SEC Football Fireside Chat – Week 10: Reheated Lasagna

STREAKS MATTER

Everyone loves a good consecutive streak, right? Doing something so many days in a row, annual traditions that are kept, remembering to floss and not to cuss, etc. But one major drawback to keeping up with streaks, is that when they are broken it can be devastating. Like when you have gone three days without sweets and next thing you know you ate a whole family pack of Oreos. Or Georgia football…wait…never mind, their winning streak continues… The point is that one streak I noticed this past weekend that will never be broken is a College Football Saturday delivering excitement. It has been that way every week since football was first brought to a college campus in the late 19th century. Let’s just go ahead and round it to 1.8 billion weeks in a row college football has been fun.

Take for example this past Saturday’s 11:00 am games: we almost had three games simultaneously go into overtime and just about all of them came right down to the wire. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that was the best morning football slate I have ever seen in my lifetime – and I have been watching college football since the day I was born (listening on the radio nine months before that).

WELCOME

By the way, welcome to SEC Football Fireside Chat. Where each week we will summarize and recap all that happened on the previous Saturday in Southeastern Conference football. Yes, we may be starting in Week 10, but just like reheated lasagna, not all things are best straight out of the oven. Sometimes you need to just calm down and wait. And that’s exactly what all of you have done this season. Your patience is noted and appreciated.

Below you will find an analysis on each SEC football game in Week 10. As you will find out quickly, the analyses are low on X’s on O’s, but high on the things that actually matter. I purposely excluded both South Carolina and Tennessee from the list because each of them played non-conference games that of the few that watched, even less cared. Those games were the equivalent of day-old gas station coffee. But to touch on them real quick: South Carolina hosted Jacksonville State in the battle of the Gamecocks; and Tennessee played UConn – maybe a Top 10 matchup in women’s basketball but far from it in football.

Without further ado, here’s your Week 10 recap. We have to hurry up and get to it, with the time change it will be dark soon.

SEC Football Week 10 Recap & Results

Congrats, Auburn. You beat Vandy. Would you like a sticker or a gummy worm? Auburn heads up to the Ozarks next week to face Arkansas in a game full of bowl implications. If Auburn wins they become bowl-eligible, and that would also give Arkansas their seventh loss, likely deeming them ineligible for a bowl trip.

Basically Kentucky told Mississippi State exactly where they could put their cowbell… Hopefully the team and the Kentucky fans enjoyed it, because next week the Tide will travel to the Great Blue North as they host Alabama. And more importantly in those parts, basketball season officially starts in Lexington this week. So thanks Kentucky football, you were a solid appetizer. The fans would like their steak now.

This little piggy went to the swamp and w-W-WON? In OT nonetheless! Arkansas snaps a six-game losing streak that started nearly two months ago. They also keep their hopes of making a bowl game alive, but do face a tricky three-game schedule the rest of the way. At the same time, the state of the Florida football program is slowly but surely becoming the SEC’s version of Bud Light. On top for so long, but these days, I’ll just have tea.

What a weird game. Ever since Lane Kiffin took over at Ole Miss, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re watching a high-stakes SEC conference game or an intramural scrimmage on the Sigma Chi lawn. A yellow lab leading the team out of the bus here, in-game dunk contests on the sidelines there. But lo and behold, he’s got them at 8-1 and ranked Top 10 in the country. This was a game the Rebels really didn’t want to screw up and lose and ruin the hype around next week’s matchup at Georgia. As for Jimbo and the Aggies……I wonder if the A&M “collective,” that “didn’t” (according to Coach Fisher) help them land their #1 recruiting class last year, has enough left in the bottom of the coffee can to cover Jimbo’s buyout. It’s just not working.

Oh yeah, speaking of Georgia, they remain undefeated in a game that was closer than even the nine-point final score differential indicates. UGA continues to look beatable in just about every game they play, yet they are still unbeaten. With a home game against Ole Miss, and a trip to Knoxville left on their conference schedule, many are saying these could be possible losses for the Dawgs. But let’s be real, do you really think they will lose either of them? I guess we can at least still enjoy talking about the games up until they happen. And this loss is nothing for Missouri to be too upset about. They could still very well finish with nine or ten wins, and nobody saw that coming before the season started.

And finally……the biggest game of the day, a de facto playoff game, the Game-of-the-Year-At-Least-Up-Until-This-Point……LSU at Alabama. Everyone knew this game could go either way. Take any fan with an opinion, and half picked LSU with solid reasons for why they thought that. Same for the other half picking Alabama. The one thing everybody was sure of was that this would be a high scoring contest. Jayden Daniels – the best quarterback in the SEC and Heisman contender, was sure to get his fair share on Bama’s defense regardless of how good it is, because he does so every game against whoever he plays. And even Bama’s inconsistent offense was facing LSU’s defense, which at times this year has looked about as strong as a stick of room temperature butter microwaved for thirty seconds or so. In the end, the Tide defense got the stops it needed and Jalen Milroe played to his strengths (just run Jalen, just run, just get the snap and take off). Alabama stays alive in their hope for a College Football Playoff spot, and is just one win away from locking up the West and a trip to Atlanta. LSU falls to 6-3 and watched their SEC championship dreams crumble all around them like a stale Pop-Tart.

LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK 11

We have seven conference games to look forward to next Saturday, featuring all fourteen SEC football teams. Until then, enjoy basketball season as it tips off on Monday!