They’re not supposed to happen.

That’s why we love college football.

We love the suspense, comebacks, upsets, and drama that all come with college football every week. We love being surprised, and we’re drawn to anything with a shock factor.

It’s why we were glued to our TVs as Ole Miss beat Alabama for the first time in ten years, and Oklahoma fell to TCU within the hour. It’s why we were stunned by Arizona’s second straight upset over Oregon in the early hours of the morning, if you live on the East Coast.

It’s why no one could believe when Auburn trounced LSU 41-7, or when Mississippi State dominated Texas A&M 48-31 (the score is deceiving), both of whom were ranked in the top 15.

It’s why we watched and re-watched Arizona State’s thrilling Hail Mary finish over Southern Cal, and threw our hands in the air when we saw on Sunday morning that UCLA had also been toppled and that college football served us up yet another stunning finish.

We love upsets. We love comebacks. We love it when one ranked team unexpectedly demolishes another one, simply because no one saw it coming.

We love to be entertained, and there was no more entertaining weekend in sports than week six of college football.

So here’s to you, 2014. Thank you for giving us memorable games that we’ll never forget.

Oh, and thank you for only being halfway done. 

Get Used to These SEC Shakeups

Good luck predicting anything in this year's SEC. You'd have better luck winning the lottery three years in a row in a state that doesn’t have a lottery.

This past weekend showed us yet again how unpredictable and unforgiving college football’s best conference can be.

If you don’t bring it every week, you lose often. Sorry, try again next year.

Five SEC teams went into week six undefeated. Three came away unscathed, all of whom picked up impressive wins. And although the results of these star-studded matchups revealed something about each team, all of the drama left us with more questions than answers.

Is Mississippi the premier football state this year? Is Auburn the best team in the nation? Could Alabama’s dominance be declining?

What in the world is happening to South Carolina and LSU? Will Arkansas and Kentucky make bowl games in their places?

With the considerable strength of the West, is it at all possible for an East team to win the SEC championship?

These questions and many more plague us as we move toward the halfway point in the season, with the SEC still largely undecided. Nine teams across the conference still have a legitimate shot at winning their respective divisions.

Auburn jumped to the forefront of the SEC and national title race with its thorough disassembling of LSU, followed very closely by Mississippi State and Ole Miss (no, that’s not a joke).

South Carolina and LSU took major steps back, while Kentucky took a step forward. Alabama and Texas A&M are still top-tier teams, but will have to do some reevaluating this week. Every other team pretty much stayed in the same place.

But don’t expect that to hold up. If there’s anything we learned from this past weekend, it’s that everyone is vulnerable, and anyone can lose.

From this point on, every week can have major implications in the race for the SEC championship and the College Football Playoff.

Auburn, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss are now out in front of the SEC West, each in control of its own destiny. Alabama and Texas A&M are not far behind, each with only one loss and very capable of beating any of the teams mentioned above.

I’m excited to see how football’s best division shakes out by the end of the season, especially with every one of its team statistically capable of winning enough games to be bowl eligible.

With no guaranteed conference wins, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that no teams in the West will be undefeated in a few weeks.

Obviously either Auburn or Mississippi State will suffer their first loss this weekend, and both teams enter the home stretch of brutal schedules after a bye week. And Ole Miss had better be careful with a trip to College Station coming up. Texas A&M will be angry and eager to prove itself on its home turf.

But if even one of these three unbeatens can remain as such, someone has to drop a few contests. The trick is figuring out who will be losing all of these West games.

Before the season started, I was certain it would be Arkansas, but now I’m not so sure. LSU has the talent to compete with anybody, but raw skill gets you nowhere without experience. If Les Miles can’t figure out some way to kick start his offense, it could mean the Mad Hatter’s first losing season ever at LSU.

And as we’ve seen in recent years, it’s very hard to pull out of a nosedive once you’ve lost your first couple of conference games. The losses start to pile up, and snowball into a bad season.

Speaking of losing early, South Carolina has officially begun spiraling out of control in the East. Already suffering three SEC losses, the Gamecocks have all but played themselves out of the SEC championship game.

And right alongside South Carolina’s collapse has come the resurgence of Kentucky, who are one missed call away from starting out 5-0. Especially after the shenanigans of the past weekend, the Wildcats would likely find themselves somewhere in the top 25.

Is it farfetched to believe that the November 1 Missouri-Kentucky matchup could determine the winner of the East? Georgia clearly isn’t as good as Todd Gurley, and if they lose this weekend against Missouri, suddenly the Tigers and Wildcats are in control of the East.

“But what about Florida? They only have one loss,” some of you are saying. Florida’s record is deceiving, as they’ve been the beneficiary of questionable officiating in two separate games.

The Gators should be 1-3 instead of 3-1, but now the officials have forgotten what a delay of game penalty is in not one, but two games.

They are most certainly not in control of their own destiny, as their offense still isn’t where it needs to be, and they will not beat teams like Georgia or Florida State without scoring through three-fourths of the game.

All in all, it should be a crazy finish in the SEC this year. For the first time ever, both Ole Miss and Mississippi State are ranked in the top ten at the same time, Auburn is proving that last season wasn’t a fluke, and it’s possible that the seven best teams in the SEC are all in the West.

Amidst all of the uncertainty and volatility in the latter half of the SEC schedule, know this: there is absolutely no way to know for sure who will be on top at season’s end.

So just enjoy the ride.

Podcast: Auburn vs. LSU

As you all know, Auburn demolished LSU in arguably its best and most impressive conference win in ten years.

Now that the dust has settled, where does Auburn stand?

Leonard Fournette Memes

Today, I bestow unto you a gift: a page of memes making fun of a self-absorbed young man by the name of Leonard Fournette.

Who is Leonard Fournette? He is a freshman running back at LSU, a top-ranked recruit last season. He's a tremendously talented individual, considered a true star in the making.

The problem is that he clearly thinks so too.

Yes, that was Sam Houston State he was running over. I understand that he was excited about his first career touchdown coming right after such a great run, but it was still against Sam Houston State.

So without further ado, here are a bunch of memes making fun of an extremely cocky young tailback with only 364 yards through six games.

Disclaimer: I feel a strong urge to make fun of him now while I can, because I really do think that he'll be scary good once he and the rest of LSU's young team get some experience. But for now, try running well against a team not called Sam Houston State or New Mexico State, Leonard.