What we think we know ... Week 7

Halfway through the schedule, the SEC season -- as well as the BCS horse race -- has been parboiled down to a handful of games.

In the SEC, the biggie, of course, is LSU vs. Alabama on Nov. 5. That will settle the SEC West. But both teams will have significant challenges remaining on their way to the National Championship game: LSU will face Arkansas at season's end; Alabama must go on the road to Auburn, where the stadium will be chained down to keep it from blasting off its moorings.

In the SEC East, Steve Spurrier this week threw a couple more logs on the fire of South Carolina's year. If he can control the flames, he may salvage the Gamecocks' pre-season ticket to Atlanta. But the 'Cocks still must beat Arkansas, which at this point would be an upset. Otherwise, South Carolina must pull for a Georgia loss against Florida or Auburn.

The end of the Stephen Garcia Era was sad but predictable. He failed his drug test Oct. 4. The announcement of his final departure came after Spurrier's banning Tuesday of columnist Ron Morris from his press conferences. Why Garcia was allowed to play his senior season will be debated to the end of the Cosmos. Suffice to say, his inability to stick within the university's behavior guidelines doesn't shine well on Spurrier, who's never been known as a strict disciplinarian.

The TOBC's brouhaha with Morris will blow over in a matter of days. But it's not a stretch to say that Spurrier could be grieving the loss of Garcia, or be upset at his inability to reach him, and he may have been directing some of that emotion at the writer.

Read the offending column from last March. The headline is far more accusatory than anything Morris wrote. But Spurrier has made Morris the bad guy, when the Gamecocks' so-far disappointing season is the real story, and the very one that Spurrier may not want to address.

Maybe this is what Carolina needs to finally gel. Nobody could look at the assemblage of talent and experience in Columbia this year and say the Gamecocks have appeared focused and well-coached. Now Spurrier can play the "us against the world" card. Maybe it will work. Up to now, little else has, and that includes coaching.

**Outside the conference, the battle of Oklahoma will determine the SEC's likely opponent in January. These championship games haven't been close. This one should be. The Sooners appear to be the best-balanced team since Pete Carroll's early USC squads. But Oklahoma State looms.

**Speaking of the Nov. 5, just when do we think college football fans will get to tune into LSU-Alabama? The ACC broadcasts, now starting at 12:30 p.m., are back to their poaching ways. There's nothing more depressing to a Charlotte-area SEC fan than turning on WBTV at 3:15, and finding 11 minutes on the clock and the officials going to a replay to settle a fumble call in a pivotal Boston College vs. Virginia game. By the time the game ends, Verne and Gary will have burned through most of the first quarter. That's an outrage most weeks. But if it happens to the LSU/Alabama game, it will be a crime.
(More on this to come.)

mg




Revisionist Th