Todd Gurley (3) and Georgia are up next for South Carolina (Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports)
Last weekend was a great weekend for the Southeastern Conference. Not only did most SEC teams win their games, but in the three top Big Ten games against non-conference opponents, the Big Ten went 0-3 and that makes most SEC fans happy.
Actually one SEC team to lose lost to another SEC team so it doesn’t really count against the SEC’s reputation nationally. Of course, most SEC teams were playing games against cupcake opponents so none of the games really got the conference much national respect. Still, it was better than what the Big Ten went through, with Michigan State losing to Oregon, Michigan losing to Notre Dame and Virginia Tech going into Columbus and beating Ohio State — and that doesn’t even include Purdue losing to Central Michigan.
Alabama scored 41 points in a lightning-shortened game and the Tide’s 41-point outburst tied for the eighth-highest scoring burst in the league on Saturday. Obviously offenses in the SEC seem to be in midseason form already, although the points came against completely outmanned opponents.
So SEC fans can puff out their chest and do a little bragging this week, but things are about to get much tougher.
Arkansas will find Texas Tech a little more of a challenge than Nicholls State. Auburn’s trip to Kansas State will be slightly tougher than playing San Jose State at Auburn in two weeks. Tennessee trades Arkansas State for Oklahoma. And to top it all off, there are a couple of interesting conference games on tap with Georgia at South Carolina, the top SEC game of the week, and Kentucky at Florida.
Georgia is preparing to go into Columbia to face the Gamecocks in a battle between the two teams that were expected to challenge for the SEC East title. After South Carolina lost to Texas A&M to open the season, the Gamecocks can’t afford another conference loss so early in the season.
“It gives you a chance to take a little bit of a break and see what you’re doing, see if you think you’re on the right path,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said. “The whole key is that you want to get better fundamentally during the open date and maybe even get stronger during the open date. You also want to get far enough ahead of the game plan so you can get the repetitions of it. We had what we thought was our plan going into this week and we got more information from the East Carolina game so it’s just comparing notes and making sure we are on the right track. Hopefully it’ll help us.”
Georgia’s last two trips to Columbia produced losses, Richt hasn’t forgotten.
“The biggest lasting impression on me right now is what happened to us two years ago,” he said. “We’ve just got to do a better job there. The biggest thing preparation wise is learning to play offense without a verbal cadence, without the ability to really communicate verbally. When you get to that line of scrimmage, there’s not going to be a whole lot of communication. It’s very difficult to get things communicated verbally in that type of atmosphere so that’s the biggest thing.”
“We’re going to have a lot of guys dealing with it for the first time,” Richt said. “Even Hutson Mason, I don’t know if he’s been in a game that will be quite this loud. The quarterback is the guy who has really got to deal with the noise more than anybody. He’s got to direct traffic, communicate and stay poised. It’s going to be interesting to see how he handles it, but he’s not the only one handling it for the first time. It’s going to be a challenge.”
South Carolina had a battle on its hands with East Carolina last week and Steve Spurrier knows it is going to be another this weekend.
“Overall, our guys played well,” Spurrier said. “I think we’re starting to realize what kind of team we are. We’re going to have to scratch and get in a bunch of close games and try to find a way to win. This was a good win for us, and hopefully we can build on it.”
The Crystal Ball had a 12-0 for a 21-2 season record for a winning percentage of .913, which would be impressive if most of the Week Two games were not cupcakes. It gets tougher this week. Here’s how the Crystal Ball sees how Week Three might go: Missouri will beat Central Florida; Texas Tech will beat Arkansas; Ole Miss will beat Louisiana-Lafayette; Mississippi State will down South Alabama; Alabama will beat Southern Miss; LSU will beat Louisiana-Monroe; Florida will beat Kentucky and burst Mark Stoops’ bubble; Oklahoma will down Tennessee; Texas A&M will knock off Rice; Georgia will beat South Carolina; and finally when two 0-2 teams meet, somebody has to win and being the SEC optimist The Crystal Ball says Vanderbilt will get the first win of the Derek Mason era by beating UMass.
