Saturdays in Athens
GEORGE SOMERVILLE – THE TOUCHDOWN SEC CORRESPONDENT
Saturday 10th September 2022
Week 1 was pretty special, and saw SEC teams go 13-1 in the first full schedule week of the season. But how many experts had Vandy 2-0 and Brian Kelly searching for his first win after two weeks? Few – but it has made for some great talking points thus far.
And week two will prove no less exciting with Bama travelling to Austin, Texas, and the first all SEC matchups of the season – Kentucky travelling to the Swamp and South Carolina making their way west to Fayetteville to play Arkansas.
So we eagerly look forward to the 3rd week of football and welcome y’all to our weekly roundup of life in the Southeastern Conference.
Here are this weeks headlines….let’s get started y’all!
Kelly under fire
Baton Rouge, la
The one thing we do know of the Brian Kelly era at LSU is the it is never going to be dull. Just at the point that we had (kinda) got over Kelly’s new-found Louisiana accent and his awkward dancing recruiting Tik Toks, the season was underway. If Head Coach Kelly was of the mind that the football would do the talking from here on in, a last second defeat to Florida State in the first game of the season was certain to get LSU fans scrutinising everything their leader had to say.
Meaning an unfortunate verbal spat with a member of the media made national headlines.
We know from Kelly’s press conferences during his time at Notre Dame that he can be irreverent. Some call it humour, others say he is condescending (I leave that decision to you dear reader) – but it was always going to be interesting how it would be received in the SEC. Well we found out on Tuesday.
Kelly decided to call out a member of the media who made it late to his press conference. Although noted the media member said she arrived at 11.57am for a 12 noon presser. Anyway, I digress.
Kelly said,
“we’ll open it up to this late arriving media crowd that must have enjoyed the weekend”
before spelling out the consequences for lateness to his meetings,
“that’s usually ten dollars that we put in the kitty…we’ll have a big bash at the end of the year at my place”.
Which raised a few chuckles from the media pack. Except this is the SEC and the journalist who was singled out had a retort. Leah Vann of the Advocate responded,
“maybe if you win, I’ll be on time”.
Ouch. Welcome to the SEC Brian Kelly. You would also kinda hope that the LSU Head Coach might rise above the banter and let it go but no. Kelly responded,
“I don’t think it has anything to do with winning. It has to do with being on time”.
Touche, Coach Kelly, Touche.
#GoTigers
“Maybe if you win I’d be on time.”
— The Field of 12 (@TheFieldOf12) September 7, 2022
Welcome to the SEC, Brian Kelly 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/EkLl6CULLZ
"We're not going to fire him"
Baton Rouge, la
Let’s stay in Baton Rouge. While Kelly found himself under fire from Tigers fans following the first defeat of the season, so did LSU wide receiver and special teams returner Malik Nabers. In fairness, LSU Special teams had a night to forget in the Superdome on Sunday, but with two muffed punt returns the focus was on Nabers.
LSU fans turned on Nabers with his family coming under fire on social media. None of this was helped by the post game comments from his Head coach. Speaking to Ross Dellenger of SI, Kelly had this to say about his wide receiver,
“I’ve been doing this a long time. You put a guy back there, a guy like Malik Nabers, you watch him, you evaluate him through four weeks of practice, and you feel comfortable with his elite skill set and his mindset that he’s going to be able to do a great job, and that wasn’t the case. That was a mistake that we made”.
Kelly went on,
“He wants to do it, and we’ll have to reevaluate that situation. He’s a great kid. We didn’t lose the game because he dropped those two punts….. We watched him catch punts, and we felt like he was in a position that he could do that for us.”
By midweek, Kelly had rowed back a little. At the SEC Head coaches midweek teleconference, Kelly was asked about Naber’s immediate future on Special teams. Kelly said,
“we’re not going to fire him from his duties”.
Well, that’s good news then.
#GeauxTigahs
No horns down at Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL.
There is no doubting the game of the week, where the eyes of the college football world will be drawn to Austin, Texas to watch those Longhorns welcome the Alabama Crimson Tide.
This truly is a mouthwatering clash for two blue blood programs. If the fixtures’ rich history wasn’t enough, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian comes up against his old head coach Nick Saban. It was Saban who almost certainly resurrected Sarkisian’s coaching career. It is also the clash of two superstar quarterbacks; reigning Heisman winner, Bryce Young vs Heisman hopeful and young pretender Quinn Ewers.
This game has everything.
No great surprise then that there has been a lot of attention on the pre game build up. This week Alabama Head coach, Nick Saban learned something new about BIG XII football, or their officials to be accurate. It was about the fact that in the Big XII the use of he “horns down” sign is an automatic 15 yards penalty. A reporter asked Saban if he had spoken to his team about the horns down penalty.
“What’s that”
said Saban in characteristically grumpy fashion.
“I have not addressed it with the team but I appreciate you letting me know. You know we have got a lot of other things that we really have to worry about but I think that’s a good thing for me to go over with the team so I appreciate that”
Saban armed with more information is more dangerous than he was before the presser. But imagine his sideline rage if one of his players caught a 15 yard penalty for the ol’ horns down? Apoplectic probably. Good news is that its an SEC crew officiating, so presumably we are all in on horns down!
#RollTide
Georgia take down the ducks
Atlanta, GA
No question that the performance of the week was the Bulldogs mauling of the Oregon Ducks in the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Similarly to Georgia’s opener to Clemson last season, many thought that Oregon could be a real threat to Georgia.
There were also numerous side stories in this match up – Dan Lanning returning to Georgia so quickly after jumping ship from Georgia to become Oregon Head Coach. Or ex-SEC quarterback Bo Nix facing Georgia, a team he has never fared well against. Or the ever burning question mark hanging over Georgia’s National Championship winning quarterback, Stetson Bennett?
As it turns out these were all minor bit parts in the play, except for the Georgia quarterback who had a game to end all games. By guiding Georgia to a 49-3 mauling of the Ducks, Bennett quietened many if not all detractors. Bennett it would seem is winning over his haters.
By defeating the Ducks so convincingly, Georgia leapfrogged Ohio State in the AP rankings into 2nd spot behind Alabama. The victory over Oregon sufficiently impressive to outshine the Buckeyes, who won over a dogged and impressive Notre Dame.
Which leads to the question – have the Bulldogs been overlooked when in fact they were the reigning National Champions? Well ranked at #3 is hardly being overlooked but there may be something in that they have not been mentioned so often as National Champion contenders. That talk seems to have been focused on Alabama and Ohio State.
But according to ‘voice of the South’ Paul Finebaum, people have been sleeping on the Dawgs. Speaking on the ESPN College football podcast, Finebaum said,
“I think people today and all week you’re going to start to hear them cement around the idea that maybe Georgia is something that we didn’t really think they were going to be… and that’s not only a contender but maybe a superpower. They certainly looked like it yesterday. You can argue easily that they’re the best team in the country. How do we know right now? We’ll figure it out soon.”
Georgia face Samford this weekend so its unlikely that we will learn anything new from this weekends game. But the schedule gets pretty serious, pretty quick in the SEC – so we will find out soon enough.
#GoDawgs
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.