BearTN

"Tennessee can’t afford much of a drop-off in the secondary???!!!" Serously? Any amount of drop off in the secondary means another 4 loss season no matter how much the offense may improve. That unit has to improve for my Vols to make any noise. They will have an advantage in what I think will be a good DL. But, even with a good DL, they need to be in the same area code as the opposing WR's.

One of the most cold blooded acts in sports was Kevin Warren creating "The Alliance" at the same time he was already working to destroy the PAC 12. The inept PAC 12 Commissioner never saw it coming, and also got totally outmaneuvered by the Big 12 at the same time (the Big 12 didn't backstab anyone).

It will be interesting to see how this game will be called. My Vols didn't have anyone heavy enough to match Edey's 300 pounds. DJ Burns is a huge dude, so I don't think either will bounce off the other. If I'm NC State fans at the game, I would yell out "1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi...." and so on every time Edey is in the paint on offense. I don't think they call 3 second violations anymore. I'm not saying this is why the Vols lost (if they aren't calling it, adjust - plus players not name Knecht missed too many open looks and fumbled away too many rebounds). However, I remember several players were the ball went into Edey, we had 2 guys one him, he passed out of it, then got the ball back without ever leaving the paint. Regardless, my Dad went to NC State, so I'm pulling for them anyway.

The one thing missing from all of this is we got out-rebounded 47-25. Sure, Edey got away with a couple of push off on offensive rebounds, but we had at least 7 rebounds we should have had,but fumbled them because I think our players were worried about where Edey was. If we kept the rebounds within 10 of them, I think we win even with the bad shooting of all players except for Knecht.

I think the biggest issue will be if every time Edy pushes will it be a defensive foul on the Vols and send him to the foul line, where he gets 32% of his points. I think Bad Ref Karma owes us one on Purdue, where on the same play, Purdue got over 8 seconds to inbound the ball, Carson Edwards may have stepped on the sideline when he caught the pass, and kicked his leg out as he missed the 3 to draw a phantom foul.

After a horrific start by the SEC, it would be awesome to have a Tennessee/Bama final.

I'm really glad SDS had time to write this story. Tennessee, who is in the SEC, also won, but I guess SDS will write that story tomorrow. I would LOVE for the Vols to play Bama for all the marbles after the horrific start for the SEC.

I have always found his very specific predictions (an 8 minutes scoring drought in the 2nd half, or an exactly 45 point second half) really odd.

I hope that SEC does better than last year's disappointing showing.

I'm generally not superstitious, but hoops Vols don't seem to score when I watch. I'm also having a hard time deciding between watching a game, or trying to earn $29,000 from "Jane Fonda" that is posted on every friggin article in SDS. That said, as a Vol fan, anyone buy Lamont Paris getting SEC coach if the year would be a crime.

I'm happy to have Barnes as our head coach. I can't believe Texas let him go after he became the only Texas coach to ever win 3 Big Ten titles (see article above).

I think the NCAA made a major blunder by choosing that giving college players stipends as their hill to die on. I think allowing that would have allowed some kind of glidepath instead of going from pre NIL to the Wild, Wild, West in the span of 12 months. CFP is still the only sport I really care about, but I do wonder if that will still be true 10 years down the road.

If the Weekly 5 were the two coaches least likely to have dinner together, I thik Stoops and Cal would have to be #1

At first, I thought this sounded odd. However, Kelly is on a hot seat, and many sportswriters say he doesn't like to recruit. I doubt OSU will pay Kelly half of his almost $6 million salary, the the cost of living in Columbus vs. LA probably will narrow the gap a decent amount.

I think WR's would want to play in DeBoer's offense. I think Millroe should be excited as well, seeing how DeBoer developed Penix (not that he was glad to see Saban go, but I think a QB would certainly give DeBoer a shot).

Two thoughts. I don't understand why sportswriters make players that will obviously get in wait by not voting for them the first few years. I bet Ohtani won't be a unanimous selecting in his first year of eligibility, which would be ridiculous (unless he gets hurt). The other thought is that I'm surprised that Helton is only the 2nd SEC play to make the HOF. I know lots of players in the HOF never played in college, but that is still surprisingly low.

We have had great seasons. What we need is a great postseason.

One other thing, what is the over/under for how much longer the Vols/Bama game preview and betting trends stays on the SDS page for a game that was 2 days ago?

Not sure what was worse: UVa getting away with an obvious double dribble, or Purdue getting 8.5 seconds plus to inbound the ball with less than 2 seconds left in the game to prevent the Vols from advancing. Both were game changing no calls.

I'm not sure the NCAA is capable of fixing the problem they created. By making paying stipends to college players the hill the NCAA wanted to die one, we ended up with this far more extreme solution. The NCAA pretty much forced players to go to court.

The Achilles Heal of the Vols is that we can't defend an elite big man in the post. All 4 losses are to teams that had a big man light us up. I hope we can get that fixed.

If you think non CFP bowls are meaningless now, what until the 12 team format next year. The one good thing about next year is that I think that we will see what conferences do better in the 12 team field. It will be interesting to see how many opt outs that are for 8th through 12 seeds. If it is high, that will really suck for college football fans.

The main thing I learned from this article is the Cheez-It is the current sponsor of the Citrus Bowl. I think what Cheez-It used to sponsor is now the Pop Tart Bowl. As little as the non CFP bowls mean now, they will mean even less when it goes to 12 teams, other than the extra Spring Practices the teams get with Bowl practices.

Michigan is in no matter what happens? A loss to Iowa is better than Bama's loss to Texas or Georgia's loss to Bama? Iowa can't score more than 12 points. The Big 10 West is the worst Power 5 division on football. I certainly don't think Michigan will lose to Iowa, but saying it won't matter if they did lose to Iowa is nuts.

I am NOT a Tennessee insider. However, my understanding is that the reason Schiano wasn't hired is that several key boosters and Trustees were unaware of it until the social media outcry, and they were not on board. My guess is the same happened at A&M. While Schiano would have been better than Pruitt, I don't think the program would be better today if he were hired. His defenses sucked at OSU, even with all of that talent. Also, I agree that Pruitt was a terrible head coach, and the cheating was inexcusable. He did seem to be a pretty good DC, so I think the glorified PE coach is a little unfair. The search was so bad, that the runner up was Mel Tucker.

I think rushing 2 could have been ok if they were playing zone in the endzone. It was a long pass, so the DB's could have played the ball. Instead, it was man, and the DB never looked back for the ball. That was essentially a Hail Mary. I think the usual Hail Mary defense is the DB's in the endzone facing the QB.

The Brown Hotel is nice, and they have some good bourbon bars. I am looking forward to spending some time in Lexington though. I’m retiring, and my wife plan to watch a game in each SEC stadium over the next couple of years. I had a business trip in Lexington last year and really liked it.

If this is true, it will probably hurt Calipari if Stoops makes as much or money than he does. Maybe Stopps will do well, but this is definitely not a win the press conference hire.

One advantage with ESPN/ABC is that the SEC can schedule kickoff for all games farther in advance, vs. waiting on CBS to pick their game 2 weeks in advance. The irony is the CBS will pay the Big 10 slightly more than they offered the SEC, but CBS will get the 2nd choice Big 10 game.

I can't really add to what you said.