SEC Storylines of Week 10: The Alabama-LSU Game
The college football season gets another week older, and many eyes will be focused on the SEC. Here is a rundown of the key storylines to watch for around the conference as Kentucky takes on Ole Miss within the confines of Kroger Field.
1. What will Derrius Guice do Against Alabama?
In the game of the week in the SEC, 19th ranked LSU will travel to Tuscaloosa to take on the now second-ranked Alabama. The Crimson Tide have won the last six games in this series, and they are heavy favorites at home.
However, LSU’s star running back Derrius Guice is finally back to playing like he did last season. After he ran for 276 rushing yards in the Tigers last game against Ole Miss, Guice is now only 54 rushing yards behind Nick Chubb for the most in the SEC.
Derrius Guice doing Derrius Guice things 🔥@DhaSickest: 16 carries, 2️⃣4️⃣9️⃣ yards, TD https://t.co/LBTXTh2IEm pic.twitter.com/kAtGnGFi1M
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) October 22, 2017
The bad news for him and LSU is that they must play the top-ranked run defense in the nation this year on Saturday night. The Crimson Tide is only allowing 66 rushing yards a game while opposing teams have only scored two rushing TD’s against Alabama.
More than likely, the Crimson Tide will stop Guice on Saturday. This is a team known for stopping the run and this version of Alabama is no different from those of year’s past.
But stranger things have happened in college football this year. LSU has won their past three SEC games plus the Tigers are coming off a bye week so they will be well rested. But if Guice can’t get things going on the ground, it will be a long night in Tuscaloosa for LSU.
2. Alabama Deserves to be Ranked Behind Georgia
To be clear, I think that Alabama is the best all-around team in the country right now and more likely than not you think so as well.
However, the College Football Playoff selection committee made the right choice on Tuesday when they selected Georgia as the top ranked team in the nation in their first rankings.
The committee bases their rankings on every team’s body of work. They do not base the rankings off how talented they may think a team is.
To put it simply, the best win the Crimson Tide has right now is their victory over a 5-3 Texas A&M team.
Meanwhile Georgia has one of the best wins in all of college football on the road against third ranked Notre Dame. Plus, they also beat a now ranked Mississippi St. team by 28 points.
In the end, all of this probably isn’t going to matter. The Crimson Tide have three ranked opponents left to play in the regular season alone so there is a good chance they will be ranked as the number one team soon. But for right now, the committee got it right.
3. How Good is Auburn?
If I had to choose the most confusing team in the SEC this year, I think that Auburn would be heavily in the conversation.
One week the Tigers are dismantling what is now a good Mississippi State team, but then just a few weeks later they blow a big lead to LSU on the road. Auburn was last seen beating the snot out of Arkansas, but this week they get a tough road at Texas A&M.
One would think that the Tigers will walk out of College Station with a victory with the Aggies coming off a big loss against Mississippi State. However, you just don’t know what kind of Auburn team is going to show up.
Despite their inconsistencies as a team, the Tigers have found success in their rushing attack. Kerryon Johnson and Kamryn Pettway are a dangerous duo in the backfield as they have rushed for over 1,000 yards on the year.
If Auburn wants to maintain momentum heading into their huge matchups with Georgia and Alabama later in the season than winning this week is a must. A loss would otherwise mean the start of a rough ending to the Tigers regular season.
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4. Does South Carolina Stand A Chance at Georgia?
The quick and easy answer is no they do not. However, I don’t like underestimating a coach as fiery as Will Muschamp. Plus, the Gamecocks are on a three-game winning streak so maybe they can put up a fight.
But their 4-2 record in the SEC is very misleading. Their past three wins all game against the worst teams in the conference (Tennessee, Arkansas, and Vanderbilt) and their other win was against Missouri.
The question really is how will South Carolina perform against a truly good team? They have a great win against North Carolina State, but that was the very first game of the season.
Even if they lose against the Bulldogs this weekend, it will be very interesting to see just how much of a close game the Gamecocks can make it. Star quarterback Jake Bentley is good enough to give South Carolina a chance.
Jake Bentley took over as starting QB for the #Gamecocks who were 5-13 in the previous 1.5 seasons. Since he became starter, they are 9-5.
— Rob Proffitt (@BreakinDownFilm) October 24, 2017
5. The Incompetence of Tennessee
I honestly can’t believe this…….but I’m writing about Butch Jones again and I just can’t fathom why.
How is he still the head coach at Tennessee right now? If you would have told me two weeks ago that Florida would fire their head coach before Tennessee did I would have said you was crazy.
But nevertheless, here we are. So what’s new this week with Jones after another embarrassing loss? Oh, just that he allegedly played a player who had a concussion for an entire half against UK. Now Tennessee is conducting an internal investigation to see if the coaches knew about this player’s concussion.
Why are they even conducting an investigation?? The fact that this even happened whether the coaches knew it or not is an absolute travesty and it should be grounds for automatic dismal.
Here is a video of the player in question (No.63) playing in the second half against UK and man is it tough to watch:
@SwainEvent he is completely lost and grabs his head pic.twitter.com/AZGzkk4Ipn
— TNFryed 🍟 (@TNFryed) November 2, 2017
I thought for a long time about why athletic director John Currie loves Jones so much, but I just couldn’t come up with an answer.
Then it hit me: Currie just likes to watch his football program get embarrassed week after week. He must also like seeing the coaching staff put student athletes in danger since no punishment has taken place yet. That’s terrible of me to say, but I just can’t find any other logical reasoning for what’s going on in Knoxville right now.
I honestly hope Southern Miss defeats Tennessee on Saturday and brings an end to Jones’ time at Tennessee and to all this madness. But at this point, I just don’t know what would do the trick.
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