The Question Is: How Will Alabama’s D Work Against the Spread?

TV Lineup and Lines Below

Time Out
by Dan Rutledge

With Florida and Alabama already penciled in against each other in the BCS national semifinal game, also known as the SEC championship game, the rest of the league teams will fight it out for bowl bids in the last two weeks of the regular season.

The Week 11 schedule has five conference games on tap, with two non-conference matchups as well. Four teams can claim that magical sixth victory that makes them bowl eligible – Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas.

The tangle between the hedges in Athens between visiting Auburn and Georgia (Line: Georgia by 5) is big bowl-wise for both teams involved. For Georgia (5-4 ,3-3), a win would send them bowling somewhere. For Auburn (7-3, 3-3), a victory would give them the opportunity, as an eight-win team, to end its season in Dallas playing in the new Cowboys Stadium in the Cotton Bowl. That’s pretty heady stuff for a team that didn’t go bowling anywhere last season and to whose fans a spot in the Liberty Bowl or Music City Bowl would have sounded great before the season began.

For Auburn Saturday, it’s a question of which AU team shows up — the one that ran roughshod over opponents early in the season or the team that mysteriously misplaced its offense during a three-game losing streak.

AU QB Chris Todd is one of the keys. He has shown the capacity to be hot or cold. If he is “on,” as he was last week in completing 16 or 17 passes, the Tigers can prevail.

One of the keys will be for the Auburn defense to not let Georgia get too close. Auburn is next-to-last nationally in red-zone stops. Opponents have scored 36 times in 37 trips inside the AU red zone. Georgia fans will point out that the Dogs have won the last three outings against Auburn. That sounds good for the Dogs … but Georgia hasn’t taken four in a row against the Tigers since 1948. So you could say Auburn is due.

But speaking of “due,” it wouldn’t be surprising to see Georgia come up with a turnover or two. Georgia has recovered just one fumble all season, the fewest in the nation. The Bulldogs’ six takeaways this season are the least in the nation. Every other SEC team has at least 13. Another key to the game could be how well reserves can step up their play in the wounded Auburn secondary. It could turn out to be a banner day for Georgia star receiver A.J. Green. Whether or not Auburn’s defense can put pressure on the Georgia QB will be big.

Tennessee (5-4, 2-3) will also be hunting for bowl eligibility on the road at Ole Miss (6-3, 2-3). In this one, play close attention to who scores first and/or who leads at the halftime intermission. The Vols have scored first in all of its victories this year and lost every time their opponent got on the scoreboard first. On the other hand, Ole Miss has led at halftime in all of its wins and trailed at half in all its losses.

Whether or not Vol quarterback Jon Crompton has a hot hand could be the real key to watch. Crompton leads the SEC with 21 TD passes and threw for 305 yards in the first half last week against Memphis. This one is expected to be close (Line: Ole Miss by 4) and should live up to expectations.

Also hunting for bowl eligibility are Arkansas (5-4) and Kentucky (5-4, 1-4). For the Wildcats, they could find a tough foe, Vanderbilt (2-8, 0-6), who will be hungry for that first league win and will also be out to even up its overall record. The Commodores fell to 555-556-50 with its loss last week. Kentucky will be motivated by a chance to make bowl history. The Cats have been to bowls for each of the past three years. Kentucky has never participated in four straight bowls (Line: Kentucky by 3).

Arkansas is playing one of the two non-conference games of the week. But the foe, Troy (7-2), is no pushover, even if they are from the Sun Belt Conference. Troy has won seven straight after opening season losses to Bowling Green and Florida. The Trojans lead the Sun Belt in passing offense, total offense and scoring offense. Troy QB Levi Brown is ranked fifth nationally in total offense (Line: Arkansas by 14½).

The other non-conference game is a no-brainer. LSU (7-2) hosts Louisiana Tech (3-6) (Line: LSU by 24). The Bengal Tigers have won 25 consecutive games against fellow Louisiana schools. That total will go to 25 Saturday.

The two games in which bowl eligibility is no issue are No. 1 and Eastern Division champ Florida (9-0, 7-0) at South Carolina (6-4, 3-4) (Line: Florida by 16) and No. 3 and Western Conference champion Alabama (9-0, 6-0) at Mississippi State (4-5, 2-3) (Line: Alabama by 12).

There are story lines galore in both of these, although the outcomes aren’t figured to be questioned. At South Carolina, there is always the Steve Spurrier factor. Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy as Florida’s QB in 1966, then was the head coach of the Gators from 1990-2001. To play the team you used to play for and coach is extra motivation for sure.

At Starkville, the question will be how Bama does against the spread offense that has given its top-rated defense trouble. The spread that Florida and Hawaii used to defeat Bama in the last two games last year will be the same spread that first-year Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen has installed. Mullen coached under Florida coach Urben Meyer at Florida and Utah and his offense is uniquely similar to Florida’s. How well Bama’s defense does could be a sneak peek at how it will perform in the SEC title game.

WEEKEND TV LINEUP

The boob tube lineup for Week 11 of the college football schedule (remember when there was only 10 weeks of the regular season and nobody played more than 10 unless you made it to a bowl game?) is a bit different – more games early (Thursday and Friday) and late (Sunday) and a more sparse than usual normal game-day contests. The “weekend” TV slate began with a Thursday night triple-header — Ball State at Northern Illinois on ESPNU, Bowling Green at Miami of Ohio on ESPN2 and South Florida taking on Rutgers in a Big East showdown on ESPN. The two Friday games include West Virginia at Cincinnati at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 and Temple at Akron at 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU. And it’s getting to be a habit — again, there is also one Sunday game on tap, East Carolina at Tulsa at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN. Saturday’s lean television lineup, not including pay-for-view games, is as follows:

11a.m.
Tennessee at Ole Miss (CBS)

9 p.m.
Wyoming at San Diego St. (Mountain Network)

Tags: Alabama, Bowling Rights, SEC Football

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 6:58 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.