The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Teams better than I suspected (so far):

Alabama (that is scary)
Kentucky (so far)
LSU (two nice wins)
Missouri (3-1, hung around with UGA)

Team worse than expected:

Arkansas (and I didn't expect much)

I'm going to cut the Vols a break for now because of the 6 TOs.

Drew, I think you are misreading what is going on at Tennessee. The wins and losses this team compiles this year are irrelevant. Pruitt is putting Tennessee through basic training a la Paul Bryant at Texas A&M circa 1955. It is what comes out after basic training that is important.

Also Tennessee has very little talent. It takes a while to build up the talent level. Be patient. Tennessee has the right person.

Exactly Cincy. TN did far more to lose that game than the Gators did to win it but fans like Afro don’t have the intellectual integrity to admit it. Both teams suck terribly. One team imploded. The other took advantage of short fields given them. It’s that simple. I told a guy last night during the game that it was like watching the Bad News Bears.

Are you trying to fill the role left by a certain someone?  Please don't.  Be a person.  You know, with rational thoughts and treating others as if they were people too (because we are).
It's as if you didn't read my previous posts on this very thread at all.  
Think about what I'm asking of you:  just be a person.  Is that too much to ask???

These things aren't mutually exclusive.  

Just got around to watching this yesterday, and both points were fairly glaring.  Florida is flat better than Tennessee AND Tennessee did a lot of things to shoot themselves in the foot.  The differences on the lines--particular UF DL vs. UT OL--were enough that UT would have trouble scoring if you played this game 10x.  If they don't repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot, they probably still lose this game 9 or 10x, just would lose a closer game where UF doesn't score so much.   

take it fwiw, I have no dog in the fight.  

There's really no X's or O's to adjust over a hypothetical 10-game matchup.  These teams played each other about as straight up as possible.  Florida seemed to know it had better talent and opted to minimize risk and let the odds play out.  Conversely, UT did very little schematically to try and mitigate their talent disadvantage.  Or maybe they did and things went disastrously wrong and I couldn't spot it.  It's hard to know what play you're attempting when people decide not to block a guy like David Reese.  Damned if I can distinguish a zone-power from a GT-counter when there's two or three Gators in the backfield about the same time the QB gets the ball in his hands.  

Okay, that didn't happen every play.  But it happened enough.  

Somebody needs to call for the Ole Miss upset over LSU.  I'm not predicting it, but it won't surprise me either.  LSU taking the 2nd half off of games until late in the 4th quarter is no longer a tendency, it's a trend.  They're due for a wakeup call and Ole Miss has the right matchup advantages to nail LSU if they can't learn to put their foot on a throat.  

Then people can go back to predicting them to be a 5-7 team and be amazed all over again when they best Florida and MSU, just like Miami and Auburn.  

I told you 8 wins was the floor, and I'm sticking with it.  I thought AU might be one of the L's, so we've got another one to give away somewhere.  More than 8 won't surprise me.  There's two or three areas that need significant work, and it may not ever come together this season, but there's playoff talent here.  It's odd to see people here occasionally claim to ignore the mediots and boast about how much better analysis is here, when people here rampantly parroted the media about the Tigers.  They for some reason picked LSU as a dead team walking--God knows why--and all you had to do was take an honest look at last season and who comes back.  Anything LESS than 8 wins would be a gross underachievement.  God knows I couldn't do ELA's countdown, and I could honestly care less where he pegged the team--that's just a matter of interpreting the data--but half of his preview data on us was flat wrong.  I strive to make arguments about LSU a rare thing....I have a feeling my observations of my team are largely seen as that of a homer.  Although after 12 years here I'm not sure why I'd ever be mistaken for a guy who doesn't critically identify our shortcomings.  

Going back to the preseason rankings I posted for fun....a lot of those are looking good atm, but boy, so far I/we sure missed Kentucky on the lines.  Thought they'd be at the bottom on both sides of the ball, but I can't believe how well UK's OL did against Florida and Clanga.  DL has been better than expected as well.  If those lines are for real, UK has a way higher ceiling than I thought and I'll eat crow and admit it.  

I agree on Miami.  Looking at what they actually did last year, who returns, etc, I and most LSU fans who are hardcore football junkies did not see what was supposed to be so great about them.  Not dissing them, they're a good team, but I'm saying I didn't think they were out of our league and a team we couldn't beat if we played a clean game.  That Louisiana kid Gerald Willis III is the real deal though.  That guy is one of the best DLs we'll see all year, and he cleaned our clock the whole game.  

I did see your posts on ELA's thread.  Saw Badger's responses too, which.....I dunno, like I said, people claiming not to be full of the media's popular opinions sure fall down the same holes, which honest to goodness, doesn't take much scrutiny to pick apart when assessing LSU.  I think people look at the Troy loss last year and give in to lazy thinking to write LSU off, without looking at what was going on, talent on hand, etc.  

Agree on Ole Miss too.  LSU better bring it or they'll lose.  Not saying they will, just saying for as bad as Ole Miss has been, they can beat this LSU team.  LSU has a WRs who don't get separation nearly enough and don't catch the ball.  Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry had the same problem for a couple years, then one day the light went on and they marauding the league their final go-round, and we hope that something similar will eventually happen, but I certainly wouldn't count on it.  All we've got right now are guys who are physically gifted and need a lot of work.  The line is a constant rotating patchwork due to injuries.  The offense has been explosive, but not at all consistent.  I'm not ready to pronounce a final judgement, but the secondary is not as good as I thought it'd be.  Still think we hit 8 wins, and if the light somehow does go on, the talent is there to play with anybody on the schedule.  Right now there's enough issues that they can lose to anyone as well.  Split the odds, I think 8 wins is a safe bet.  

just think about this... it'll offer at least thirty seconds entertainment i promise:

Haslam and the three former AD's did this... they hired the man-child kiffin and got dumped... then fooley... and then, the greatest blunder of all- they hired the only guy fooley ever out coached, Jones.