Is the SEC kinda bad this year?

rgw

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Sep 15, 2003
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I've been musing this all night but I figured I'd condense it into one area. What this is really about is Auburn and LSU. Think back to week four of the season: two coaches with teams basically playing as a referendum on their employment. Well, the billing proved accurate, Auburn won a game by kicking six field goals for a 18-13 victory and Les Miles was out as LSU's head coach the next day. What I don't think anyone expected is neither team would lose a game since that night and both would be sitting in position to potentially win the division. Neither of these teams looked good. Both got shutdown by their major OOC opponent to open the season. Maybe people still believed at the time that Malzahn had only won some temporary job security.

Now did both of teams just get immensely better since their tough opening schedule or is something else going on here? We've seen enough games that we have a pretty good idea just what all these teams are going to be for the most part...and I think the main reason for the Auburn and LSU resurgence is that most of the SEC is just plain terrible. Ole Miss has no run game, can't protect well enough to be a pass-heavy team, and they're awful defensively. Arkansas can't play defense nor protect their quarterback. MSU's QB play isn't the same without Dak and they're bad on defense too. Vandy and South Carolina are practically the same can't-score-enough-to-help-their-D-out team. Georgia is a hot mess. Injuries have destroyed Tennessee. Mizzou is a hot mess too. Kentucky has lost to the only two good SEC teams they've played, beaten some of these so called "SEC teams" above.

Kentucky. KENTUCKY! Is your 2nd place in the SEC East team heading into the last week of October. Their fans were openly talking about canning Stoops before the preseason tipoff in Rupp this past week diverted their attention until next August.

There are 5 good teams in the SEC at this juncture: Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and LSU. The fall off after LSU is so stark, you might as well call it SoCon. So do I think Auburn or LSU have really turned it around? Maybe...confidence in execution is worth something and there are plenty of punching bags out there for them to get that benefit this season. LSU still has Alabama, Florida, and TAMU ahead...they could end up thoroughly exposed. Auburn has it better. I wouldn't be surprised if they're 9-2 before they catch a good team again.
 
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Gallowglas

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At various times in the season, I would have told you that Ole Miss and Arkansas were in the mix too. Both those teams seem to have fallen considerably. Even so, the west is so far ahead of the east that it's not even really worth comparing and I'd put pretty decent odds of any west team except Miss St at least giving fits any team in the east right now.

I'm still not sold on Florida.
 

theballguy

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Nov 5, 2012
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At this point, I'd say it's Alabama, Texas A&M, Auburn and LSU. Ole Miss simply knows they're out and didn't play very well last night. I get the feeling that Arkansas players are going through the motions too. I think Bret Bielema becomes the next Les Miles. The rest are pretty terrible. Awful. Yes, including Florida. I've never felt they looked any better from 2015 and almost seemed to have regressed.

SEC isn't the only conference in down shape as a whole. Ohio State fell apart as well last night against Penn State. So, I can only think the best team right now is either us or Michigan. Michigan has looked like the most solid team but they've played a bunch of cupcakes. Except for Michigan, tOSU and Wisconsin (with 2 losses), the rest of the B1G is just as bad as the SEC's bottom feeders.

I got overly exuberant after the beatdown of Tennessee last week. I really felt like we completely win out. Now, I'm not as sure as I was. I know we looked a little tired yesterday. And... we just lost Eddie Jackson. I've never had a swing in confidence in Alabama like I have over the last week. Still, we should be able to win out but the road looks a lot tougher after yesterday. We haven't been up against a team that can shut our run game down but Jalen has to improve on the passing part of his game else the Iron Bowl could be tougher than it should be. Auburn looks very stout on defense. We also now have to get someone solid to replace Eddie in both safety and punt returning. That's going to be tough but with our depth, it's definitely manageable. Most teams would not be able to do that. I feel like we are back to: we're very good but "we'll see." As long as we use adversity to improve (and why wouldn't we?), we should be able to pull it off.
 

CraigD

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Aug 8, 2006
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I've been musing this all night but I figured I'd condense it into one area. What this is really about is Auburn and LSU. Think back to week four of the season: two coaches with teams basically playing as a referendum on their employment. Well, the billing proved accurate, Auburn won a game by kicking six field goals for a 18-13 victory and Les Miles was out as LSU's head coach the next day. What I don't think anyone expected is neither team would lose a game since that night and both would be sitting in position to potentially win the division. Neither of these teams looked good. Both got shutdown by their major OOC opponent to open the season. Maybe people still believed at the time that Malzahn had only won some temporary job security.

Now did both of teams just get immensely better since their tough opening schedule or is something else going on here? We've seen enough games that we have a pretty good idea just what all these teams are going to be for the most part...and I think the main reason for the Auburn and LSU resurgence is that most of the SEC is just plain terrible. Ole Miss has no run game, can't protect well enough to be a pass-heavy team, and they're awful defensively. Arkansas can't play defense nor protect their quarterback. MSU's QB play isn't the same without Dak and they're bad on defense too. Vandy and South Carolina are practically the same can't-score-enough-to-help-their-D-out team. Georgia is a hot mess. Injuries have destroyed Tennessee. Mizzou is a hot mess too. Kentucky has lost to the only two good SEC teams they've played, beaten some of these so called "SEC teams" above.

Kentucky. KENTUCKY! Is your 2nd place in the SEC East team heading into the last week of October. Their fans were openly talking about canning Stoops before the preseason tipoff in Rupp this past week diverted their attention until next August.

There are 5 good teams in the SEC at this juncture: Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and LSU. The fall off after LSU is so stark, you might as well call it SoCon. So do I think Auburn or LSU have really turned it around? Maybe...confidence in execution is worth something and there are plenty of punching bags out there for them to get that benefit this season. LSU still has Alabama, Florida, and TAMU ahead...they could end up thoroughly exposed. Auburn has it better. I wouldn't be surprised if they're 9-2 before they catch a good team again.
Yes, I think both Auburn and LSU are playing a LOT better than they played earlier in the season.

I think the good news for Bama is that the calling card for both of these teams is the run game. Bama has shown (last yeat) that the defense isn't afraid of Fournette, but they'll have to prove it again on the field. Auburn's run game brings a different challenge (discipline, responsibility) but some of the same, too (Arkansas no longer wanted to tackle Kamryn Pettway yesterday). Plus, both of these defenses (Auburn and LSU) are better than any of the defenses we've played so far.

Bama will have to play well to beat these teams, no doubt.
 
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81usaf92

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Apr 26, 2008
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I've been musing this all night but I figured I'd condense it into one area. What this is really about is Auburn and LSU. Think back to week four of the season: two coaches with teams basically playing as a referendum on their employment. Well, the billing proved accurate, Auburn won a game by kicking six field goals for a 18-13 victory and Les Miles was out as LSU's head coach the next day. What I don't think anyone expected is neither team would lose a game since that night and both would be sitting in position to potentially win the division. Neither of these teams looked good. Both got shutdown by their major OOC opponent to open the season. Maybe people still believed at the time that Malzahn had only won some temporary job security.

Now did both of teams just get immensely better since their tough opening schedule or is something else going on here? We've seen enough games that we have a pretty good idea just what all these teams are going to be for the most part...and I think the main reason for the Auburn and LSU resurgence is that most of the SEC is just plain terrible. Ole Miss has no run game, can't protect well enough to be a pass-heavy team, and they're awful defensively. Arkansas can't play defense nor protect their quarterback. MSU's QB play isn't the same without Dak and they're bad on defense too. Vandy and South Carolina are practically the same can't-score-enough-to-help-their-D-out team. Georgia is a hot mess. Injuries have destroyed Tennessee. Mizzou is a hot mess too. Kentucky has lost to the only two good SEC teams they've played, beaten some of these so called "SEC teams" above.

Kentucky. KENTUCKY! Is your 2nd place in the SEC East team heading into the last week of October. Their fans were openly talking about canning Stoops before the preseason tipoff in Rupp this past week diverted their attention until next August.

There are 5 good teams in the SEC at this juncture: Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Auburn, and LSU. The fall off after LSU is so stark, you might as well call it SoCon. So do I think Auburn or LSU have really turned it around? Maybe...confidence in execution is worth something and there are plenty of punching bags out there for them to get that benefit this season. LSU still has Alabama, Florida, and TAMU ahead...they could end up thoroughly exposed. Auburn has it better. I wouldn't be surprised if they're 9-2 before they catch a good team again.
LSU is probably the biggest threat going forward because of the talent and the emotion we are going to be facing down there.

Auburn really doesn't scare me as much because their offense plays into our defensive strength. Also it's in BDS

Florida?!?! Have you watched Florida this year because if you had you would see an average team that is no different with most teams from the eastern division.
 

Loam

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I think everyone but us is bad this year. I don't see a team that can legit challenge us toe to toe.
 

B1GTide

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Apr 13, 2012
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Two thoughts - Your coaching has turned over a lot, which impacts things. Also, I think that the SEC offenses have evolved, which means that your defenses can look very human at times because they have to face better offenses week in/week out. But the SEC has far more talent on the field than any other conference.
 

GrayTide

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I agree that both LSU and auburn are lights year ahead of where they when they played in September. I really thought that the loser of that game would drop out of contention and be looking at a 8-4 season at best. I do think LSU would have had Miles remained as HC. Orgeron has turned this team on a dime, they are free to play again and have the talent to back it up. Once Sean White no longer had to look over his shoulder and worry about a QB shuffle (that's on Gus) they could run the offense they were recruited to run. Both teams have very stout defenses and neither is afraid of our run only offense. IMO, if we do not improve our passing game we could be in trouble especially against LSU being in Baton Rouge. The good news is that both teams are run heavy which should be in our wheelhouse. Replacing Eddie Jackson will be a major concern going into these games. I don't even want to mention the kicking game.
 

Toddrn

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Nov 29, 2006
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LSU is our biggest threat because we play them next. We have 2 weeks to rest, heal and game plan. LSU has not played against a defense like ours all year. We shut down LF last year and this year we are even faster on defense. We have to keep the crowd out of it by starting quick on offense and shutting down their running game. Do that and play for 4 quarters and we should be good. RTR
 

RollTideMang

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Oct 16, 2009
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If you had asked me this the first week of the season, I would have said everyone is bad but Bama, A&M, maybe UGA, maybe Ole Miss because they almost stomped FSU, and maybe Auburn because they came close to beating Clemson. I think I made a comment during our USC game thread when they showed the rest of our schedule similar to "Did anyone else just get a warm feeling inside after seeing today's results and seeing the rest of our schedule?"

If you had asked me this in week 3 of the season, I would have said everyone but Bama, A&M, Ole Miss (because they almost beat us), maybe Tennessee after VT, maybe UGA, maybe UF, and maybe Arkansas.

If you had asked me this last week, I would have said everyone but Bama, A&M, Arkansas, maybe UF, Tennessee being above average but suffering back to back losses, and maybe Auburn.

Asking me this now, I would say everyone but Bama, A&M, Auburn, LSU, Tennesee being above average, and maybe Florida if they can get it together on offense.

It's interesting how each week the teams separate themselves into tiers in the conference, and after I typed out these lists, I was surprised that the only week I didn't put down Auburn as being good was after they lost to A&M. It's surprising because everyone cheering for them thought they were absolutely awful after losing to 2 of the best teams in the nation, but they are showing that they are not to be taken lightly after completely dominating Arkansas last night. Gus isn't dead yet, and they look to be a dangerous team on our schedule if we don't come out fighting.

LSU is another surprise for me. I thought that after Auburn, they would fold the rest of the way especially after firing Les, but they have shown remarkable improvement under Coach O. I thought Ole Miss was going to whip them last night, but I went to bed after the first OM TD, so I didn't see the game. Another dangerous team for us that is playing harder than they were after week 3 and wants to prove they are a good team. They have their sights set on Alabama, and we have a 5 game winning streak on them, so they are going to be very dangerous.

I would love to see Auburn and LSU replay their game right now, so I could get a better idea of which one is better. I feel like that game doesn't tell the whole story since so many changes have been made since.
 
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tattooguy21

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Aug 14, 2012
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I can honestly say that the SEC as a whole is down this year. What bothers me about it is that I worry it won't help prepare us for the post season (if we make it there.) In years past, making the way through the SEC gauntlet left me and I'm sure many others with a sense of entitlement, confidence, call it whatever you want. After the SEC championship vs a Tebow led Florida, defensive monster Georgia under the Saban era, who could challenge us?

I'm glad for the reemergence of LSU and Auburn for two reasons.

1) This will challenge the team more, instead of letting them sleep walk through the second half of the season. I don't believe that they do it intentionally, but it would just be that kind of situation. And stronger steal is forged in hotter fire.

2) The second reason, they are going to face two teams that hate us more than anyone. This victory WOULD BE their national championship. I believe Bama will go in, not entitled, but angry. These teams are trying to stop them from their goal. This team had one goal, and that's to play to their highest level, which I believe results in going undefeated at all levels.
 
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gamersfuel

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Auburn has improved from past seasons on defense. no doubt there. I think their improvement has come from Gus choosing a QB and sticking with him. And he's getting a little better each week. If Aurburn would stop trying to be Alabama they would be much better off overall. LSU IMO is on an emotional ride right now with Coach O... After a loss, they will come back down to earth. All IMO.. I enjoy for the most part watching Florida play defense.
 

CajunCrimson

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LSU and Auburn have recruited well....talent-wise. Not necessarily character-wise.....

With that aside.....confidence and momentum can take them far.....but that usually crumbles at the first sign of adversity.....
 

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