Johnny Smith

His play probably has won him some Heisman votes, and at the expense of Trent Richardson. Anyone who has watched the SEC in 2011 recognizes that Tyrann Mathieu is not only possibly the best player in America, but clearly the best player in the SEC. The 2nd long punt return last night may not have gone for a touchdown, but I can't remember as impressive a return in my entire lifetime. I think he juked about every player on the Georgia team.

It would seem they're defending their crown as well as Alabama did last year. Of course, Auburn wasn't picked to repeat, like Alabama was last year.

I think today's games illustrated what I was saying last week. Don't read too much into the big win over Auburn. Look at the entire schedule of both teams. Until they played Auburn, Georgia was winning, but the wins were close. Meanwhile, Auburn had to score two late TDs to beat Utah State, needed a last second stop to beat Mississippi State, struggled against Florida Atlantic and Samford, and were beaten badly in each of the games they lost. Georgia is a good team, and obviously the best of the SEC East, but I stand by my assertion that they're not in the same league as LSU and Alabama this year. The Auburn win was not a show of greatness by the Bulldogs, but more the result of playing a young team that loses it's composure when things start going wrong.

Actually, the referee was spot-on on the interception call. To be a completion, a receiver must come down in-bounds with possession of the football. Catching it in the air is great, but you have to have possession when you land. The replay clearly shows that he began losing possession of the football while he was still in the air. When the two players landed on the field of play, the defender clearly had possession of the football. Interception!!!

Boring? A 9-6 OT win was pretty damn boring to me.

Body of work... IF.... IF Oklahoma beats Oklahoma State, (and the BCS title game discussion is moot if they don't), Oklahoma will have wins AT #2 Oklahoma State, AT #5 Florida State, AT #8 Kansas State, AT #11 Texas, AT #22 Baylor.... Alabama's will have wins AT #12 Florida, #14 Arkansas and AT #23 Penn State... * *Ratings are all when the teams met... It's not always about who you lose to, but who you have beaten. Also, which do you think would be the most impressive win to end the season for the pollsters? An Oklahoma win over the #2 team in the country, 11-0 Oklahoma State, or an Alabama win over a 6-4 Auburn team that's already been beaten handily by three other SEC teams and an ACC Team? Don't be surprised to see the gap close a little this week when Alabama's game with Georgia Southern is factored into their SoS.

As has been demonstrated many times, it's not always about the best match-up, or even getting the two best teams. In the NCAA FBS, it's all about the greenbacks. With an Alabama-LSU rematch, you're looking at a game that has regional appeal, but little national appeal. Just as we weren't interested in an Ohio State-Michigan rematch, the rest of the country isn't interested in a rematch of our best two teams, especially when that rematch would lock in a 6th consecutive BCS Championship for the SEC. I agree with Jon. Alabama's best shot at a BCS title game is having Arkansas beat LSU, and then jump them in the BCS standings.

robby, I'm not saying Georgia is not a good team. They're a very good team. I just don't believe the win over Auburn demonstrates that they're in the same league as Alabama and LSU. Those two teams are definitely the cream of the league in 2011. Arkansas is also a very good team, but as was witnessed earlier in the Alabama-Arkansas game, Alabama and LSU are playing at a higher level than the rest of the SEC this year. Several teams, Georgia included, have the talent to compete with these two teams in future seasons, but where these teams need seasoning and maturity, Alabama and LSU are a veteran group already.

I wouldn't put a lot of stock in how a team looks against Auburn. One of the things about a young team is that they can play beyond their years in some games, and look really ugly in the next one. Georgia's SEC results included a loss to South Carolina, a 14-point win over Ole Miss, a 14-point win over Mississippi State, an 8-point win over Tennessee, a 5-point win over Vandy, and a 4-point win over Florida. I personally think Auburn helped Georgia look a lot better than they actually are. Don't take that the wrong way. Georgia has a good team, but they're still not in the same league with LSU.

If Auburn beats Georgia, the 4th place SEC West team will have beaten the top three SEC East team, making the SEC East representative in the SEC Championship essentially the 5th best team in the SEC West, if they were in the SEC West. Can anyone say championship game blowout?

With Joe Paterno now officially out of coaching, I'd bet Bobby Bowden wishes he could have stuck a round a few more years. He and Paterno stayed neck and neck in most career wins as a head coach in the FBS.

OK.... You're all missing one point. Joe Paterno was a middle man. The grad student who witnessed this was the person who should have reported it to the police. By reporting it to Paterno, he did was he was legally required to do, report the accusation to his superiors. Paterno didn't witness this. He was passing along hearsay evidence. If he had gone to the police, he would be passing along information on something he didn't witness. The person who witnessed this should be the one who followed up and reported it to the police. How many times has someone falsely accused a superior, or someone they had a bone to pick with, of a criminal act? It happens all the time. Again, JoePa was required to report any accustaions to his superiors. That's all. As he was not the person who witnessed the assault, he should not be held accountable for not reporting it to the police. At that point, he didn't know if there was any truth to it or not. The ones who should be answering questions as to why the police were never called are the administrators that JoePa reported the accusation to, and the person who personally witnessed it.

I don't know how this game will go, but I'd be willing to bet that, for all of his chatter, Crowell is a non-factor in this game. Auburn has a way of shutting down top running backs. In 2009, they held Mark Ingram to 30 yards in the height of his Heisman campaign. They held him to 36 yards in 2010. In the three meetings with South Carolina, they've held Marcus Lattimore to 33 yards, 84 yards and 66 yards. In 2010, they held Joe Adams to 12 yards rushing. In 2010, they held Washaun Ealey to 44 yards rushing, after holding him under 100 in 2009. Unless he's a better runner than these players, I'm sure Auburn will have a scheme devised to stop him.

1984 - Alabama vs. Auburn. Alabama already had a losing record for the season, and was going nowhere. Auburn was a heavy favorite and would clinch the SEC Championship with a win. Bo Jackson had been hurt earlier in the season against Texas, and it was his first game back. I was sitting in the North end zone on that day. As I remember, Auburn marched right down the field and scored on their first possession. It became a defensive struggle after that, and Alabama had a 17-15 lead with just a few minutes to play. Auburn managed to march down the field, but was stopped at the Alabama 1-yard line. Pat Dye decided to forego the field goal, which would have given Auburn a 1-point lead with just a few minutes to play, and went for the touchdown. Brent Fullwood went to his right on a sweep, but all of his blockers went left, and he lost yardage back to the 4 or 5 yardline. Auburn managed to stop Alabama and get the ball back once again, mounting another drive deep into Alabama territory. With little time on the clock, Auburn called on Robert McGinty to win the game with a short field goal. McGinty lined up on the left hash mark, and was kicking from left to right into the north endzone, right where I was sitting. To this day, that was the worst shanked kick I have ever seen. I think it went out of bounds before it ever made the endzone. To make matters worse, I was playing a football lottery where I worked at the time and my numbers were Auburn 8 and Alabama 7. If he had made the kick, I would have won $500, Auburn would have won their third consecutive Iron Bowl, the SEC and gone to the Sugar Bowl. As it ended, I had the $500 yanked away, Auburn's Iron Bowl streak ended, LSU won the SEC and Auburn went to the Liberty Bowl. THAT is my worst memory of a college football game EVER.

Wow!!! Talk about expansion. The SEC now stretches all the way to New Mexico the the West and Nebraska to the Northwest, and also now borders Mexico, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas.

The SEC has owned the BCS, and fans outside our region are not clamoring for a rematch, and a rematch could be a ratings disaster outside of the region. Fair or not, there's always the human factor in the polls. Unless LSU loses, I think many voters will try to suppress Alabama's ratings to try and avoid an all-SEC BCS Championship game. Oklahoma State, Stanford and Boise State are the only major undefeated teams at the time, but I wouldn't discount Oklahoma and Oregon's chances at a BCS Championship game if those three all lose. A big Oklahoma win over an undefeated Oklahoma State team, or another big Oregon win over an undefeated Stanford team could propel either one of them past Alabama in the final BCS ratings, even with one loss. With the SEC being down this year, Alabama's wins over Arkansas and Penn State will likely be their only "quality wins" this season, while Oklahoma could claim "quality wins" over Florida State, Texas, Kansas State and Oklahoma State, so the voters would have cause to rate Oklahoma over Alabama, if both teams had only one loss.

To be a reception, the receiver has to come down in the field of play with possession of the football. If you'll look closely at the 1:00 mark of the video, the receiver has lost possession before he hits the ground, and the LSU defender gains possession. If you go by the rule book, since the receiver didn't come down with possession of the football, it's not a catch, and the LSU defender gained possession before the ball hit the ground, making it an interception, instead of a fumble recovery. This was a good call by the officials. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s89E6UnSJmo

Have you stopped to consider what a windfall this is going to be for New Orleans? Alabama will bring their team and fan base into the city for the Sugar Bowl, and one week later LSU will play there for the BCS Championship. Cha-Ching!!!

Jeremy, you can't remove your weakest link and then declare you have the better team. For better or worse, your kicking game is an integral part of your team. If the kicking game is lacking, it brings down the entire team, and keeps them from being a great team, but only a very good team. Yes, the game went into overtime, but it was played in the friendly confines of Bryant-Denny Stadium. If Alabama can't beat them on their own turf, with their own crowd behind them, what makes some of you think LSU didn't prove to be the better team because of the need for overtime?

AYSFM, you missed this one cheap shot that essentially wrapped up the 2009 BCS Championship for Alabama. http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/dareus.jpg

I wouldn't put a "W" in Georgia's column for the Auburn game just yet. As I stated before the season, I'd rather play Auburn early in the season than late in the season. Auburn also has an extra week to prepare for Georgia. Another thing that I mentioned was that a team as young as Auburn is, but also with as much talent as Auburn they have, is capable of beating almost any team on their schedule. They're also capable of making a lot of mistakes and looking really bad. We've seen both scenarios already. The Auburn-Georgia game will likely come down to which Auburn team shows up to play.

Bosshog, sorry but looking at your video just confirms that he made an evident fair catch signal with his left arm at about the 18-20 yardline.

Because both were victims of a lynch mob, "guilty until proven innocent" judgement, and just as Cam Newton never received an apology for the words spoken against him, and the things denied him because of unfounded allegations, neither will Wade. There's the connection. They're not two entirely different issues when an apology isn't forthcoming for either.

NEVER expect an apology from an SEC fan. Neither Auburn nor Cam Newton has received any apologies, and both were vilified as bad or worse than Wade, and for the better part of a year. FWIW, I still find it hard to believe that a player watching the receiver can think he's already caught the ball. If he's caught the ball, why is he still looking to the sky? I think what REALLY happened is Wade tried to time his hit with the arrival of the football, and judged it badly.

The video above has been disabled, but if you look at this video, the receiver makes a clear fair catch signal around the 18-yardline. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDEHflpbzko

RazorMc, I for one am not bashing the Arkansas fan base. My one trip to Little Rock years back was an enjoyable experience, even though we lost the game. The fans we encountered were better on average than at most SEC venues. With that said, I do find it sad that so many Hog fans are defending wade for such an egregious hit, Whether a fair catch was called or not doesn't detract from the fact that he hit a defenseless player at full speed, long before the ball arrived, and leading with his head or shoulder against a defenseless player could have caused a serious injury. I will only speculate that he had to know the receiver hadn't caught the ball, unless he was running at full speed with his eyes closed or looking elsewhere. His actions shouldn't detract from the sportsmanship of the rest of the team, but a lack of discipline for the incident will detract from the entire team.

It's not hating on Georgia when a Georgia loss helps his team. We all pick our favorites every week based mostly on the effect it'll have on our own team. An Auburn win over Georgia moves South Carolina one step closer to Atlanta.

I assume the league will sit him out for at least the first half of Arkansas' next game. Other than that, there's not much the league can do. I would hope that the Arkansas coaching staff would make it at least a full game suspension. Leading with his helmet while running at full stride is bad enough, but to then celebrate and taunt Vandy makes it even worse.

Looking at the traditional top level teams in the SEC, Auburn lost 16 starters from last years team, Arkansas lost Knile Davis to a season-ending injury, South Carolina lost Marcus Lattimore for the Season, Tennessee lost Tyler Bray and Justin Hunter, their top receiver, and Florida has lost numerous players. 2011 is an unusual year with the number of top players lost from so many teams. I'm not taking anything away from Alabama or LSU, as they were going to be the cream of the conference in 2011, even before these injuries, but all of the upheavals on other teams has made the level of play between Alabama/LSU and the rest of the SEC even greater than it would have been.

Jon, Arkansas losing an impact player from their running game is one of the teams that I'm talking about. I believe Alabama would still have been the better team, but the disparity between Alabama, LSU and Arkansas wouldn't have been as great if Knile Davis had been healthy.