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.

Who ya got -- Week 6

Tommy T.:

Alabama at South Carolina: Well, this is it for USC -- their chance to prove they belong with the SEC's best, their shot at an SEC title game (in a weakened SEC East), their moment to reward all their fans for all that suffering over the years. If they played 100 times, Alabama might win 75. But it's one game, in Columbia, with so much at stake. This time, the stars align. USC, 16-10.

Tennessee at Georgia: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Steve Hummer did a great job drawing an obvious comparison this week: Is Mark Richt turning into the new Phil Fulmer? Lord help us all. My "friend" Mike G. has decided to start calling the noon SEC game The Bulldog Slot. I don't care if we play at 4 in the morning as long as we beat somebody. Let it be this week, please. Dawgs, 23-20.

LSU at Florida: Florida's better, but Les Miles is on the Vegas-craps-tables run of the century. I fully expect this game to come down to a last-second play where the Florida kicker accidentally boots the game-winning field goal through the wrong goalposts. LSU, 19-18.

Auburn at Kentucky: Scarier than you might expect. War Eagles, 27-24.

Arkansas 33, Texas A&M 20

Vandy 42, Eastern Michigan 17

Mississippi State 24, Houston 21

Michael Gordon
Alabama at South Carolina: Mr. Tomlinson, whose brainwaves have been scrambled by Georgia's sudden return to generational mediocrity, is like a husband trapped on the wrong end of an argument. The facts, his friends and everything else lines up with the wife, but he sticks to his guns like a polyster-clad bulldog clings to his ice bags under the Athens sun.

Mr. Tomlinson, you see, still believes Alabama will lose three games this year. As such, the Gamecocks must win Saturday for his prophecy to come true.

Carolina has a puncher's chance. They are very good. They dare to be better. And they don't want this to be the last big game they play under Steve Spurrier. That said, South Carolina can't win on its own. It still needs more help than Alabama is likely to give. One last thing to mull: If Alabama is to lose three, it will have to play as badly as Georgia. Like I said, Tide, 28-18.

Tennessee at Georgia: Dooley the Younger's Baker's Dozen Road Show stops in Athens for another brunch-time kickoff. Georgia has played in the midday slot so often that it's about to announce a longterm endorsement deal with Mrs. Butterworth. Bigger news: Mark Richt will be leading his team onto the field for the first time. A naked Herschel Walker(check out ESPN) would make for a better entrance. Georgia by a big wet nose: 21-18.

LSU at Florida: Has there ever been an undefeated coach more maligned than Les Miles? After Saturday night, all that earlier abuse will seem like polite chit-chat between inlaws at a Baptist wedding reception. We hope you like the cheese straws, Mr. Miles. Florida, 24-13.

Auburn at Kentucky: Only on The Plains is roadtrip considered a dirty word. At home, Auburn has emerged as one of the country's most dynamic teams. But qb Cameron Newton must show that he travels well, even if the opponent is the perpetually lackluster Kentucky. Still, it's an interesting measuring stick for Auburn. Tigers, 35-24

Eastern Michigan at Vandy: Wow, we thought only Ohio State played MAC teams. Vandy, I think, 24-21

Arkansas at Texas A&M: The Hog defenders better make some stops or Ryan Mallett's arm will fall off. This one has upset written all over it, except the Big 12 is so bad it should have broken up just to save everybody the embarrassment. Hogs, 44-35

Miss. State at Houston: Big, big game for the Mullen regime, and the Bulldog defense gets them through. Bullies: 24-21.

Dawg fans: Meet Mo and Jo

1-4 record aside, three things never change at Georgia.

1. The Dawg fans may lead the SEC in the decibel-level of their moral outrage, though their team's performance through the years has not exactly been top tier.

2. Another fat white bulldog is about to be offered up as a canine sacrifice to Saturday afternoons in Athens. The ice trucks are standing ready. The grave has already been dug.

3. And nothing will ever be better than Herschel Walker. (If for some reason you want to skip Diana Taurasi and the women's volleyball team, Walker is no. 19.)

Will an old Herschel and a new UGA save the Georgia season? Certainly not. But the team's greatest player in the buff and a new dog in the red sweater may salvage a bit of Dawg mojo.

Having Tennessee and Vandy as its next two opponents doesn't hurt either.
MG

Land shark, black bear or Hotty Toddy?

We're down to three in the Great Ole Miss Mascot Hunt. The voting has begun.

See the finalists for yourself.

And thanks to the committee for thinking of how the well-dressed mascot should appear when partaking of The Grove.

http://mascot.olemiss.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Final-Mascot-Concepts-2.pdf

What we think we know: Week 5

1. If this were "Survivor," the SEC would have voted off Vandy, Georgia and Tennessee by now. Any league would be wounded when traditional powers like the Dawgs and Vols take a page from a Stephen King novel and plunge into "Simultaneous Suckage." LSU is the worst or luckiest unbeaten of the last decade. And there's the great mass of mediocrity or worse category for just about everybody else. In summary, this may be the weakest year in the conference in decades. Yet it still offers the overwhelming favorite for the national championship.

2. Can anybody truly argue that Alabama and Auburn aren't the SEC's two best teams? Florida has talent but seems caught in an identity crisis (This word of advice to Gators everywhere -- from a member of a fan base who sets the standard for gazing into the past: He ain't coming back!!! AU must still play a heavyweight on the road, but it's looking more and more like that won't happen 'til Tuscaloosa. Alabama? The Tide enters the absurd portion of its schedule, when five consecutive SEC opponents having two weeks to prepare. It starts Saturday at Columbia, and UA fans may fret the roosters far more than they did Florida. Here's something for South Carolina to ponder: Alabama's first half Saturday night was its best of the season.

3. Where are the chat rooms burning hotter: Georgia or LSU? Let's call it a tie for now, which is amazing in its own right. Georgia is 1-4; LSU is 5-0. But Les Miles is taking just as many shots as Georgia's Mark Richt. Miles treats the criticism as if it's just another game clock he can ignore. Richt keeps responding with gridiron platitudes -- preaching effort and trust and hard work -- that have his critics howling even louder. In that, however, Richt has an advantage over Miles, who not only runs the most disorganized team in America, but hasn't shown much affinity for complete sentences either.

4. Thirteen players? Really?

5. An ACC note: The North Carolina free fall has reached the scary stage. It's bad enough that former assistant head coach John Blake had a longtime and extensive financial relationship with an agent, it appears now that he was recruiting players for that agent -- including Alabama's Marcel Dareus. Up to now, coach Butch Davis has floated just above the floodwaters. But the charges against his kids and former top assistant have reached the saturation point. If more allegatons surface, Davis could very easily go under.

mg

That's SC, as in Southern Cal

The U.S. Supreme Court says the interlocking letters are the rightful trademark of the Trojans.

Read more here and here.

Florida-Bama: A tale of the tape -- police tape, that is

Interesting comparison of the arrest records of players under Urban Meyer and Nick Saban. Suffice to say, Gator fans would love such a mismatch when the two teams square off Saturday night in Tuscaloosa.

For now, though, some national pundits look at the arrest numbers and accuse Meyer of running an out-of-control program. Mark Richt is receiving similar heat at Georgia, where off-the-field deportment of the players has become a bigger issue as the Dogs' season teeters on the brink.

Read on.

MG