College Football Week 4...looking at the SEC (and OSU)...

LSU@Auburn (26-21). For what it’s worth, the winner of this game has gone on to win the SEC West and play in the SEC Championship game in six of the past eight years. Of course, if that’s going to be LSU they’re going to have to find a way to move the ball into the red zone—just ten attempts in three games so far. And while Auburn’s issue typically isn’t getter there, it’s scoring there, this past Saturday they took a page from LSU’s book and their offense only even traveled into LSU territory four times. While Chris Todd looked okay, Ben Tate couldn’t get anything going on the ground. LSU had the opposite problem—Charles Scott was solid and set up their offense with 132 yards rushing. He didn’t average the 11.4 yards per carry had had coming into this game, but he was enough of a threat to detract from the inexperienced LSU quarterbacks (thanks to Ryan Perrilloux).

Perhaps the fact that none of the LSU quarterbacks have ever played a true college road game is why both Andrew Hatch and Jarrett Lee had such a rough welcome to the hostile environment called an SEC Road game, and in particular, Jordan-Hare Statidum. Hatch started the game but flip flopped with Lee and was eventually replaced by him. Lee was 0-5 in the first half, with his fifth attempt going for an interception. But the second half was a different story as he found rhythm (at times) and threw for two touchdowns. Worth noting: he didn’t have a single rushing attempt in the game.

Georgia@Arizona State (27-10). Arizona State looked pretty good at the beginning of this game—the very beggining. They came out playing fast and hard. They entered with the top passing offense in the Pac-10 against the 2^nd worst pass defense in the SEC (against mediocre teams). Of course the idea was to try to pass the ball, which they did. But if you seriously can’t run at all, you can’t possibly beat a top-ranked team (PLEASE NOTE: under no circumstances do I believe Georgia is the top team in the country or the SEC and exactly where I see them ranked will not be discussed until October, when it’s no longer just pure speculation). What can one of the worst rushing offenses in the nation do against one of the best rushing defenses? Nothing. The Sun Devils had a net 4 yards and averaged .2 yards per carry. But, then again, this team lost to UNLV last week. Maybe they actually need Keegan Herring the way Ohio State needs Beanie Wells?

As for Georgia, for those who feel so badly for Matthew Stafford and his “terrible” offensive line, you should note that he was sacked just once in this game, as opposed to Rudy Carpenter who had four. Also note that Stafford had negative yards rushing and just one touchdown pass. But, I will acknowledge, as I have in the past, that this guy can really make some great plays when pressured and while I don’t love the way he manages a game, he does have a good panic button when under pressure.

Troy@Ohio State (10-28). Ohio State entered this game at the bottom of the Big Ten in passing offense, sacks allowed, scoring offense and total offense. Enter Terrelle Pryor.

Yes, they were playing Troy, but this was the first true freshman to start at Ohio State in 30 years. Pryor looked good with 4 touchdowns and his only INT was a hail mary to end the first half. His passes looked effortless. So for a team that only had two passes go for over 15 yards in last two weeks, the Todd Boeckman issue has now been solved. Again, it was against Troy, but it was nice to finally see the Buckeyes hit some touchdowns in the red zone (first three games they had three touchdowns in ten trips—in this game they were 2-2). They were working with a short field on several occasions, which would explain why Pryor had just 139 yards passing yet four touchdowns. He also added 66 yards rushing.

The defense looked shabby at first and in addition to some poor tackling, the Buckeyes allowed Troy to have 150 yards passing in the first half. That changed in the second half though when Ohio State went to four defensive ends to stop the spread and held Troy to just 70 yards passing.

So we know now that Ohio State is not as good as we once thought they were, but that’s also in part due to the fact that they aren’t as experienced as we once thought. For the first time in Buckeye history, a true freshman snapped the ball to a true freshman. And a red-shirt freshman running the ball and this offense is still using training wheels. Their goal, as always, is to win the Big Ten...and they have some big challenges ahead with Wisconsin and Penn State.

It’s not the quantity of yards—it’s the quality.

Now for the sloppy...

Alabama@Arkansas (49-14)

Florida@Tennessee ( 30-6)

Alabama and Florida both looked great on Saturday, but that was thanks in large part to the mistakes of their opponents. One might expect the road team in SEC games to struggle somewhat, but it was the opposite at Razorback and Neyland Stadiums this week. Arkansas outgained Alabama in the first half of the game even though the Tide led 36-7 going into halftime. Quarterback Casey Dick may have passed for 190 yards, but he threw three interceptions—two which were taken directly in for scores. Their four team interceptions led to 21 Crimson Tide points. What was impressive about Alabama? Not John Parker Wilson. He was just 6-14, 74 yards and a touchdown (although that touchdown was his 42^nd did set a new school record as it was his 42^nd career touchdown pass). But their running game, led by Glenn Coffee accumulated 328 yards. Coffee averaged 16.2 yards. Alabama is now 4-0 going into next week’s game against Georgia.

As for that other game, Urban Meyer is now 4-0 against Tennessee. Tennessee looked horrible. Tim Tebow didn’t even have to do much (just 8-15, 96 yards, 2 TDs). Both of the touchdown drives started in Volunteer territory. Tennessee fumbled at their own 30, had a pick go for a touchdown and gave up a punt return for a touchdown.