UPSETS ALL OVER THE SEC
Monday 10/15/01
“The picks are
pretty easy this week. There doesn’t
look to be any upsets brewing...” Yes
that was my dumb comment on this past weekend before it started. Boy did I get it wrong. As my father-in-law always tells me:
“anything can happen in college football”.
It sure did this weekend as Auburn upset #1 Florida, Arkansas upset
undefeated South Carolina, Ole Miss beat Bama for the first time in almost 15
years and little Troy St drowned Miss St in a very wet Starkville.
My comments on the Auburn win are in the
article across the page but I will grab a quote from it to sum that game
up: “It was simply, as the cheer goes,
"great to be an Auburn Tiger" on Saturday night. Now there will most likely be losses and low
points to the season upcoming for Auburn.
A team this young can reach heights on both ends of the spectrum. Auburn is still by no means a great team and
Florida could still be. Auburn will
most certainly be upset just as painfully as every other team in the SEC has to
this point. If Auburn was upset at home
by Alabama in a month, it could really take alot from this season. However no matter what happens, nothing can
take away from this win. It will be
like in 1994 when Auburn beat #1 Florida in the Swamp. That season ended badly but that win will
always be remembered. This win will be
remembered as one of the greatest upsets in Auburn history regardless of the
rest of the season. Auburn 23 Florida
20. David beats Goliath again...”.
Things could turn sour for Auburn but right
now they are looking pretty sweet.
Auburn stands as the only undefeated team in conference play halfway
through their conference schedule. They
are 2 games ahead of every team in the SEC West and are 1 game up on Ole Miss
with a head-to-head win against them.
Auburn faces a tough road again with 3 road games out of their last 4
conference games. They must travel to
Fayetteville, Athens and Baton Rouge plus play Bama at home and that one is
always a tough close game. However both
times Auburn has won the West they lost to Miss St and Florida. They finally have won those 2 games and have
a little breathing room.
Meanwhile the Ole Miss Rebels took a huge
step forward finally beating Bama.
Buoyed by the easiest schedule in the conference the Rebels are second
in the West at the midway point. They
have a long way to go because they still must play LSU, Arkansas, Georgia and
Miss St. They also have to have Auburn
stumble pretty bad but they have a shot.
LSU almost dropped out of the race but avoided a disaster by a last
minute TD drive to nip Kentucky. Don’t
count LSU out though. Like Auburn’s
game against Vandy two weeks ago, this game could get LSU rolling. They still have a long way to go since they
have to play every team in the SEC West now but they are still a contender.
Miss St is mostly likely out of the race but
they will take somebody else out before all is said and done I think. They will still play LSU, Bama and Ole
Miss. Miss St is down but I would be
surprised to see them lose all those games.
Arkansas has been out from about day one but definitely hurt South
Carolina’s season and got at least one big home win this year. I guess I should have known that Houston
Nutt will always get at least one big win at home. The offense was still terrible except for Fred Talley but they
had enough after a great performance by their defense. They did the best job defensively on South
Carolina that anybody has done this season.
The SEC East race changed a bit with Florida
losing but the route to Atlanta in the East still goes through the Gators. All the contenders still have to play
Florida. South Carolina pretty much has
to beat both Tennessee and Florida to get to Atlanta and that is a very
unlikely scenario. Georgia would have
to beat Florida in 2 weeks and then beat Auburn and Ole Miss as well. Not impossible but that is a tough road as
well. Tennessee even with the stinging
lost to Georgia still has the best shot.
Tennessee has to beat Bama on the road and
South Carolina at home in the next two weeks.
Two games that will be tough but they will be favored in. Then avoiding a titanic upset to either
Kentucky or Vandy they will play Florida for the SEC East title to win the
season. Florida must beat Georgia,
Vandy, South Carolina and Tennessee to do it.
Anything can happen as this week proved but I still think Florida will
be a very tough team to beat the rest of the way.