What We Learned: Alabama cannot beat LSU without a healthy Tua
What we learned about the SEC on week No 8"
1—Alabama is not going to beat LSU without Tua.
Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered a right ankle injury in the second quarter of Saturday night’s game with Tennessee in Tuscaloosa. Doctors performed a surgical procedure on his ankle on Sunday and Coach Nick Saban said he expects a “full and speedy recovery.”
This is the same injury that Tagovailoa suffered last season but to the other ankle.
Obviously Tua is not going to play on Saturday against Arkansas (7 p.m., ESPN) and the following Saturday (Nov. 2), Alabama has an open date.
So that’s almost three weeks to recover before No. 2 LSU comes to Tuscaloosa on Nov. 9.
Alabama, as talented as it is, will not beat LSU unless Tua is healthy.
Three reasons why:
Alabama doesn’t have the vintage run game that it has called upon in the past. It averages 536 yards a game and 366 of that is passing
Alabama doesn’t have the shut-down defense as it has had in the past.
And LSU is not running the predictable offense it has in the past. The Tigers are averaging 52.5 points per game and have one of the hottest quarterbacks in college football (Joe Burrow).
Simply put: In the past Alabama has been able to run the ball well enough and play defense well enough to win a game against a quality opponent. This team can’t do that against LSU.
2—Georgia had better figure out how to get their receivers some space or the Bulldogs won’t beat Florida in Jacksonville on Nov. 2.
For a half Saturday night Georgia fans sat in the driving rain and held their collective breath. For the second straight week they saw a team shut down their vaunted running game behind what is supposed to be the best offensive line in America. Again they watched their talented—but very inexperienced—receivers struggle to get some separation.
But to its credit Georgia stayed patient and waited for Kentucky to make the first mistake. And the Wildcats did. Georgia took advantage of a shanked punt and a turnover to finally get some field position and pulled away to a 21-0 win.
There is work to do in the Georgia passing game but Saturday night was not the time to do it.
Georgia (6-1, 3-1) has this week off and then goes to Jacksonville on Nov. 2 for the monster game with the Gators. You can bet that our old friend Todd Grantham will use the same defensive strategy employed by South Carolina and Kentucky. The key for Georgia is for Jake Fromm to complete enough passes to loosen up the defense and then start feeding the ball to D’Andre Swift and Brian Herrien, who combined for 239 yards rushing against Kentucky.
3—Derek Mason may have just recorded his biggest win as Vanderbilt’s head coach:
I was once asked if I was in a street fight, which SEC coach I would want to have my back. I didn’t hesitate:
Derek Mason.
Now I didn’t pick Coach Mason’s team to beat Missouri on Saturday. The Tigers had won five straight games and were playing a pretty high level when they arrived in Nashville.
And after a week of speculation about his future at Vanderbilt, Mason and his team, which went into the game at 1-5, did not back down. Despite losing their starting quarterback to a concussion, the Commodores found a way to win 21-14.
“A lot of people want this job—so they think. But I am the man who is BUILT for this job,” he told the SEC Network’s Dawn Davenport in a fiery interview on the field.
How can you not like that?
We’re talking about a coach who has beaten Tennessee three straight seasons.
After taking this week off Vanderbilt plays three of its final four SEC games on the road. So who knows how the season will end? But Derek Mason earned a lot of respect on Saturday.
4—LSU’s Joe Burrow could make a big jump towards the Heisman Trophy in the next three weeks.
Consider this:
Burrow made history against Mississippi State on Saturday when he threw for his 29th touchdown of the season, breaking the previous school record of 28. He did it in only seven games
He completed 25 of 32 passes (78.1 percent) for 327 yards.
And a national audience on CBS saw it.
This Saturday LSU hosts Auburn—which has one of the best defenses in the country—at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
After a week off, No. 2 LSU goes to No. 1 Alabama—at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
You can’t ask for a bigger stage.
5—The Florida Gators are one tough football team:
In the past three weeks the Gators have:
**--Won a hard-fought 24-13 game at home against No. 9 Auburn.
**--Led No. 2 LSU 28-21 in the third quarter at Baton Rouge. LSU won 42-28 in a game that was closer than the final score.
**--Went from three points down to 18 points up in the fourth quarter and won a slug-fest at South Carolina 38-27. (Yes, there were bad officiating calls in the game).
And Florida won the game in Columbia despite the absence of its two best pass rushers, Jabari Zuniga and Jonathan Greenard.
Now the Gators (7-1, 4-1) are No. 7 in the polls and getting ready to play No. 10 Georgia after a week off. Florida looks like a very confident football team heading into Jacksonville.
“You know, you drew it up,” Coach Dan Mullen told The Gainesville Sun. “This is where you want to be in November.”