What we think we know: Week 6

1. Intuition can be a strange thing. Two weeks ago, when I emailed a bud to firm up details on our trip to the Alabama-USC game, he wrote that he'd given our 50-yard line seats to his kids. Despite that . . . ahem . . . minor setback, Saturday morning still should have been drunk with anticipation for the great run of SEC games ahead. But all I could think of was 1982, when undefeated Alabama -- being touted as the Bear's last great team -- went to Knoxville and got smoked. Not by two touchdowns. But the underdog Vols made far more plays than anyone thought imaginable. Note to Intuition: Shut the hell up! Note to the Alabama defense: Make some plays.

2. The irrefutable force on this board that is J likes to call Tide quarterback Greg McElroy, the David Hasselhoff of signal callers. Let's ignore that McElroy threw for more than 300 yards Saturday to stick with J's metaphor for a moment: At Columbia, Alabama fans saw far more of Hasselhoff running shirtless on the beach than Pamela Anderson. The Tide's great running tandem, Mark Ingram and Trent Richardson, carried the ball 17 times -- the same number as South Carolina freshman Marcus Lattimore. In football, you can't reshoot the scenes. But for future episodes, perhaps the director might strive a little harder to achieve artistic balance.

3. OK, I can't put it off any longer: Kudos to Tomlinson. He hit the trifecta Saturday: A. Georgia won. B. He picked Alabama to lose. C. He said stumbling LSU, under the coaching of the Hat Savant, Les Miles, would not only beat Florida in the Swamp, but would do it in almost alchemical fashion. (Dramatic pause; now key the theme from The Exorcist): I think Tomlinson and Miles have gone into time shares with the Devil.

4. We have seen the future: Whoever is to beat Auburn will have to score a lot of points. The Tiger defense was absolutely dreadful against Kentucky, giving up enormous amounts of yards for the entire game. But the AU offense and Cameron Newton got all that back -- plus 3 more -- in the win Saturday night at Lexington. LSU certainly has the bodies to at least bruise Newton -- if they can catch him. But Auburn's offense was as vanilla as vanilla gets against Kentucky and still went up and down the field like FedEx trucks. Meanwhile, Darvin Adams is the SEC's most underrated receiver.

5. Finally a personal note: The South Carolina game was not only Alabama's first loss of the year, but it was my first wrong SEC pick for the season, quickly followed up by my second, LSU-Florida. Now that I'm just an itsy-bitsy more like the rest of you, I promise to be more humble, more conscious of the disappointments you face each day as also-rans in the SEC. That doesn't mean I have to like any of you -- and I don't -- but we can at least be civil. Now where the heck are those Baywatch CDs.

-- Michael G.

From Tommy T.:

Thanks for the kudos, Mike, and I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that Lucifer Acres is complete and ready for your visit! Coach Miles and I are honored to be partners in this venture. All rooms oceanfront (yes, oceans of molten lava, but still).

Look, Alabama isn't as good as last year -- the defense lost too many great players. They had to lose sometime. And South Carolina was set up for the greatest win in their history. Those fans had a bigger case of delayed gratification than any other fans in the country. I'm sure some are still sleeping it off.

I'm not gonna crow about Georgia, except to say that when you keep hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, it feels really good when you stop.

One last thing about Les Miles. I've decided who he is: He's the conventioneer from Utah who walks into a Vegas casino, sees a craps table for the first time, and immediately starts throwing sevens. I'm pretty sure his headset is actually an iPod that plays nothing but a constant loop of Abba. How else can they win? Giant sinkhole? Alien invasion? Nothing is off the table at this point. I'm riding LSU until they lose, which is apparently impossible. We love you, Les. Shine on, you crazy diamond.