Week 4 Thoughts

Heading into the final week of September, we're still looking to see who might challenge Alabama for SEC supremacy. Here's my take on the big games this week in the SEC:

1) Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett will test Alabama's secondary, but the Tide will prove to be the better of the two. Actually, I'm not sure exactly how good the secondary has to be. If Mallett isn't given time (which I don't think he will be), it really won't matter.

But I also don't subscribe to the Arkansas defense being as horrendous as last season. Some point to the fact that UGA scored 24 on the Hogs after only putting up 6 against USC, but you have to remember that the USC game was in Columbia and that Murray is going to be a different QB at home than on the road.

Arkansas will hang with the Tide early (especially given how geeked up the Fayetteville crowd will be), but Bama will assert their dominance in the third quarter and even with a late Mallett rally, it won't end close. 

2) Auburn is going to be prepared for Marcus Lattimore, but Steve Spurrier is one of the best at self-scouting and he'll have enough wrinkles to keep the Tiger defense off-balance. A lot of people still think USC will fail because they're USC, but Spurrier finally has a good enough running game (which he always had when he dominated in Gainesville) to open up the defense for (better than given credit for) Stephen Garcia.

Spurrier goes for first win in Auburn since 1999.

It will be fun to see Michael Dyer and Marcus Lattimore on the same field for the next two years. While some are already starting comparisons to Bo and Hershel (at least for the latter), it's obviously way too early. I think that  Spurrier had no problem riding Lattimore against UGA, but he knows he can't do that all season and expect for Lattimore to play against Florida in November. And I think he's set up Auburn to be so weary of the inside zone that Garcia will have some room to throw.

Many pundits point to how physical of a game the Tigers endured last weekend, but Gene Chizik actually called for a more physical practice because Auburn had it taken to them last week. USC is going to be popped in the mouth, and playing on the road will be an interesting test. In my gut, I think this will come out for the Gamecocks, but that might just be the Auburn-fan worry.

3) At 3-0, Kentucky has the best record entering the Florida game since 2002 (they were 2-0 before UF in 2009). The Wildcats try to move to 4-0 but to do so, they'll have to win in Gainesville for the first time since 1979, and most Wildcat players weren't alive the last time UK beat the Gators in 1986.

The clamoring around Florida's lack of offense is getting louder, and while Kentucky isn't the push-over it was in the past, I expect the Gators to keep getting better on offense and rely on their dominating defense to get past the Cats.

Dog v. Dawg: Will it be Bully or Russ?

4) Its funny to listen to Georgia fans say that the Dawgs will win this weekend because they want it more. As if Mississippi State, also sitting at 0-2 in the SEC, is going to recognize that UGA "needs" this win and just roll over. Tony Barnhart seems to think that Georgia wins games because they 'gotta win' games (or at least that's why he picked the Dawgs over the Hogs).

Dawg fans (the red and black ones) have grown accustom to rolling through the SEC West part of their schedule, but this is the type of game that the Dogs (those maroon and white ones) live for.

I fully expect UGA to pull this one out, but Dawg fans need to realize that winning on the road with a redshirt frosh QB is never easy, and I expect Murray to struggle on the road in a tough environment. Starkville is an annoying place to go, and its tough to prepare for 4 quarters of cowbells. (No one ever cares about the cowbells until they lose the game, then there's an outcry against artificial noisemakers.) I gave my opinion on them a few weeks ago, but it will be funny to hear Georgia fans complain about them should their boys fall in Starkville.

I expect Georgia to win, but I won't be shocked at all if those other Dogs pull it out.

5) Finally we get a better gauge of LSU and West Virginia. The Tigers haven't been pushed since the fourth quarter of the Chick-fil-a Kickoff (and that's looking to be more of an aberration as their defense dominated Vandy and MSU). The Mountaineers are the only team left to carry the Big East banner as  Rutgers is the other lone Big East unbeaten (after that's after beating a FCS team and barely edging FIU). Cincinnati, UConn, USF, Pitt, and Syracuse have all been embarrassed on the national stage (some multiple times) and the Bearcats are having to ready themselves for a visit from Oklahoma this weekend.

But a win in Baton Rouge would do wonders and, given their upcoming schedule, vault WVU into the national championship picture. LSU is just trying to stay unbeaten until the showdown with Florida in Gainesville in a few weeks (getting the Gators fresh off a trip to Tuscaloosa).

This is normally where I would say that the LSU defense will be fast enough to negate the WVU speed, and has a dominating front seven that will blow up the longer developing running plays. But then, you can never discount the Miles factor. I like the Tigers, but only because it's in Death Valley.

Other thoughts:
- I was liking the Clemson-Auburn match-up extension to the 2012 Chick-fil-a Kickoff (where I'm guessing the CFA guys realized that Tennessee-NC State did not forcast as being a national headlining type game), until I heard that Alabama is going to play Michigan to open the 2012 season in Dallas. Obviously all attention will be focused on that game.

I was already wondering how the ATL folks were going to handle the two games: would the bigger game (which I would assume to be AU-CU) be on Saturday and the other on Thursday? Or would one game be Saturday and the other Monday? Now I'm thinking that you keep the bigger game as far away from Bama-Michigan as possible.

- Mike Riley gets points for finally coming out and saying that Boise's turf is unfair. We've been saying for years that an all-blue team on an all-blue field (at night) has an unfair competitive advantage. Obviously Boise would have won many of their games on a green field, but its a gimmick and it was nice to hear Riley say that it made playing there more difficult. I know there's nothing in the rules against it, but it's cheap. I'm fine with BCS teams avoiding it for that reason alone.

That being said, painting the practice field blue will have no affect, and the Broncos will roll the Beavers on Saturday night.

- No way do I see Notre Dame coming close to stopping Stanford this weekend. It's shocking to write this, but the Irish defense is too slow to keep up with a team like Stanford! Irish could easily be 3-0 instead of 1-2, but I don't think they can slow Luck and his Cardinal.

- Late night alert: I'm a big Oregon fan this week as the Ducks travel to Tempe to play Arizona State at 7:30 PST. That's 10:30 here on the east coast and should be fun to doze off to. But the real reason I'm hoping for a Duck win is they host the (soon-to-be 4-0) Cardinal next week. That kickoff? 8:15 PST - and given the way they score, it might not end until 3 a.m. here.