In case you missed the game of the week

For the state juco title, it was East Mississippi Community College 75, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College 71.

In regulation.

You can read about the shootout here and here.

Everybody still refers to Gulf Coast as Perk, short for Perkinston, where the main campus is tucked away. And up in that part of the state, East Mississippi is sometimes called Scooba U.

Understand that the Great State of Mississippi has long had top-notch junior college football programs, winning 7 national championships since 1971 and sending a slew of players on to SEC and other schools (including Alabama's Terrence Cody, who played at Perk). East Mississippi is now ranked fifth nationally and Perk seventh.

Best postgame quote, from Perk coach Steve Campbell: "We'll learn something from this. I don't know what, but we'll learn from it."

-- R. Trentham Roberts

2 UT players kicked off team after arrests

Read about it here and here, and via the Rocky Top Talk link on the right.

Vol fans chime in as well, with highly divergent views on what should happen to Janzen Jackson.

What we learned from Saturday . . .

*If Dan Mullen can recruit, watch out for Mississippi State. The Bulldogs were overmatched by Alabama, but they never stopped hitting or playing at full speed. MSU has glaring needs, but Mullen has effort isn't one of them. He also has Mississippi's amazing high school talent to draw from, provided he can claim his share from Ole Miss and Southern Miss, and beat back the traditional poachers, Alabama, LSU and Tennessee. Freshman already play key roles for the Bullies, but Mullen needs impact performers in every recruiting class to become competitive.

*Can Jansen Jackson be that good? Vol coach Lane Kiffin sure made it sound that way, contending that Ole Miss's torching of his formerly staunch defense was due in large part to the absence of his star freshman safety. Jackson and two teammates did not play Saturday after being arrested last week on attempted armed robbery charges. Jackson's attorney say his client was in the car and did not participate in the alleged crime. One rumor circulating the boards last week said Kiffin wanted to take Jackson's to Oxford but was overruled by his athletic director. If he's innocent, one wonders why Jackson, his team's last line of defense, couldn't have provided the same protection for his idiotic teammates or his own career.

*Is there a more entertaining football player in the country than Dexter McClusker? Still, Houston Nutt bet the house on quarterback Jevan Sneed. Where would the Rebels be if, after Sneed's shaky early performances, he had been downsized and McClusker given twice his regular touches?

*Steve Spurrier must have mixed emotions after his team's 24-14 loss to top-ranked Florida. Carolina carried the game well into the fourth quarter and had the Gators on their heels in what should have been at least a game-tying drive. Then, Stephen Garcia threw a third-down interception that quickly led to Florida's clinching touchdown. On the key play, Spurrier sent in a call, and Garcia changed it based on something he saw in the Florida defense.
Ooops. TOBC can't be happy how things turned out, but at least he has a quarterback confident enough to change a play based on what he's seeing on the field. Executing that vision remains a work in progress, and I'm sure The Visor has a few thoughts he plans to share.

*Referee Conspiracy Part V: Mississippi State fans claim the zebras jobbed them out of a long kickoff return against Alabama. Tell you what guys, we'll give you the Chad Bumphis' TD. Does 31-10 feel better?

*Florida still does more things well than any team in the country, but Alabama has begun playing its best football at just the right time. Still ahead for the Tide: a glorified scrimmage against UT-Chattanooga and then a short-rest range war with Auburn. With two weeks to scheme, the Tigers will be preparing the ultimate trap game. But it's hard to see AU standing up to the Tidal pounding it will face. Ben Tate's declaration that he's a better runner than Mark Ingram puts a couple of extra logs on the fire for the Alabama defense. Still, I get nervous even writing about this game. Alabama will have only six days between kickoffs, and too many seasons on both sides have been ruined by college football's most vicious rivalry.

Michael Gordon

This week's poll: Ole Miss-LSU

It's a bit of a lull week before the big regular-season finales, so this week's poll is Ole Miss-LSU, which at this point amounts to a battle for the 3rd-best team in the conference. (Georgia fans may carp, but if the Dawgs beat Georgia Tech in a couple of weeks, we'll give them their due.) -- RTR

Who ya got -- Week 11 (with bonus video!)

Lane Kiffin's team sure makes the SEC more... interesting. All you need to know about the stupidity of the (alleged) UT armed robbers is revealed in this spectacular interview with the victims. Forget that the players tried to commit a felony with a pellet gun. Forget that they tried to escape in a Prius. Remember that they tried to make a big score off of THESE GUYS.

Watch this all the way to the end. The last line is a classic.



Have you caught your breath? OK, then, on to the picks.

Tommy Tomlinson

Tennessee at Ole Miss -- Oh, THIS should be fun. Somebody needs to create a Twitter account solely to document what the Ole Miss fans say in the stands. Jevan Snead, don't screw up this week and all is forgiven. Rebs, 28-20.

Florida at South Carolina -- A win here could redeem the entire Spurrier Era at USC. You'll have to find redemption on the golf course, Coach. Gators, 31-10.

Auburn at Georgia -- Such a weird series, such weird teams this year. The road team usually wins this game and the better team often loses. The first part of that favors Auburn and the last part favors Georgia. Does Joe Cox have one great game in him? I'm hoping yes. Dawgs, 23-18.

Alabama at Mississippi State -- This one is screaming TRAP GAME. But the Bulldogs aren't quite good enough to spring it. Tide, 17-10.

Vanderbilt 33, Kentucky 27

LSU 48, La Tech 10

Arkansas 44, Troy 21

Michael Gordon

Tennessee at Ole Miss: This one swings on the emotional state of the visitors after three of the Vol players traded their burnt orange unies for the cell-block orange variety. Ole Miss doesn't scare anyone any longer. Maybe Johnathan Crompton is due for a hairball, but the Vols are just tougher. Jail will do that to a man. Tennessee, 24-20.

Florida at South Carolina: What a month ago seemed like the SEC East showdown has been boiled down to a single question: After halftime, will there be more empty seats than filled ones in Williams-Brice Stadium? Gators, 38-17.

Alabama at Miss. State: Thirty-four years ago I spent half of a homecoming game buried in the excruciating din of the Bulldog cowbells. Tomorrow, I get fitted for hearing aids. To hell with trap games. I want restitution!!! Tide, 31-14.

Auburn at Georgia: This series has had water canons and leaping bulldog jaws and games with a gazillion overtimes. This year's novelty: Nobody will punt. Check that: The Dawgs aren't very good, so they'll punt once. Tigers, 28-24.

Kentucky 17, Vandy 16.

LSU 27, La Tech 17.

Arkansas 45, Troy, 12.

So that's what they mean by UT Wild Boyz

Three of the top players in Lane Kiffin's first class are wearing a different shade of orange this morning, accused of armed robbery last night in Knoxville.

Police identified the three as burgeoning defensive back star Janzen Jackson, receiver Nu'Keese Richardson and DB Mike Edwards. They reportedly wore Tennessee garb and tried to flee in a Toyota Prius.

A couple of points: Jackson and Richardson were signing-day surprise coups for the Vols' 2009 class. Jackson, heavily recruited by his home-state LSU and Alabama, bolted to Tennessee after being expected to sign with the Bayou Bengals. Richardson went with Kiffin instead of Florida. The Tennessee coach later accused Gator head man Urban Meyer of NCAA violations concerning Richardson's recruitment. Those claims got Kiffin his first SEC reprimand, and he later apologized to Meyer.

More irony: Not long ago, Tennessee assistant Ed Orgeron had this to say about the the coaching staff. "We're not angels, and we are not going to recruit a bunch of angels." Jackson was recently suspended. Richardson recently skipped practice, setting off speculation that he was leaving the team.

Nobody in the SEC should take much joy in this, because few if any of its teams have escaped off-the-field problems. But in Tennessee's case, Kiffin's brazenness in challenging the SEC's established coaches and the league office, along with the "UT Wildboyz" framing of his program, brings double the scrutiny of the coach's next actions and words.

In the meantime, three kids handed the world suddenly face a far different future. And their arrests raise interesting questions on which schools had the best signing day after all.

MG

What we learned from Week 10

*That the reports of Greg McElroy's demise were greatly exaggerated. The Tide QB threw for 276 yards and a couple of TDs during the 3-Hour War with LSU. He was helped by a recovering Julio Jones and an offensive line that kept LSU's great athletes at bay. Did Patterson make the pick? Sure could have. Would it have mattered? LSU got 25 yards in the fourth quarter. The best team, clearly, won.

*That something still seems amiss in the Good Ship Gator. Seemed like every time I flipped over, The Chosen One was being sacked . . . by a VANDY player. There's inconsistency in the Florida offense right now and it may all come back to their quarterback's health. Tim Tebow remains the SEC's most dominant player, but he's still not playing at the level of last year. That said, the defending champs do more things well than any team in the conference.

*Maybe this is as good as it gets under Steve Spurrier. For the second straight week, his South Carolina team caved so quickly you could have sworn they were playing Clemson. Is his team's annual November swoon because Spurrier begins to run out of players or does he run out of players still willing to listen to him? When does the head coach begin to be held accountable for his team's repeated mistakes? On another bright note, here comes Florida!

So, the SEC Championship game is set. Big Deal. Too many potential trap games remain. And let's keep an eye on Georgia/Auburn. The Fighting Chizikians' performance in that one will give all of us a reading on the kind of stand they'll make in late November against Alabama. Another loss by Georgia -- with hated Tech looming -- would obviously bring more questions to bear on the future of the program and coach Mark Richt.

God love Navy!

MG