virtualkelly

Recent Comments
@ CaptainReb101... Yeah, your punter was just named an SEC player of the week for the egg bowl game. No kidding. Think about that a minute. No, sorry, Ole Miss is not better than Mizzou; anyone beyond most legacy-homer-site-readers see that, and that includes the committee. Can't make this stuff up... punter as player of the week... LOL... kills me.
"Here’s what Cubelic had to say about every [sic] SEC team in the final week of the regular season:" Seven teams, not all.
"Ole Miss punter Fraser Masin shared the honor with Brown after a strong performance against rival Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl." Pretty sad statement about Ole Miss's game if the punter wins a player of the week award. And all those Ole Miss folks claiming to be ahead of Mizzou in the SoS/eye test... who beat an essentially equal team (Arkansas) very handily... well... no.
@ Unclenutzz ... You need to look up what word salad means. The conferences are now even more driven by media revenue. As examples: 1) Regarding conference re-alignment and TV, Texas entering the SEC is sitting in the country's second most populous state -- and having two top ten markets -- will have an impact on recruiting and TV exposure in the SEC. The old stalwart brands will become "blurred" cannon-fodder amidst the money-grab from TV on the upper side, and players on the bottom side. Only Florida and Texas can keenly compete in this scenario. Yet they're fortunately recruiting beds as well, so that brings up... 2) The portal, to mention that as well, is deleting the brand-name team's positional team-depth, so that will not bode well for teams that historically could bank players in relief and as stars. Players want to play after their red-shirt. This is already happening. 3) NIL, specifically, is spreading around the number-one motivator in society, money, so kids (parents) can be more selective and/or more local in their mindset about a kid's future.
@ FSU-SwampBeatdown ... You're trying to brag about FSU's performance against UF? Funny.
... I must amend that this thought applies more to the committee than the assistant coaches, GAs and/or interns who fill out the coaches polls.
@Dawglb ... If it wasn't a rhetorical question, Tennessee serves the same purpose for the SEC that Penn St serves for the B1G, Louisville for the ACC and K-State for the Big-12: 1) it bolsters the SoS argument of the committee's higher placements -- rightly or wrongly -- until it auto-corrects, and 2) they were successful last year so this logic is saleable in the meantime. It's a flawed system wrapped in subjective metrics. Alas.
Missouri and Alabama could likely flip places in the AP and/or CFP. It will only be for a week, but there are a number of dynamics that would lend itself to this notion. Alabama will not defeat Georgia in the SECCG, so this could be its highest position this year.
"Deff a down year for the sec as only 9 teams bowl Eligible" @gatorfan8115... One would have to assume this is not a new normal. With the vast changes in the college game's money structure (NIL and TV) and conference re-alignment, the SEC will likely become a blur of what it used to be. We are only seeing the first signs, regrettably.
"There is no SEC east next year." @JTF... There is no SEC west next year (either). The glass is half full.
@TigerFanPA... Regarding your Mizzou take, Cook and Burden, both being underclassmen, will both be back for Mizzou. Productive seniors, like Schrader, are indeed an issue. Problem solved once, it's likely solved twice, part of an Occam's razor notion. It's interesting that commenter's personal overreactions are deemed righteous, while other's similar overreactions are not. Such is the psychological-Stockholm nature of the internet.
Very nice. That makes a major correction. Good job, Wildcats.
@LSUSMC... You think that's bad? They play at 11am in the Midwest! The only good thing -- I'll know the scores an hour before you folks do. ;-)
Chippier game than I expected, but congratulations to the Tigers of Missouri. Schrader shredded!!
It started when Arkansas' starting QB had to leave the game with an injury. Arkansas' defense started to get lost in their emotions and started to take it out on the field, namely on Cook. It resulted in lots of penalty years, mostly against Arkansas, accordingly. Words ultimately led to this encounter. But the late hit against Cook plowed into an innocent bystander, a chain-gang guy, I think, and that was uncool. That person is not responsible for that stuff and could have been injured. It's stupid behavior.
What most people are missing, is CBS is still a rabbit ears network. Anyone can get it free and there are millions of these folks who have not jumped on the digital age when they can get it over the air, especially in an inflationary economy. Therefore, the SEC exposure for ALL wire-cutters is now lost. ESPN is not free, it is a paid only network, streaming or cable. Like Monday Night Football, it will only pick up wire-cutters when it simulcasts on ABC. This is how a once-civic utility company eventually became a multi-gazillion-dollar business.
I think Florida's best chance is to feed the ball -- all night -- to Etienne and control time of possession. That was productive. Just my opinion.
No disrespect to Foster or Schrader's 148 yards, but Burden III bailed out Mizzou when Mizzou's running game was stymied by UF in the second half. To give Burden an honorable mention for 158 total yards against an SEC team (that's in this conference) on a clutch 4th and 17 catch for 27 yards to set up a game-winning field goal is, well.... And certainly not zero-summing Etienne's performance, but Nabors did 140 against Georgia State in a mismatched 56-14 cringe-worthy... salting. (Burden even out yard-ed Nabors when the teams faced each other.) If you get c-rap for having three players from the same team, realize that's been the flip-case for years. It's bias by coverage omission and that is indeed zero-summing.
@ GetItRight... Yeah, right, Cook's one place, over Dart. okay sure. Jaxson beat the UL Monroe School of the Blind ... by 32. Gimme a break. Probably needed a Fresca after that.
I'm curious about how a site dedicated to the SEC can be so divergent from the conference itself. The SEC named Brady Cook Co-Offensive player of the week for the same above-noted performance (along with Jayden Daniels for his slug-salting of, uh -- whomever). But Cook doesn't budge on a weekly poll here? It's so ... media-like.
@ JTF... I respectfully disagree, or rather, think any return to marquee teams would be temporary, depending upon who's considered in the "marquee club." In the internet-digital age, individual notoriety has become a drug; therefore; athletes will seek the larger market exposure and money (up to their personal/familial/cultural comfort levels). This exposure role used to be with "marquee names", while simultaneously being a small Nielsen DMA market, like Alabama and Mannings-era TN and MS. In that way, it's more like a school-of-sport (like IMG in Bradenton is to HS talent). Texas and Florida are the only two SEC states that can cull together enough large DMA markets in this regard to satiate the "fix." Atlanta is #6 -- yet solo. KC, STL and SGF, (MO) combined would be about #10. TN, KY, SC, are similar to MO -- small aggregators. This is why the NFL's Cowboys, Giants, and Jets still get a disproportionate number of prime-time games (and marquee, swan-song free-agents), despite their limited winning histories. This will happen to college as well. And this is why Texas is entering the SEC. (Oklahoma is it's personal IMG; Texas outliers are Oklahoma's IMG). So yes... but no... it depends upon who you are calling marque now and the size of their solo vs. aggregate markets. Sorry for the length.
Interesting article. In the age of NIL and the portal, it will be more difficult for marque teams to build depth where they're accustomed to having it, solely based upon their name. Non-marque teams never had this. It's different now and still in it's infancy.
@ rxmanste... But using the results from the alternative universe of "Brain Freeze" is not logical. Fact is, Florida came to play and Missouri answered with better talent at the end, and it was not from behind nearly the whole game, like Louisville/Miami. So Mizzou won with superior talent. Regarding home field... Mizzou beat Kentucky on the road and Louisville plays UK at home this weekend. If Louisville struggles, does it diminish them in light of Mizzou beating UK handily on the road? Maybe, maybe not. It depends upon how they play. Louisville then plays FSU, at highly ranked team, yet still no Georgia by a long shot.If they win without FSU's starting QB playing, does that reinforce the alternate universe of "Brain Freeze" argument of Mizzou v. Florida? One can't have it both ways, even if the committee can.
Albeit the road team, Louisville struggled with Miami, who led most of the middle of the game. That doesn't bode well for the argument of flipping with Missouri. The committee appears to err on the side of caution, banking on the SEC as a conference over the subjective early poll rankings' often silly conjecture (read: Miami). Also, to diminish Missouri would be to diminish the two teams that defeated them, one who's sitting at No-1 and another at No-14 with a potential Heisman candidate aboard. I don't think so.
In addition to Hopper, other Mizzou players also winning accolades this week: 1)Brady Cook, SEC Co-offensive Player of the Week (w/Jayden Daniels); 2) Harrison Mevis, SEC Special Teams Player of the Week; 3) Xavier Delgado, SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week; 4)Luther Burden III, Top 10 WR Semi-finalists Biletnikoff Award; and 5)Kevin Peoples, DL Coach, 14 Semi-finalist for Assistant Coach Broyles Award.
High penalty count versus low yards-per-game shows largely procedural penalties. Some of this is due to the crowd noise factor, in addition to experiential discipline.
"But the selection committee hasn’t been overly reactionary when it comes to shuffling top-10 teams that maintain the same number of losses." The same applies to Mizzou this week. Yet, the Georgia 2-1 flip earlier might be foretelling. TV Nielsen market size seems to have an impact, as it does on all polls. We'll see.
Mizzou needs to stay on its toes. Just like Florida, Arkansas will come to play; they have nothing to win or lose by putting a kibosh on Mizzou's NY6 hopes. And they'll try. Finish it out.