Mr. CFB: What We Learned, Week 12
It always happens.
In every college football season there is a week when the schedule, on paper, looks pretty thin. In the SEC it is always the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
That’s when crazy things happen,
Crazy as in No. 3 Michigan needing a field goal with nine seconds left to beat Illinois 19-17.
Crazy as in Vanderbilt beating Florida 31-24.
Crazy as in No. 4 TCU kicking a field goal on the final play of the game to beat Baylor 29-28.
Crazy---or extremely crazy—as South Carolina dominating No. 5 Tennessee 63-38.
I could go on. Instead let’s look at Five Things We Learned on yet another crazy Saturday of College Football.
1—Tennessee’s playoff hopes are over because they simply weren’t ready to play:
After reading and hearing all week that they needed to win with style points, the Tennessee Volunteers forgot to take care of an important piece of business on Saturday night against South Carolina in Columbia.
They forgot to win the game. The Gamecocks didn’t back down in facing the Tennessee offense, which led the nation (47.1 ppg) in scoring going into the game.
Tennessee wasn’t prepared to play against a South Carolina team that had gotten embarrassed 38-6 by Florida the week before.
And to make the moment more painful quarterback Hendon suffered a torn ACL in the second half and won't play in the season-finale against Vanderbilt.
Tennessee (9-2) is still going to have a good season. But these kinds of opportunities don’t come along that often. And Tennessee let a Big Orange opportunity slip away.
2—Ditto for Florida:
The Gators had put together two pretty good wins over Texas A&M (41-24) and South Carolina (38-6) the past two weeks. The Gators had been warned that good Florida teams—including the 1996 national championship team—have gone to Vanderbilt and struggled.
Vanderbilt had beaten Kentucky the week before to snap its 26-game SEC losing streak. But the Gators did not heed the warning. Now they are 6-5 with a game remaining with state rival Florida State.
This is not what Florida fans were expecting when Billy Napier was hired. I agree with former Gator Chris Doering of the SEC Network that Napier is the right guy for the job.
But damn. All due respect to Clark Lea and the job he has done and Vanderbilt holding this team together.
“It’s a setback, no question,” said Napier after the game. “It’s a little bit of a reality check.”
Ya think?
3—Georgia showed again why it is the most complete team in the country:
The Bulldogs won at Kentucky 16-6 but that score does not tell the story of how Georgia dominated the game. Georgia knew it was going to get a limited number of possessions because that is what Kentucky does, particularly at home.
Georgia had only three possessions in the first half and turned them all into field goals.
There wasn’t going to be a whole lot oof points scored so Georgia just kept it on the ground with 247 rushing yards to 89 and essentially beat Kentucky at its own game. Kenny McIntosh ran a career-high 19 times for 143 yards.
So Georgia can beat you throwing and beat you running. But mostly they beat you with the best defense (272 yards and 11.1 points per game) in the nation. Last season’s national championship defense gave up 10.8 yards per game.
Georgia (11-0) hosts Georgia Tech (5-6), which is coming off an upset of North Carolina) on Saturday. Then it’s LSU in the SEC championship game on Dec. 3.
4—This was the Spencer Rattler we thought South Carolina was getting:
I’ll admit it. When South Carolina got the former Oklahoma Heisman trophy candidate I envisioned a lot of successful nights and a lot of big numbers. It had really not panned out that way this season
That is, until Saturday night when Rattler put together the best game of his career, completing 30 of 37 passes for 438 yards and six touchdowns in a stunning 63-38 upset of No. 5 Tennessee at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“This is probably the best I’ve ever felt in a game,” said Rattler. “This game and the next game could change the narrative of this program forever.”
South Carolina (7-4) plays at No. 9 Clemson (10-1) on Saturday (Noon, ABC).
5—Carnell “Cadillac” Williams may not get the head coaching job, but what he has done to heal the Auburn family will live forever:
Here is a line from a story written by Joseph Goodman of AL.com after Auburn beat Western Kentucky on Senior Day. It was Williams’ second win in three weeks as interim head coach. Williams was asked specifically about Auburn’s ongoing search for a permanent head coach.
“I really don’t care,” Williams said. “My seat doesn’t dictate my service. Auburn is special. These kids are special.”
That gave me chills.
Williams proved to me he is going to be a head coach some day because he convinced Auburn players who didn’t have anything to play for that playing for their love of Auburn was reason enough.
The fans got caught up in the moment and filled Jordan-Hare Stadium for a 13-10 victory over Texas A&M.
Could Williams do the job? No doubt here.
Will Auburn hire him as head coach? I don’t think so.
Even if he beats Alabama?
If Auburn beats Alabama all bets are off.
But I do know that Carnell “Cadillac” Williams will have his team ready to play on Saturday at Alabama. They are going to be short on talent, but not short in their desire to represent Auburn—some for the very last time.