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

It occurred to me that Kentucky is getting no respect. They are 5-1 with their only loss being to Florida in a game they should have won.

Here's my rankings
1 - Bama
2 - Georgia
3 - Auburn
4 - A&M
5 - Kentucky
6 - Everybody else

I don't subscribe to the theory that the better team always wins.

The better team doesn't always win, but the better team that day wins nearly 100% of the time, barring disastrous refereeing or something like that.  

Syracuse certainly doesn't seem to be better than Clemson, but neither was that game fluky, either.  I don't know why and I don't know how, but the Syracuse front 7 flat out whipped the Clemson front 5 most all game, to the point I found myself thinking I don't think it would've made much difference if Kelly Bryant had played the 2nd half.  On the other side, the Syracuse O-line held their own well enough against the vaunted Clemson front 7.  There were no crazy bounces of the ball, no 1-in-100 crazy plays and not an excessive amount of chunk plays.  Just Syracuse outplaying Clemson, straight up.  The trenches were the most unbelievable part of that game.  

I know several who are major believers in Dino Babers....coaching accounts for a lot.  

I think coaching decisions and plans are often overlooked in games.  People tend to think the best team winning simply means the team with the most 4 and 5 stars.  That will get you a long way, but if you're even in the ballpark, game management factors in hugely.  I was a genuine X's and O's noob when I joined this board 11 years ago.  I'm still not advanced, but the more I've studied the game over the years the more I've realized how much mental work goes into each play.  And not just the players, the offensive and defensive play each coordinator calls is really big.  If one coach is on fire that day and his opponent is not, look out.  

In the first quarter when Auburn was blowing us out, they had a tunnel screen go 52 yards for a TD.  Fantastic play-call by Malzahn--or Chip Lindsey, whatever--where they spread the field and motion a back out of the backfield.  LSU's Tyler Taylor follows him, LSU still sends pressure, but Stidham spots it for the big screen.  Perfect call for what DC Dave Aranda was sending.  The LSU players didn't do anything "wrong" there, and they weren't suddenly slower, weaker, or less highly rated than Auburn.  The coordinators were playing rock/paper/scissors and Auburn's guy read Aranda like a book.  

A coach can get really dialed in like that, maybe for a few plays, maybe for a game, and suddenly a "lesser" team is the better team.  That day, anyway.  Talent is well worth paying attention to, but I think many people stop there when figuring out who the good teams are, and what that means.  It doesn't just go up and down by the week, it's a constant variance from play to play.  Coaching is HUGE.  

Wrong, on all accounts.

It strikes me that a "power poll" means the higher ranked team would usually defeat the lower ranked team, right?

That "usually" turns into "almost always" when you have #14 visiting #1.  We just had #13 visit #2 and #13 put up a tussle in the first half and with some breaks/errors could have stayed relevant into late in the game and possibly won.  That data could mean #2 is too high or #13 is too low, or it could mean it was just one of those days.

I think we'd all agree that the Vols have virtually no chance of beating Bama at home, right?  One chance in 200 maybe?

If we had say A&M playing UGA in CS, we might all think A&M had a pretty decent shot, like say 30-40%.

So, a question then is does anyone in the West remaining on Bama's schedule have much of a shot aside from Auburn?  LSU?  Are we talking 10% chance for LSU?  Maybe 30% chance of Auburn?  Or are these figures too high?

I'd note that Alabama has often lost a game in the recent past regular season.  That becomes more probable because of multiple chances of course.

 .......no explanation for calling off the dogs against a team with the talent of LSU....no explanation.

I’m so sick of these fake power rankings. TN should be immediately under Bama. Why? Because Butch says the Vols are champions of life so how could one champion not be ranked behind another champion? 

Is Florida going to be able to field 11 players by the next game?