Alabama Is Off This Week, So Saturday’s Big Game is Florida vs. Georgia

Sources say Alabama’s Terrence Cody, 6-foot-5 and a biscuit short of 400 pounds, will dress up as Mt. Rushmore this Halloween…

TV Lineup and Lines Below

Time Out
by Dan Rutledge

Which SEC football teams will get treats and which will be tricked this Halloween?

That’s the spooky question for Week 9 of the 2009 football season with four league contests, plus two out-of-conference games, on the lineup. There could be some surprise answers to the query. Favorites should be on the lookout. Somehow, upsets seem appropriate to the weekend theme.

The biggie of the week has to be the Biggest Outdoor Cocktail Party in the World, as the annual neutral-site battle between Florida (7-0, 5-0) and Georgia (Line: Florida by 16) was called before it became politically-incorrect to talk out loud about the partying that went on before, during and after the game. Nowadays, I hear they even try to confiscate your flask. In the old days, you didn’t need a flask in a hidden pocket. Anyway, the partying will go before the game with some tail-gaters arriving Friday night.

The rowdiness in the stands will be matched by the action on the field this year. Although it is riding the nation’s longest winning streak at 17 games and is ranked No. 1 in the land, Florida’s offense has been noticeably stuttering in the past few weeks. And Georgia (4-3, 3-2) has been under-performing. The Bulldogs have been pointing toward this game all season. When players arrived for fall practice, they could not fail to notice the pictures of Florida head coach Urban Meyer calling timeout that hang all over the Georgia practice facility. Players got to see it, whether they wanted to or not, as they were changing uniforms, lifting weights, etc.

While Coach Mark Richt won’t admit it, the Bulldogs are still upset over Florida’s two timeouts in the final minute of last year’s 49-10 blowout win by the Gators. Meyer claimed the time outs were to let players who didn’t get to play often into the game. Georgia folks believe it was payback for the “celebration incident” during the 2007 game, won by Georgia. When the Bulldogs scored their first TD in that one, the entire Georgia team rushed onto the field to celebrate. It, of course, drew penalty flags. It also drew the ire of the Florida team and fans. So, you see, there is some bad blood brewing between these two teams with some payback for the payback on tap.

Sometimes, in cases like this, emotion can overcome talent. But if the Bulldogs ever let down, get down on themselves even for a minute, it could swing the other way into a Gator runaway. Florida leads the SEC in scoring. Georgia is last in the conference in scoring defense.

Ole Miss (5-2, 2-2) at Auburn (5-3, 2-3) (Line: Ole Miss by 3) is another interesting conference matchup. Both teams are trying to get back on track after early season success turned into disappointment.

If Auburn is to stop its current slide, the Tigers must reverse a couple of trends. Auburn has scored fewer points than it did in its previous game for four consecutive weeks (56, 24, 23, 14, 10). On the other hand, Ole Miss has posted back-to-back 500-yard games. Auburn must also stop its habit of giving other teams first downs and yardage with its own mistakes. The Tigers have given up 21 first downs via penalties -– tied with Indiana for most in the nation. One more thing that has to get better if AU wants to win this one -– soft play on third down.

Auburn foes have converted 50 percent of their third down plays in the crucial fourth quarter. That is compared to the league average of 31 percent. Ole Miss defeated Auburn last year. The Rebels haven’t beaten the Tigers two years in a row since 1951-52. If Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead continues to play as he has the past two weeks, that streak will come to an end.

The third big game of Week 9 is South Carolina (6-2, 3-2) at Tennessee (3-4, 1-3). South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier likes to set records, be the first to do something. He has already taken the Gamecocks to unfamiliar territory -– to where they are a winning team. SC had always had a losing overall record until Spurrier’s arrival. He has another chance this weekend. Spurrier’s Gamecocks defeated Tennessee last season. South Carolina has never recorded back-to-back wins over the Vols. This could be the first time.

It could come down to who scores first. Tennessee has still won every game in which it has scored first this season, lost every contest in which its opponents scored first. Interestingly, Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin is a Spurrier fan, admitting that he has watched and pulled for Spurrier’s teams while growing up. He may admire the Ole Ball Coach even more after the upset on Halloween. This one will be called an upset (Line: Tennessee by 6), but we don’t know why. South Carolina has the better record and is ranked (No. 21) nationally.

The last league game is Mississippi State (3-5, 1-3) at Kentucky (4-3, 1-3) (Line: Kentucky by 3½), two teams trying to avoid last place in their respective divisions. This one could be close, but look for the Bulldogs to win handily … mostly because the Kentucky sideline resembles a MASH unit with so many key players missing in action due to injury.

The two non-conference matchups that both should be easy pickings for the SEC teams involved –- Tulane (2-5) at LSU (6-1) (Line: LSU by 35) and Eastern Michigan (0-7) at Arkansas (3-4) (Line: Arkansas by 38).

Alabama (8-0, 5-0), which dropped to No. 2 in the AP poll after its narrow 12-10 win over Tennessee last week, has an off week this week. But the Tide continues to impress.

The current Tide team of the Bear Bryant era, when teams weren’t ashamed to win ugly, didn’t try to run up the score for style points. The Bama teams of old –- who know, the ones that won all those trophies -– usually won with a great defense and an offense that could do just enough to get the job done. I’ve seen Bear sit on the ball for a quarter if he had a good lead. Embarrassing the other team never seemed necessary. I’ve also seen Bear punt on third down when the Tide enjoyed a good lead. Punt it away and let your nation’s best defense take care of things. The odds are the other team can’t drive 80 or more yards without making a mistake.

One last shot -– glad to hear the SEC clear up the “take off the helmet” controversy following Terrance Cody’s game-winning block of a Tennessee field goal attempt on the last play of last week’s Alabama win. The taking off the helmet penalty is a dead-ball penalty that would have been enforced on the next play. But since time had expired, there was no next play. So quit whining, Kiffin.

WEEKEND TV LINEUP

There is one Sunday game on this week’s TV lineup, Marshall at Central Florida, at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN.

Tags: Biggest Outdoor Cocktail Party, Florida vs. Georgia, Halloween

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.