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

SDSU actually has a solid chance against Mizzou.  I wouldn't try to beat the line on that one.  

Utah should pretty much hurt UF. 

Let's see if SC can relight whatever fire they made at the end of last season.  They could... I dont think they will... they should still beat UNC, though.  

UT should win easily... I think they're 28pt favorites right now? But.... its a critical game, too, to gain confidence and see how Milton & Co. come together.  As a UT fan I can't allow myself to forget that Milton beat out Hooker to start and without a Milton injury we may have never known hooker.  He "practices" well... he did well against Vandy and against Clemson... vandy was easy as the running game really allowed for some air shots- clemson was a different story... they had a good D, statistically anyway... Milton needs confidence.  This will set the early tone.  

My guesses:

Tennessee 45  UVA 24

FSU 34  LSU 27

South Carolina 27  UNC 21

Utah 24  Florida 11

I was right about the passing game mismatch.  I was wrong in that I thought our OL was A-level.  That's what the local media pedaled, anyway.  They don't seem to have gotten that right.  Looks like they also missed on Daniels improvement....he looked exactly the same as last year, pros and cons.  

4th opener in a row LSU has lost.  Maybe we need to start thinking about starting with a rent-a-win like most other teams.  

Last year or earlier this year I was talking with some people here, maybe it was on the Big Ten board, I believe OAM was one of them.....I was asking about the conventional wisdom of Kelly being a good coach but Notre Dame having a ceiling.  I looked at their recruiting and saw they actually had comparable recruiting to LSU as far as the players currently on rosters (last 4-5 years), and I asked why were people confident he would do well at LSU with "better" players, since it looked to me like he had amassed good players at Notre Dame already.  I don't remember what the main responses were other than I think OAM pointed out that overall rankings doesn't necessarily reflect a solid roster with good talent at every position.  

All that to say, my skepticism remains that Kelly is the coach many think he is.  The team didn't look prepared, they were physically bullied, and there were no adjustments to speak of, which was the case all of last year.  If Kelly's plan coming in didn't work, too bad for us, 'cuz it ain't gonna change.  I just don't see him being the coach LSU thinks they paid for.  He's living on the mystique of a do-or-die two point conversion against Alabama, but the reality is LSU has been not just beaten, but manhandled in 3 of its last 4 games.  I talked to some Notre Dame fans who said the deal with Kelly is he'll win us a lot of games, but never reliably win any of the tough ones.  Problem is, LSU routinely has tougher games than Notre Dame.  It's early, but Marcus Freeman looks like he's doing more with what Notre Dame has than Kelly did.  I'm not calling for his head, and I don't think his seat will even get warm before next year unless LSU falls off a cliff.  We're unlikely to become a gimme-win for decent teams, but I don't think he's going to do big things here either.  He's not going to be the 4th coach in a row to win a title in BR.  Probably not even an SEC title if I had to guess.  

I don't know if they are listening to the hype so much as Kelly just can't coach. 

Srsly, for all the press he generated at Notre Dame over the years, I haven't seen any indication last year or in game 1 this year that he's anything other than mid.  He's fixing the massive roster problems O left us with (sans the secondary, which he doesn't seem to be able to shore up with recruiting classes, instead scrambling in the portal both times so far....well....and the LBs, which are good this year, but I just checked out the projected depth chart at LB for next year, and YIKES.....we are in trouble there) but I don't see any mental or physical toughness in his tenure.  lsu STILL can't run the ball, which is just mindblowing for anybody who's followed the team more than 5 minutes. 

He's literally got the college version of Micah Parsons in Harold Perkins, who single handedly won us games last year (see: vs. Arkansas, and to a lesser extent Ole Miss and Alabama) and what does he do with him?  He moves him off the edge where he terrified QBs and put him at MLB where he was in coverage over half the time and almost never rushed the QB.  He rendered his best defensive weapon completely ineffective.  What did he say about that after the game, did he admit that's a mistake, or something they need to think about?  No, he said, and I'm not making this up, "We're gonna keep Harold at MLB.  It has as much to do with his NFL future as anything.  He needs to learn MLB for the next level."  That constitutes a dereliction of duty, imo.  It's not as if there's not a place in the NFL for a freakish edge rusher (again, see:  Micah Parsons), but if even if there weren't, your job as a coach is to use your players to win games for your team, now.  Not to speak for their future coaches in the NFL and presume to know what they'll try to do with him.  It's not Kelly's job to worry about a kid's NFL future at all, other than help them with the steps when the time comes. 

I hope he proves me wrong, because I don't think he's going to amount to much of anything.  Whatever magic he had (or made people think he had) at Notre Dame....I doubt it works here.  AD Woodward won the press conference, but I don't think he won the hire.