WE ARE ALMOST THERE…
Tuesday August 27, 2002
We are almost there and with the way baseball is going right
now football season can’t come soon enough.
As usual, just when you can’t take any more previews or polls and the sports
scene becomes as dry as the Alabama red clay after two weeks with no rain,
sweet relief finally comes. The season
finally begins. This SEC season
officially kicks off on Saturday at 11:30 with MTSU at Bama as the countdown
clock indicates above…
The storylines are already set in stone. In the West, it is obvious that it is going
to be a mad scramble for the title.
Every team really does have a legitimate shot . Or I guess the better way to say it is every
team has a legitimate shot to blow it.
Just about everybody is picking LSU since they have a lot of talent
coming back and are the defending SEC champs.
I guess I would too. However
there is no doubt that LSU has some problems.
QB Matt Mauck was not overly impressive in the spring and his closest
competition blew out his knee. Saban
then brought in a JUCO QB this summer to shore up the position but it doesn’t
sound good. If Mauck doesn’t pan out or
gets hurt LSU could be in trouble.
Elsewhere, everybody has some great talent but gaping
holes. The most experienced team is
probably Bama but they are currently inelgible. The Tide still has some questions in it’s passing game and it’s
secondary but otherwise they look pretty good.
Auburn returns a lot on defense but has a huge question at QB and on the
offensive line. Arkansas and Miss St
probably have the most questions at this point but both could also poised for a
bounceback season.
Ole Miss should have the best QB and the best passing game
which should give them the big advantage but their defensive line is
figuratively and literally a gaping hole.
The line completely collapsed last year allowing Arkansas, Georgia and
Miss St to run all over the Rebels and nearly allowed a Vandy upset. I just don’t know how much Ole Miss can fix
the problem in one recruiting season.
It should be a bigger scramble than usual. Plus Auburn proved last year that it is
never over till it’s over. After
beating the #1 team in the nation Auburn stood as the only undefeated team in
the SEC. Auburn then disintergrated and
LSU caught fire. So many big West games
are played at the end of the season that you can never call it till it is all
the way over.
Summing up the East doesn’t take half as long… All this talk about Georgia is pretty funny
to me. Florida or Tennessee have won
the East every year since the SEC went to divisions. The only change from last year is that Steve Spurrier is gone. Tennessee a great deal of it’s top 10 team
of last year. Florida returns the
probable Heisman Trophy winner. Why is
Georgia going to suddenly win the East?
They are a good offensive team but I still think Tennessee and Florida
have better players. I would probably
go with everybody else and pick UT but something is telling me that everybody
counting out Florida is a mistake.
Spurrier might be gone but they are still a very talented team. Don’t count the Gators out yet… It will either be Tennessee or Florida…
again.