Notes from the Game of the Week.
Tennessee LB Rico McCoy thinks of point spreads like motivational speakers want you to think of age:
"The game’s still going to be played. The game’s still going to be played," McCoy repeated with emphasis. "And I have a say-so in the outcome. I don’t have anything to say right now. I’ll let the play speak for itself. It’s just a number (Florida being favored by four touchdowns) they threw out before a game, and we determine if that happens or not."
Lane Kiffin thinks that the national expectations of a blowout actually help his team saying, "I kind of like it for our players, because I think it kind of takes the pressure off of them." It really does, when you think about it. If they lose by 20, it's a moral victory. More on this angle is coming later in the day.
Kiffin also is calling Florida the most talented team in the country, and "maybe ever." Perhaps he's trying to channel Jim Harbaugh, who speculated in 2007 that USC might have been the best team ever both before the season and the week before his Stanford team won in the Coliseum as 41 point underdogs. Why not?
Eric Berry, meanwhile, would not have raised an off season stink like his head coach did: "Him coming in and saying what he said, no, I wouldn’t do it, personally. I wouldn’t call out anybody or do anything like that." Read beyond the headline and money quote though, and you'll find that Berry is on his coach's side: "He did say some things that were probably out of line to a lot of people, but from our standpoint, we felt like he had our back... he just came in and saying all these positive things about us, we just felt like he had our back. That made us work that much harder for him."
As for news out of Gainesville, there was none. Unless of course you count Tim Tebow saying the team has a "special chemistry." It appears Urban Meyer's new cones of silence are working.
Any time a team wins while being outgained severely, there's a good bet that Dr. Saturday will cover it on his "Life on the Margins" series. Unsurprisingly, last weekend's South Carolina-Georgia went under the microscope yesterday. For what it's worth, T. Kyle at DawgSports says that stats don't tell the whole story of what happened.
20 Pounds of C4? Or 40 pounds?
Red Cup Rebellion asks you: in what manner should Ole Miss obliterate its I-AA opponent, Southeast Louisiana, this weekend? Can the Rebels afford to play another slow first half as they did against Memphis? My advice: just make the final score pretty. People will hold it against you if you beat a bad team by 10 no matter when in the season, but if you win by 50 no one cares. A slow start in November will cost you, but not in Week 3.
Meanwhile, Jerrell Powe has officially become a starter. It's been a long road to this point for him, so congrats to him for making it through everything. It's also a reminder of the strength of the Ole Miss D-line that Powe wasn't a shoo-in as a starter in the first place.
Mark Richt doesn't care what you, or anyone else thinks or reports. Joe Cox is and always was his guy.
Holtz-ian Rhetoric is Catching On
Urban Meyer has already tried to convince you that Charleston Southern's defense was special and that Troy has SEC level talent. Now, Les Miles is concerned with the UL-Lafayette offense, saying that it's more potent than Vanderbilt's. I'd really believe him if Michael Desormeaux was still there, but he's not. What's next for SEC coaches building up their opponents? Nick Saban saying he's worried about North Texas because it beat Ball State?
For one guy, anyway. Freshman LB Ridge Wilson was suspended for violating team rules according to Rich Brooks. It almost certainly is due to Wilson's arrest on Monday night.
If the BCS was decided today, Florida would be No. 4 according to the BCS Guru despite having a commanding lead in the human polls. The reason is because the computer polls don't look kindly upon playing cupcakes. Then again, this is also why they don't pick the BCS teams in Week 2.
Andy Staples of SI.com is still keeping Alabama above USC despite the Collision in Columbus, or whatever they're calling that game last weekend. I agree. Bama's win over Virginia Tech was more impressive when you look closely at the games and not just the final scores.
Reality Distortion Field Engaged
Florida LB Dustin Doe would like you to know that once you go Mac, you don't go back.