Sideline Warning

A bit of a delayed post for this week.

Game of the Week

Auburn at LSU — A top 5 pre-season pick versus a perennial SEC West contender.

Blow-out of the Week

Mississippi State at West Virginia — WVU is probably overrated, but they can’t be nearly overrated enough to make this a game.

Rivalry Special

Tennessee at Alabama — No love lost here. Should be a hell of a ball game, too.

Morbid Curiosity

Vandy at South Carolina — Two teams that look stellar half the time and like high school players the other half. You just never know what you’re going to get.

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Game of the Week

Auburn at Arkansas — This game should have some serious SEC West implications.

Biggest Blow-out

LSU at Kentucky — I don’t care how good Woodson is. He cannot complete passes from his back, and that’s where those big monsters on LSU’s defensive line will keep him.

Morbid Curiosity

South Carolina at North Carolina — The OBC and Butch Davis? I will watch this game.

Croom-Watch 2007: Round 2

Tennessee at Miss. State — Like it or not, Fulmer is on the hot-seat. A loss to Croom and the Bulldogs could make things a little toasty in Phil’s shorts.

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Game of the Week

Florida at LSU — This game could very easily have huge national championship implications, and it’s the second week in a row for Florida getting a taste of potential challengers for their possible trip to Atlanta.

Biggest Blow-Out

Alabama vs. Houston — The score would be less lopsided if Houston Nutt was coming to Tuscaloosa. By himself. I guess if you’re going to schedule a cupcake, might as well go all out.

The ‘No Love Lost’ Game

Georgia at Tennessee — Nothing keeps us going mid-season like a good rivalry game. This is a good time to realize that Tennessee has a very nice schedule: tough, easy, tough, easy, tough, etc…

Morbid Curiosity

Miss. State vs. UAB — If you like watching High School ball, this game is probably right up your alley.

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Game of the Week

Auburn at Florida — Some folks have Auburn in the hunt for the SEC championship game. Many have Florida there. Could this be a preview?

Biggest Blow Out

LSU at Tulane — On the plus side, at least it’s a road game for the Tigers.

The Pretty Big Outdoor Cocktail Party?

Alabama vs. Florida State (in Jacksonville) — A must-see out of conference game for everyone in the country. Alabama will have a chance to back-up Les Miles’ big talking.

Morbid Curiosity

Kentucky vs. Florida Atlantic — This might not be as horrible a game as it would be most years, but it’s probably going to be the least interesting of the week.

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Game of the Week

Georgia at Alabama — Two teams with a lot of potential coming off of disappointing seasons. Two of the best coaches in the country, let alone the SEC. Will Pat Dye be man enough to keep his mouth shut in the run up to this one?

Biggest Blow Out

Tennessee vs. Arkansas Sate — ASU doesn’t even have a mascot, how the hell are they going to beat Tennessee without a mascot?

Hillbilly Stereotype Showdown

Kentucky at Arkansas — I for one don’t buy into all of the Arkansas and Kentucky stereotypes, but this game is a one-stop-shop for hillbilly jokes. Don’t leave your trailer without your dip-stained wife-beaters.

Morbid Curiosity

Mississippi State vs. Jacksonville State — The only Vegas line worth watching is the over-under on the number of times each team will try to give the game away.

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While the conference games started back in week one, this is the first week where half of the games have been in-conference. Unfortunately there’s not much in the way of huge games.

Game of the Week

Tennessee at Florida — By all accounts this should be an excellent game. Tennessee should be improved from last year, Florida will still be trying to prove that they haven’t lost a step. This will be Meyer’s first test of the year, will his team be ready?

Biggest Blow-out

Georgia vs. Western Carolina — Despite Richt not being the blow-out king, the Catamounts don’t stand a chance between the hedges.

‘Croom’ Watch

Miss. State at Auburn — Could Tubby get ‘Croomed’? Nobody in their right mind expects Mississippi State to win this game. But if they do, and Auburn loses some other big games (especially the Iron Bowl), Croom might be able to add another notch to his belt at season’s end.

Morbid Curiousity

Kentucky vs. Louisville — Louisville’s breaking in a new coach. Kentucky, even in their good years, are never really that good. Will this game demonstrate how far Kragthorpe and the Wildcats have come… or how far they have yet to go?

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This ought to be a good one. The LSU/VT match-up could be one of the best of the season and even Auburn/USF could be better than most people expect.

Game of the Week

LSU vs. Virginia Tech — The Miami/Oklahoma game is this week, too… but the contest in Baton Rouge will be a much better game. Bank on it. It might be the best non-conference game of the regular season.

Team Exposed as Not-So-Underrated After All

Auburn vs. South Florida — There’s some talk here on the internets that USF is going to be the dark horse in the Big East. I’m not buying it. Auburn is going to dismantle the Bulls.

Biggest Blow-out

Florida vs. Troy — Not much to say about this one. Troy gets Florida the week after they faced off against Arkansas. Whoever it was at Troy who scheduled this pair of games is either a practical joker or a sadist.

Morbid Curiosity

Alabama at Vanderbilt — Bad year for Alabama to catch Vandy. Nickson is better. Bennett is amazing. Saban has about the same amount of talent that Shula had last year. This is the barometer. If the Tide holds on, count on an improvement from last year. If not, it could get worse before it gets better.

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UPDATE: (7-5-2007) “Senator Blutarsky” pointed out in the comments that something seemed wrong. After looking back at the numbers, it appears that I had transposed two column headers. Previously, in the “received” column I had swapped “21-28″ and “28+” that has now been fixed in the raw numbers and in this post.

Ryan Ferguson over at The FanHouse linked to an article about blow-outs in the SEC. The first thing I noticed when I read the article over at Tracking the Tigers (an AL.com blog) was that it had some bizarre restrictions.

For starters, Marshall left out the worst teams in the conference, only looked back 5 seasons, and it seems that he looked at a coach’s last five seasons, instead of just going back five years. He also set the margin of victory (or loss, in this case) necessary to qualify for a blow-out at an astonishingly low 14 points. I’m fairly certain that I’ve never heard anyone call a 14-point win a “blow-out”. Rather than just criticize the methods, however, I decided to run some numbers of my own.

I went all the way back to 1998, looked at all of the current SEC coaches, and was mainly focused on a per-year rating rather than a raw number. I looked at wins by 21-28, 28+, and 21+. I was also curious about shut-outs, so I tossed those in as well. What follows is a far-too-long analysis, or you can jump right to the raw numbers — (I collected these automatically, so there could be some discrepancies… please let me know if you see any).

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Quite a few really interesting out of conference match-ups for SEC teams on opening weekend this year.

Game of the Week

Tennessee at Cal — This is probably the biggest game in the country, and it should be a good one. Cal got whipped last year in Knoxville and they’re going to be out for blood. Two arguably top ten teams meeting out-of-conference in the first week? Excellent!

Biggest Blow-out

Kentucky vs. Eastern Kentucky — Listen, Kentucky’s offense is for real. Woodson is probably the best quarterback in the conference and Rafael Little should have no problem running the ball against the Hilltoppers Colonels (Thanks, Brodie12Tide). EKU is transitioning to D-IA, but it’s going to take a few years before they get up to speed.

Morbid Curiosity

LSU at MSU — This game will not be even remotely interesting, but any time the Bulldogs from Starkville take the field against a team that should beat them into the ground, you’ve gotta ask yourself: is this the week that someone gets Croomed?

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In a move that both Yellowjacket AND Bulldog fans are hoping will be boons to their respective programs, MSU and Georgia Tech have inked a deal for a home-and-home series in 2008 and 2009. Georgia Tech, a charter member of the SEC, seems to have a bit of a crush on its old conference, likely owing to a fan-base that would rather see the Ramblin’ Wreck take the field against the worst of the SEC than the anyone from the Big East.

“It’s a game we’ve been wanting to schedule for a number of years,” [MSU Athletic Director] Templeton said, “because of our recruiting connections to Georgia. And we have a tremendous alumni base in Atlanta.”

The Jackets now have an SEC foe on their out-of-conference schedule (other than Georgia) every year between 2008 and 2014 reaching a high-water mark of 3 in 2009 with Georgia, Vandy, and MSU. Other SEC teams on future GT schedules include Ole Miss (’10 & ‘11) and Alabama (’12 & ‘14).

Via: Georgia Sports Blog.