Saturdays in Athens
GEORGE SOMERVILLE – THE TOUCHDOWN SEC CORRESPONDENT
Saturday 1st october 2022
Hard to believe that we are already in to October, and Fall is definitely on us. As I write this, Hurricane Ian is wreaking havoc across Florida and by the time you read this Georgia and the Carolinas will have felt the brunt.
So it’s hard to understand what impact there will be on society, let alone sporting events. However let’s be positive, that people remain safe and that we have some college football to look forward to in the South this weekend.
Here are this week’s headlines.
Kiffin calls out the fans
Oxford, ms
Mississippi Head Coach Lane Kiffin had a lot to say this week. Increasingly there are times that Lane Kiffin sounds more and more like his old mentor Nick Saban. And this week was one of those times. You can bet your house that at some point in the season – usually early on – the Alabama Head Coach will bring up the subject of fans not being vocal enough and leaving the game in the third or fourth quarter. He has a point.
Which was the same point that Lane Kiffin raised this week. Kiffin talked this week about the lack of fans and their vocal impact at Vaught Hemingway this season so far. Now, as much as I talk a lot about and highly recommend Oxford, Mississippi as a football destination – it is superb – it is not Tiger Stadium. Which Kiffin realises, but by the same point he is not impressed at running out to half filled stands. Kiffin had this to say during mid week press conferences:
“When you come back out, run out of the tunnel and it looks like a high school game playing in a college stadium, you can’t let that affect you…
There’s psychology to that obviously. There’s home field advantage for a reason.
When it goes the other way, you kind of have that feeling that, ‘Man, are we still really playing in a game here?’ The players have to fight that. We use that as a learning lesson for our guys. If that’s the case, that’s the case. I’m worried about what I can control.
I’ve tried social media in here for two years. We’ll worry about what we can control and that’s getting our players ready to play.”
Some – especially those outside the SEC – took this as a sign that Kiffin was becoming tired coaching at a so called smaller school. This might have been wishful thinking on the part of Nebraska fans. But take it for what it is; their Head Coach calling the students and fans to arms. Turn up and be heard!
#HottyToddy #ComeToTheSip
LSU furious with CBS
Baton Rouge, la
LSU face off against Tennessee on Oct 8th -on the same weekend that Auburn faces Georgia, and Alabama faces off against Jimbo Fisher and his Texas Aggies. Of course, it was this game which pre season everyone was eagerly anticipating given the very public spat between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher over NIL. With the disagreement dialled down to almost zero, there has been very little if any animosity between the two – and with the Aggies slow start to the season, the game is not quite the box office draw that I am sure the TV networks wanted.
Nonetheless, CBS are continuing to show the game at 3.30pm ET, which puts the Bama game into their primetime slot. However, it is the scheduling of the other two games which has raised eyebrows – and to be honest got those good folks at LSU and also within SEC towers hot under the collar.
LSU will face Tennessee and Auburn will travel to Georgia for 11.30am kick offs next Saturday. Which has not gone down well with LSU officials or, as we understand, the SEC. If reports are correct, the telephone lines into CBS sports this week have been red hot.
There are a group of schools, including Georgia, who are comfortable, even happy with early kick offs, but LSU is not one of those schools. In fact this upcoming morning kick will be only the 15th time in LSU school history that they have played football at Death Valley in the morning.
However there is a silver lining for LSU fans. In those 14 other occasions of getting out of bed early, LSU has won them all!
#geauxtigers
Where is Tebow's Heisman?
Tim Tebow doesn't have his Heisman Trophy. He actually hasn't had it for the last 8 years, as he's been auctioning it off for charity. Most notably to country star @LukeBryan and @KathieLGifford.
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) September 20, 2022
For Tim's full appearance: https://t.co/RfYjoweg34 pic.twitter.com/IHtQc6h6Gl
Gainesville, FL
Tim Tebow appeared on the Dan Patrick show this week and amongst the questions that Patrick asked the former Gators star, where he kept his Heisman was one. Which sparked an interesting and surprising response.
Turns out that Tebow decided some time ago that rather than it sit in his house in a box or gathering dust, that Tebow would “loan” it out to the highest bidder. Tebow got the idea from a charity auction he attended with Coach Saban, who appeared to raising a lot of money for special causes. The competitive spirit in Tebow was awoken and he started to think abut what he could do.
Loaning the Heisman out was his idea and so far it has been a roaring success. To date has raised in excess of $100,000 for his children’s charity.
Previous loanees include Kathie Lee Gifford, and currently a loan period at Country music star, Luke Bryan’s house is coming to end. Not fast enough thinks Tebow, with that big smile of his. Bryan, being a huge Georgia fan, is prone to putting a Georgia shirt on the statue and letting his pet bulldog lick peanut butter off the statue. What the Heisman committee thinks of this, I can only imagine. But it’s all in a good cause.
#Go Gators
Leach calls fake news on Texas
Starkville, MS
It wouldn’t be Saturdays In Athens without a mention from Mississippi State Head Coach Mike Leach. Leach has been preparing to face his arch nemesis Texas A&M this week – a team that he has a surprisingly good track record against. In fact Leach has an 8-4 record against the Aggies. But this week Kryptonite Mike had another Texas team in his sights. Leach decided to call out reports by the Athletic that Texas had splashed some $280,000 out on the recruiting visit that had landed the Longhorns, Arch Manning.
Leach decided to call fall on his weekly radio show,
“Have you ever been to or heard of rooms that can eat up that much of $280,000? I haven’t,”
said Leach somewhat impishly,
“Let’s make them really expensive. There’s eight recruits, hypothetically. Let’s make those rooms $3,000 a piece. Right there you still haven’t even dented it……I think this is embellished… But I would be curious if someone managed to be creative enough to find a way to spend that much money in that period of time on that number of people. I’d be curious exactly how it was done and what they did. I have some serious, serious, serious doubts about this.”
And then Mike called it what he thought it was, fake news
“If you go to England, it’s understood that the news, at least half of it, is false and people read it because it’s a good story, They wink-wink and kind of nudge each other, and it’s just understood it’s not true …
Over here, we actually go through the motions of pretending everything written is true. More than any time in my lifetime, stuff that I read is not true. My suspicion is this goes into that category. I don’t know that, but I would love to just have a quick one-hour course on how you spend $280,000 in 48 hours.”
And then he was off to plot the repeat downfall of The Aggies. Never change, Mike Leach. Never change.
#HailState
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.