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

Anyway, congrats to the Sooners.  Wow.  Now that's an upset that I don't think anyone would have predicted.

I thought that it would be a slaughter that I didn't want to watch. So I watched the early goings on in Yankee Stadium. I thought that the Notre Dame team that lost to Northern Illinois might show up.

Meanwhile, my esposita was watching the OU game and I heard some happy shrieks, so I joined her in watching OU-Bama. I never saw that coming. Finally winning the turnover battle helped, but that doesn't fully explain what happened in Norman last night.

This is what I think happened. After Alabama got up on UGA 28-0 Smart figured out how to play Milroe.  He said after the game Georgia started out too aggressively and he switched to more of a read and react defense.  Alabama did not get another td until the game winner at the end. The other dcoordinators around the league saw what Kirby did and the Ala o was complete trash for the next 3 games during which Ala lost 2 out of 3 and could have lost to SC if the young qb had been big enough to do it in Tuscaloosa. For whatever reason, Missouri and LSU went back to an attacking defense which Milroe destroyed.  Venables played Alabama the right way and shut down the Tide o again.

Perhaps 

At any rate, congrats on a fantastic win!

Yeah, I don't think LSU's problem with Milroe was attacking him too much, it's that they have yet to keep lane integrity when defending a rushing QB, unless you count Vanderbilt.  They bit on every little bit of motion and left wide open spaces for Milroe to zip through, just like they did Reed, just like they did Lagway, just like they did Sellers before he got hurt.  

My issue with that is the same one I have with Kelly/LSU.  For both that scenario and Venables/OU, this is Year 3.  It's hard to buy the "the roster was depleted" angle by this point.  I'm sure it was true for OU.  It was certainly true for LSU. 

They've had 3 years.  And as I've mentioned previously, this is an era where you can go down to the local Portal-Mart and immediately stack your team. 

I don't pay nearly so close attention to OU, but as far as my own team goes, the "O left the roster decimated" excuse that fans keep trotting out is beyond thin.  Why is our offense so stacked at this point--heck, it was even more stacked last year--but "the defense just isn't talented yet, O left a terrible roster, wait til he gets better players" line persists?  O leaving things in a mess doesn't explain why the offense immediately was rebuilt but the defense still isn't, why special teams is consistently a disaster year after year, and why the biggest problems we can see aren't talent or scholly numbers related, it's kids who don't know their job. 

"It's only Year 3" wouldn't even have worked for me back in the pre-portal era.  I ain't buying it for Venables/Kelly now.  They may turn the ship around--I'm not saying they can't--but there wasn't an excuse for what we saw this year for either team.