Nick Marshall (14) and Auburn will be a team to recon with all season long. (Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports)
It’s the weekend that fans of the SEC West have been waiting on since college football returned to action.
Up until now, there hasn’t been a lot of separation between the teams. After this weekend, however, we will be able to make some valid judgments as to which teams are the contenders and which ones are the pretenders.
Three games will match SEC teams that are currently ranked in the top 15 teams in the nation. The chances are good that at least one team, maybe more than one, will be victim of an upset this weekend.
Let’s get the SEC Crystal Ball dusted off and plunge right into making its picks.
Florida will be at Tennessee and in years past this would have been the top game in the conference, but no more. Florida is a program trying desperately to regain its former prestige and keep its coach employed while Tennessee is a program on the rise under a hot new coach.
“All the goals are still there,” said Florida’s Will Muschamp. “We’ve got a lot of football to play. Everything’s out in front of us, so let’s go get it.”
Is this quote akin to whistling when walking past the grave yard? It will only take another embarrassing loss or two to seal Muschamp’s fate.
“Our players right now, we are learning how to win football games and we are learning how to win,” said Tennessee coach Butch Jones. “That is one of the most difficult and most challenging things that come about with the evolution of a football team is understanding how to close games out, how do you win?”
The Vols should get a good lesson in how to win this weekend. The Crystal Ball says Tennessee will beat Florida.
Texas A&M will travel to Starkville to take on Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs and it won’t be an easy task for either team.
The Aggies survived an overtime game last week against Arkansas and expect the same kind of battle this week.
“I’m glad we got through it, glad we won and we move on to the next challenge which is Mississippi State,” said Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin. “This team is red hot right now with seven straight wins, (racking up) 500 yards a game this year. They are scoring a bunch of points. They’ve always been talented defensively; they have a big athletic defensive line. The secondary is very, very good. They are one of the tops in the league in tackles for loss.”
State has been one of the more pleasant surprises in the league this year.
“You’re going to have to manage the game and manage the tempo of the game,” said Mullen. “You know you’re going to have to score. They’re averaging 51 points per game. If they hit their average, it means we have to score 52. If you hold them just below the average, we’ll have to score 50. Offensively, you know you’re going to have to score points against them if you’re going to beat them.”
State just might pull this one off, but it is going to be a huge task. The Crystal Ball believes this will be one of the upsets and picks Mississippi State.
Third-ranked Alabama goes to Oxford to face11th-ranked Ole Miss. The Rebels have been talking a lot of trash about this game. Is it trash talk or is it confidence? We will find out Saturday.
“I’m thankful and I thank God every day for this job and the opportunity we have to impact the lives of the kids in our program and also the opportunity to compete,” said Rebels coach Hugh Freeze. “I’m going to enjoy this week. Last week, I have to be candid, it wasn’t enjoyable for me.”
Last week Ole Miss beat Memphis and Freeze is anxious to get back on the field even if it does mean facing Alabama.
“I think when you’re playing a team like Ole Miss, especially when you’re playing on the road in the SEC, there are a lot of huge challenges,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban. “First, playing on the road itself, game management noise, and all those kinds of things will be challenges for us, but the biggest thing is going to be their team and the quality of their team. I think the things that they do as a team are going to be real challenges for us.”
A challenge for sure, but the Crystal Ball believes Alabama will meet the challenge and picks the Crimson Tide to win.
South Carolina will beat an improved Kentucky and even though Mark Stoops’ team is better, it probably isn’t ready to knock off one of the SEC East heavyweights.
“When we lose a game, all of the little mistakes that you make all the time, come to light,” said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. “We had three third-and-ones that we had penalties on. One of our defensive kids lined up offside when we got the interception there in the first quarter. We had a lot of little things and when it’s a close game like that and we lose, they all surface. Hopefully we can be sharper and hopefully not beat ourselves at all and try to play the best we can up at Kentucky.”
The Crystal Ball likes South Carolina to win this one.
Vanderbilt will be at Georgia and this one, despite the tough time Georgia has last week in beating Tennessee, the Crystal Ball likes Georgia to win going away.
“[I’m] Looking forward to playing the game,” said Georgia coach Mark Richt. “Looking forward to being home between the hedges again, seeing that sea of red to help motivate our players.”
Finally in a classic battle at Auburn, look for Gus Malzahn’s Tigers to beat Les Miles’ Tigers.
“When you turn the film on, from year to year it looks like the same LSU team,” said Malzahn. “They are flying around; they’ve got a lot of talent. They’ve got some veteran guys. A lot of the time the freshmen are extremely talented, so they get a lot of attention. They do have a lot of veteran guys back that do start or at least got to play last year. They are a very talented team.”
