Saturdays in Athens
GEORGE SOMERVILLE – THE TOUCHDOWN SEC CORRESPONDENT
Saturday , 24th September 2022
With SEC matchups becoming a regular feature on the calendar, you can tell that we are well and truly in to the season!
This week there’s an awesome match up in Knoxville between the much fancied Vols who welcome the Gators into town.
It’s great to be back and to welcome y’all to our weekly round up of life in the Southeastern Conference.
Here are this weeks headlines….let’s get started y’all!
gameday comes to Knoxville
knoxville, tn.
Tennessee hosting Florida in Knoxville is a huge game. It’s a rivalry game, a key SEC match up and as a spectacle is truly hard to beat. Which is EXACTLY why ESPN’s premier pre-game build up show will be there bright and early on Saturday morning to cover all of the festivities.
Yes, on Saturday morning (or lunchtime for us in the UK), ESPN’s College Gameday crew will be live from the Tennessee campus to bring us all the build up to what is likely to be the SEC’s biggest match up of the weekend.
Of course you can tell it’s a big game when Gameday comes calling – and the scenes from Boone, NC last weekend were a sight to behold. The atmosphere in and around Campus just ramps up to a different level when Gameday visits which is something that Tennessee Head Coach, Josh Heupel has experienced before as a player. Heupel talked about this during the SEC head coaches’ midweek call.
“my last year there (at Oklahoma) we had Gameday. To me it means you are playing in big games. I’m not sure you realise that through the course of the week but you felt the energy on the Friday, a little bit heightened around campus….the amount of people around the building. certainly on gameday the focus and energy and excitement from the fanbase. Those are great memories for me and my teammates back then”.
Heupel went on to talk about how he is preparing his players for their biggest game of the season so far,
“I talked to our players earlier in the week – Gameday is going to be here and we will be the centre of the college football world for that morning…. enjoy that it’s going to be taking place in our backyard”
#RockyTop
LSU reprimanded
Coach Kelly announced that Kayshon Boutte will not be with us this weekend. He is excused to be with his girlfriend as they expect the birth of their first child. pic.twitter.com/DCsJffoa6a
— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) September 22, 2022
Baton Rouge, la
Back in June 2021, long before now head coach Bryan Kelly was considering moving to Baton Rouge, the LSU Tigers fired offensive line coach James Cregg for failing to observe NCAA recruiting guidelines.
Cregg had admitted to meeting a recruit during the Covid protocol dead period, contravening NCAA rules – although Cregg subsequently took LSU to court citing unfair dismissal and won.
LSU elected to self-sanction the football program, hoping that the NCAA might not hand out such a severe set of punitive measures. These self sanctions involved restrictions in recruiting visits and a $5,000 fine.
The pre-emptive measures did seem to land well with the NCAA, who this week handed down a one year probation to the football program and a three year show cause against the ex LSU coach.
LSU was understandably satisfied with the level of sanctions and an official statement from the University read:
“Today’s decision of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions involving a former LSU assistant football coach concludes a 21-month cooperative process between the University and the NCAA. Throughout this process, the University has worked in concert with the enforcement staff to determine the truth and to self-impose sanctions. We are grateful to the Committee and the enforcement staff for their work and for accepting our self-imposed penalties, and we are pleased to be able to move forward as an institution and as a football program. LSU continues to work through the IARP process regarding other allegations of rule violations.”
LSU will hope that this matter is well and truly behind them.
But in much more positive news, Brian Kelly announced this week that wide receiver Kayshon Boutte has been excused from this weekend’s game against New Mexico as it coincides with the due date of his first child. Excellent news for Kayshon and his girlfriend. LSU are not expected to need the services of their star wide receiver against Los Lobos. But this IS LSU, so who can tell. Oh, I’m kidding.
#GeauxTigers
it doesn't rain, it pours
Auburn, AL
Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin must feel like he is living a line from a Luke Combs song right now, as it doesn’t just rain… it pours.
With confirmation that QB TJ Finley had sustained a shoulder injury in the game against Penn State – ruling him out of this weekend’s game against Missouri – Harsin would certainly turn to Robbie Ashford and Zach Calzada. Except that Calzada is now also injured, and in fact it would appear to be a season ending injury. Calzada said this week that he intends to redshirt his first year in Auburn after transferring across from Texas A&M. This is yet another hammer blow to Harsin, leaving him only Robby Ashford with any real playing experience on the roster
Calzada’s injury is not new and is in his non-throwing arm, but seems to have recurred during practice – and the young quarterback who transferred from Texas A&M at the end of last season has sought out surgery to resolve the problem.
If that wasn’t enough, TJ Finley’s father was vocal this week in the way in which his son was being rotated with Ashford for playing time against the Nittany Lions on Saturday.
Speaking on the Locked on Auburn podcast this week, Finley’s father David Finley had a bit to say about the coaching at Auburn,
“Neither quarterback has gotten a rhythm. The in and out effects of their play. He hasn’t been able to settle in and get a full game behind him.”
Finley Snr went on
“One quarterback goes in, runs a play and loses a yard, runs a play and gains two yards, then I’m asked to go in and convert…he did that consistently. I’m just calling a spade a spade.”
But Finley’s ire was certainly directed at the coaching staff, pulling no punches Mr Finley had this to say,
“Who can you blame when you’re in the redzone and every play that’s run is what they were told to run? Is that execution or the play? You had no slants, no bubbles, no screen passes, no drags across the middle, nothing to bail your quarterback out on obvious passing downs.”
I really doubt that any of the above is going to be taken as constructive criticism.
#WarDamnEagle
Ole Miss & the Party Punter
hattiesburg, MS
Ok some artistic licence here as the final story isn’t SEC related – but is happening deep in the South. And it is an all round alarming story, given the huge deprivation that the vast majority of the population of Mississippi lives in today.
Which made the news of the syphoning off of public monies intended for the community to wealthy individuals – including the darling of Mississippi, Brett Favre – all the more shocking.
Favre’s involvement appears to have been initially around getting money diverted to build a new volleyball venue on the Southern Miss campus – the school that Favre attended and also where his daughter plays volleyball. But more far reaching than that, Favre – like many others implicated – was paid for public speaking duties that he and the others just did not carry out. Favre is accused of receiving $1.1m for events he didn’t attend, as well as pushing through $2m in funding to a biotech start up – a company into which Favre had previously invested.
What is probably most damning are copies of text messages logged into evidence in which Favre asks if any of the misappropriation of funds can be traced back to him.
He is not alone in this case, with millions of dollars being diverted to local business people, politicians, celebrities and sportspeople. Favre just happens to be the biggest name. The case is taking the South by storm, for all the wrong reasons.
The courts will decide the fate of those involved, but if you have ever visited Mississippi you will know how desperately poor that the state is. It needs all the money it can get. It does not need that money being diverted to rich people’s swimming pools.
Sorry for ending in such a negative note but had to get that off my chest. Next week I will end with some funny stuff. I promise.
GEORGE SOMERVILLE
COLLEGE FOOTBALL WRITER
A GLASWEGIAN LIVING IN LONDON, GEORGE IS A COLLEGE FOOTBALL FAN WHO FOLLOWS THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE. HE PROVIDES CFB CONTENT FOR THE TOUCHDOWN AND IS ONE THIRD OF THE COLLEGE CHAPS PODCAST.