TV Lineup and Lines Below

Time Out
by Dan Rutledge

Well, the first BCS standings are out and it looks good for the SEC with Florida No. 1 and Alabama No. 2.

In the previous 11 seasons in which the BCS was used to determine the teams that would play for the national championship, either the No. 1 or No. 2 team in the first standings of that season has gone on to play in the title game — six times for the top team, five times the second place team. And yours truly wouldn’t be surprised if the Tide and Gators had a rematch of their SEC championship game in the BCS title game.

Barring injuries or unforeseen circumstances, it looks like the Florida and Bama should roll into the Georgia Dome undefeated.

There are five SEC games on this weekend’s slate, all of them important, but none bigger than the one to be played in Tuscaloosa.

It’s the fourth Saturday in October (for my dad and older Tide fans, it was the third Saturday in October) and that means Alabama (7-0, 4-0) vs. Tennessee (3-3, 1-2).

This is a game that is a big game for the two programs involved no matter what the records, who is ranked or not, etc. It’s one of those traditional grudge games. Looking at it historically, it could be a matter of who scores first or it could come down to the final quarter.

Unbeaten Alabama has scored first in all of its games this season. Tennessee has scored first in its three wins and the opponent scored first in the Vols’ three defeats.

The two teams are also the league leaders in fourth-quarter scoring, the Vols posting 66 points in the final 15 minutes and the Tide scoring 58. But those things will probably not factor in.

What will tell the tale of this one is Alabama’s No. 1-in-the-land defense. Vol QB Jonathan Crompton is no Peyton Manning. Where the elder of the two Manning boys has made a habit of stepping up in pressure situations, Crompton’s story is the opposite — when it gets pressurized, he folds. So the Vols will have to try and run the ball and Alabama has not allowed a 100-yard rusher against it in 27 straight games.

The rusher everyone will be talking about after the game is over is Bama’s Mark Ingram, who set a career high for rushing yards for the second week in a row last week with 246 yards. If anyone noted, the Ingram For Heisman campaign began in this column last week and has since been picked up by the national media. Bama doesn’t need to start a campaign of its own in Ingram’s behalf. In fact, that wouldn’t be a great idea — and tide head coach Nick Saban wouldn’t allow it anyhow. (Besides, there’s already a group on Facebook).

Saban, like Bear Bryant, stressed team, no individual performance. In fact, that team-first approach that both Bryant and now Saban preach, may be the reason why Alabama owns a lot of national and SEC championship trophies, but has no Heisman Trophy to display. Ingram is capable of winning it without any hype. All he has to do is keep running the ball the way he has been all season (Line: Alabama by 14).

The BCS No. 1 Florida Gators (6-0, 4-0) could have a tough Saturday when they play at Mississippi State (3-4, 1-2) (Line: Florida by 23).

The Gators don’t play often in Starkville, Miss., and when they have, they have usually returned to Gainseville as losers. Florida will be seeking its first win at Davis Wade Stadium since 1985 on Saturday. The Gators have played in Starkville four times since and have lost each time — in ’86. ’92, 2000 and 2004. And don’t think that just because Florida is undefeated and No. 1 and the Bulldogs have a losing record that those stats don’t apply.

In each of the four years previously mentioned, when Florida lost at Starkville, the Gators ended up with a better overall record. And the Gators came into three of the four games ranked. Add to that the fact that while Urban Meyer has a great record since taking over the Gators’ head coaching job, he has had a hard time against teams from the SEC West in regular season games.

Meyer came into this season dead even against teams from the West at 6-6. He is now two above .500 after the wins over LSU and Arkansas this season. It is true that Mississippi State has never played a No. 1 team in Starkville. But the Bulldogs have played a home game against a No. 1 team, beating Alabama 6-3 in a home game played in Jackson, Miss., in 1980 to end the Crimson Tide’s record winning streak of 27 games.

Florida’s current win streak is only 16 — the longest in the nation — but Mississippi State would love to break it.

There is also the Mullen Factor to consider. New Bulldog head coach Dan Mullen was the Florida offensive coordinator for the past four seasons and knows the Gator playbook like the back of his hand. This could make for a low-scoring game, since Florida leads the nation in scoring defense, giving up just 8.7 points per game so far this year.

The Auburn (5-2, 2-2)-LSU (5-1, 3-1) contest is just about bound to be weird in some way — in fact, it should be played on Halloween. It’s always a trick or a treat for one team or the other.

Two years ago, with the score tied, LSU scorned a game-winning field goal to go for it on fourth down and score the winning TD with one second left on the clock in a 30-24 win. Last year, LSU came from behind to beat Auburn 26-21, scoring the winning TD with 63 seconds left. In 2006, Auburn’s defense put on a goal-line stand to preserve a 7-3 victory. In 2005, Auburn missed five field goals in a 20-17 loss. We could go on an on.

But no matter if the win is strange or spooky, AU needs a win this week. The moment is now for Auburn to Auburn has faced this year and with Ole Miss, Georgia and Alabama left to play, this week is big. Only the fact that Auburn plays Furman gives them hope of being bowl eligible. LSU doesn’t lose night games at Baton Rouge very often. They certainly won’t lose two in a row (Line: LSU by 8½).

The other two league games this week are Arkansas (3-3, 1-3) at Ole Miss (4-2, 1-2) Line: Ole Miss by 5½) and Vandy (2-5, 0-4) at South Carolina (5-2, 2-2) Line: S.C. by 12½). Arkansas and Ole Miss will be interesting. Both teams have had good days and bad days. This one should clear up the focus a bit. Which team is better – Houston Nutt’s old team, Arkansas, or his new one, Ole Miss?

The Commodores at the Gamecocks should be a no-brainer for No. 23-ranked South Carolina. If SC doesn’t get in its own way, it should win. But the Gamecocks have so little experience as a winning team, it has trouble with success. Under Steve Spurrier, the Gamecocks have a 5-8 record when playing as a ranked team.

The only non-conference matchup this week has Kentucky (3-3) hosting Sun Belt member Louisiana-Monroe (4-2). Despite a rash of injuries, including its starting quarterback, the Wildcats should prevail and make the SEC’s record against non-conference foes this season even better Line: Kentucky by 17).

(Line: Auburn by 13½) and Georgia (3-3, 2-2) at Vanderbilt (2-4, 0-3) (Line: Georgia by 8). The game down on The Plains will be interesting. The question is: Can the Tigers bounce back from their lackluster performance against Arkansas? The feeling here is yes.

The national ranking and undefeated record got inside the younger Tigers’ heads — they started believing their own clippings. But that won’t happen again. Another reason the Tigers will come back strong is that Kentucky will come in with its offense limping. Missing in action will be Wildcat quarterback Mike Hartline, out with a knee injury. In Nashville, it could come down to who gets on the scoreboard first. Vandy has won the two games in which it scored first and has lost the four it hasn’t.

The grid slate for this weekend began on, believe it or not, on Wednesday with UTEP edging Tulsa 26-24 noon ESPN. The Thursday night ESPN game was a good one, with Bobby Bowden’s FSU Seminoles snapping a three-game losing streak with a come-from-behind in the late going to nip North Carolina 30-27. FSU has never lost four in a row under Bowden, it’s last four-game losing streak coming way back in 1975. Here’s hoping the win takes some of the heat off Bowden.

A living legend, like Bowden, should be allowed to leave at his own terms, at his own timing. FSU owes Bowden that for his many years of service to the school. After all, it was Bowden that put FSU in the college football spotlight it now enjoys as one of the sports premier programs.

Also on Thursday night, Fox Sports South presented a rare Division II television offering with No. 1 ranked North Alabama routing Valdosta, Ga., State. It was actually a football triple-header night, with Prairie View playing at Southern on the Versus network.

As for Friday night — why are the Major League Baseball playoffs taking the night off? Most folks (I know I’m one of them) would rather watch the Yankees and Angels battle to see who is going to the World Series than the 7 p.m. ESPN offering that has Rutgers visiting Army. Saturday’s television lineup, not including pay-for-view games, is as follows:

WEEKEND TV LINEUP

9:15 p.m.
Fresno St. at New Mexico St. (ESPNU), Arizona St. at Stanford (FSN South)

Tags: Alabama vs. Tennessee, Fourth Saturday in October

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 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.