SEC Weekend Wrap-up

From here until the end of the football season, every Monday at eight, we will deliever your SEC Weekend Wrap-up.  Because sometimes watching the season unfold is just as exciting as anything else you would do on a Monday night.

Auburn 17 –  Mississippi State 14: The game started off pretty hot, with both teams seemingly able to move the ball at will, until an almost scoreless second half.  Still, Cam Newton proved to be the real deal (at times,) and this definitely doesn’t look like the same Auburn team from last year.  So those of you who were automatically marking this game down as a win for the Cats (coughBeisnercough) may want to think again.  On the other hand, the bulldogs looked entirely beatable, as they do every year.

South Carolina 17 – Georgia 6: Is this the year that Spurrier finally lives up to his hype?  Probably not.  Still, the gamecocks freshman Marcus Lattimore is putting on a show so far this year, carrying the ball 37 times in his first two games.  It worked for Spurrier, as his gamecocks upset the AJ Green-less Georgia Bulldogs, but can he keep the magic going?  It seems like South Carolina almost always starts the year off pretty hot, before cooling off down the stretch though, so it will be interesting to see if the trend holds true.

Florida 38 – South Florida 14: For the second week in a row, Florida’s offense has looked out of whack opening the game.  Early on USF looked like they could pull a gigantic upset, holding their own and even dominating the Gators at times.  But a huge third quarter and a career making performance from Demps locked this one up for the University of Erin Andrews.  They play @Tennessee next, before playing host to Kentucky, then travelling to Alabama.  Hooray for being a trap game!

LSU 27 – Vanderbilt 3: After narrowly escaping an undermanned UNC last week, the LSU Tigers came out much more focused and determined agaisnt an apparently awful Vanderbilt team.  As far as LSU is concerned, they seem to have a pretty strong defense when their heads are in the game.  Their offense is a little more streaky, but manages to be on enough to win games.  Of course, they have only played a terrible UNC team and a horrendous Vanderbilt team, so maybe they just look a little better than they actually are.

Alabama 24 – Penn State 3: In what looked like it might be a challenge for the returning champs, the Tide ran and threw all over the Nittany Lions.  All while returning Heisman Mark Ingram continues to nurse an injury on the sideline.  There’s a good chance that Penn State was over rated, but at this point, the Tide look poised to repeat as SEC champions at least – and hopefully set to demolish Boise State in the National Title game.

Arkansas 31 – LA-Monroe 7: Arkansas, who is my pick to finish second in the SEC West, looked good decapitating a cupcake again this week.  We will know more when they go up against a reeling Georgia next week (and Bama the week after,) but until then, it looks like Bobby Petrino has got things rolling for the Razorbacks.

Oregon 48 – Tennessee 13: After the first quarter, it looked like Derek Dooley might be set to pull of the first signature win of his career at Tennessee (and that this year might not be the year Kentucky finally notches a ‘W.’)  But then the second half started, the Ducks scored five unanswered touchdowns, and Tennessee fans cursed Lane Kiffin all over again.  Tennessee probably isn’t as terrible as they looked in the second half, and they will likely have a solid team by the time our rivalry game is played, but honestly?  This has got to be the year.

Ole Miss 27 – Tulane 13:  The Ole Miss Admiral Ackbars snapped back from a humiliating loss last week to handle Tulane fairly well – in the first half.  In the second half the rebels could only put a field goal on the board, but at that point they were good enough to coast to the victory.  QB Masoli had a huge day, though, going for 308 yards.  Watching Cobb and Masoli on the same field should make for a fun game in a couple weeks.

Kentucky 63 – WKU 28: You already know everything about this game, I am sure.  But in case you didn’t, the Offense was great, the Defense was suspect at times (tending to give up big plays opposed to long drives,) and that guy from Western is really good.  Kentucky still looked weak against the run, something that will likely plague them the rest of the year, but a lot of great performances from an Offense that hasn’t looked great the past couple years.