It is football time again and there are two games in the Southeastern Conference this weekend that the nation will be watching — and a bunch of what should be guaranteed wins for the other conference teams.
The two that will draw national attention are Florida at Miami and South Carolina at Georgia in a battle for the top spot in the SEC East. After an opening week record of 10-3, the Crystal Ball will attempt to pick all SEC games this weekend with special emphasis on the two biggies.
Florida travels to Miami where the Hurricanes are awfully hard to beat and even harder to score on.
The Hurricanes have not allowed a touchdown in Sun Life Stadium since Virginia Tech’s Logan Thomas scored on a 73-yard run on Nov. 1, 2012. That was 160 hours, 39 minutes ago and three home games ago. Since then Miami has given up just six field goals, and the Canes have won three times if you count the Virginia Tech win.
The Florida game is Miami’s chance to return to national prominence. The Hurricanes are getting their swagger back behind the play of running back Duke Johnson and wide receiver Phillip Dorsett and quarterback Stephen Morris.
“Duke Johnson is an outstanding player, we recruited him here, the guys’ got a great competitive nature to himself; a guy that can full speed, one cut, get the ball vertical, makes people miss in space, runs hard and runs tough, he’s an outstanding receiver out of the backfield, he is an outstanding football player,” said Florida coach Will Muschamp.
“Stephen Morris is a very accurate thrower, a guy that really takes the ball to the right spots, very impressed watching him throughout the last season and in his first game. They’re very talented at the receiver position, they got guys that can run, make plays in space; they have close to 100 starts in their offensive line, they’re big and athletic, 6-4, 6-5,6-6 across the board, 320 pounds plus.”
Florida’s defense will be charged with slowing down that Miami offense while hoping the its offense can put a few touchdowns on the board and not have to settle for field goal attempts. These two teams haven’t played since 2008, but this will be the 55th game in the series. Miami needs this win to put the program back where it wants/needs to be. This is their best chance in recent years. Miami 24, Florida 17
South Carolina’s superstar defensive end Jadeveon Clowney will come to Athens with a chip on his massive shoulders. For a week he’s been hearing whispers that he’s out of shape and that he doesn’t play hard all the time after a rather mundane performance in the Gamecocks’ season opening win over North Carolina.
But his coach isn’t having any of it.
“J. D. is ready to play, I think one thing he learned is that the camera is on him all the time now,” said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. “It wasn’t on him last year, it was on him on the replays after he made sacks, big plays and stuff like that, but every play the camera is on him. So he knows that and hopefully he is ready to go.
“It was a hot day last week as we all know, and sometimes the heat effects people in different ways. It affected him no questions about it and hopefully we can get him a little bit better prepared physically to go the distance against Georgia.”
Georgia coach Mark Richt certainly has Clowney on his mind.
“There are a lot of different things you can do on pass protection,” said Richt. “One of the things is that if you slide your protection towards a guy like that, you free up your tackle not to block him one-on-one. Your tackle basically is responsible for taking him on an outside rush, but if he makes a move inside of him, there will be a guard waiting for him, so that’s one way. Another way is to try to even put a tight end to the side that he’s at and give him a little bit more to navigate as he’s coming through the line of scrimmage. The other thing is to have a back or a tight end off the ball who can chip on the way out.”
Richt knows that you can only scheme so much to negate Clowney’s effect on the Georgia offense. There is another alternative.
“You can design plays where you don’t hold the ball very long. Set your point, get up in the pocket and get the ball out quickly,” he said.
The winner of this game will get a foothold on the SEC East race. South Carolina, which has enjoyed success against the Bulldogs lately, would be the easy choice. But the Bulldogs also have a chip on their shoulders and need to bounce back from last week’s loss to Clemson — along with the loss of stud wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell for the season. The Crystal Ball says they will. Georgia 31, South Carolina 28
Here are some picks for the rest of the SEC teams in action:
Kentucky 17, Miami of Ohio 10
Vanderbilt 35, Austin Peay 10
Mississippi State 56, Alcorn State 0
Tennessee 24, Western Kentucky 21
Missouri 24, Toledo 10
LSU 42, UAB 10
Arkansas 31, Samford 17
Texas A&M 59, San Houston State 0
Ole Miss 42, Southeast Missouri State 10
Auburn 30, Arkansas State 14