You said: "UF should be at #5" You said: "Our defense hasn’t played a solid four quarters yet" How are you going to square that circle?

When Miami, Notre Dame and USC were down in the doldrums a couple decades back - and this accompanied the collapse of the Big East as a factor in college basketball - there were tons of "can private schools compete in big time athletics." Shortly after this ... USC came one play from winning 3 straight titles. (I know and I hear you, LSU and Auburn fans.) Stanford came one play from making the title game against LSU (unfortunately for LSU, when they didn't pull it out, Alabama got that slot instead). Notre Dame played for a national title, made the playoff and is undefeated with a victory over #1 Clemson this year. And Miami? They are going to finish 8-2 or 9-1 this year thanks to FINALLY making a serious coaching hire (i.e. one that wasn't made by Donna Shalala). If Vanderbilt had taken football seriously decades ago, they could have built what really matters in football - lots of programs "improve facilities" and it doesn't amount to a hill of beans - a winning tradition. If you have a winning tradition it gives you name recognition among recruits. More important, you produce guys who go on to be coaches at powerhouse high school programs who are mighty useful in helping steer talented recruits to your college. Vanderbilt has the opposite. High school recruits only know of them as a punching bag, and the next powerhouse high school who takes on a coaching candidate because "I started 3 years at Vandy" will be the first. They'd be more likely to hire someone from a WINNING mid-major or FCS program. Derek Mason was a legit candidate when he left Stanford. He could have become an NFL position coach and would likely be a coordinator or head coach by now. I was amazed that none of the Pac-12 programs gave him a look, especially considering some of the guys that were hired instead. But the fact is that he was hired after Vandy's most successful run in history, inherited a veteran talented team and was allowed to spend 7 years absolutely running that program into the ground. The athletics director (or its equivalent as Vandy doesn't have the position) who hired Mason is long gone. Vandy's previous two coaches actually made progress: they built a national recruiting network that tapped into a lot of upscale private and suburban high schools that promoted Vanderbilt's academic reputation and how that would translate into jobs with $250,000 a year salaries after football. This was why Vanderbilt started regularly producing NFL players even when they weren't necessarily having winning seasons, and why often even when they lost, they were rarely humiliated and blown out because the talent differential between them and the typical SEC team - if not necessarily title contenders - wasn't this wide yawning gap that it used to be. And now all that progress is gone. Who knows if rebuilding it is even possible at this point. All thanks to a program that doesn't take athletics seriously and probably shouldn't be in the SEC in the first place. The SEC doesn't even need Vandy to be its token academics school anymore. It has 3 other AAU schools in Missouri, Texas A&M and Florida. UGA would be in the AAU too if it had a medical school and if they didn't just start their engineering school like 10 years ago. (The state of Georgia had a - curious approach to organizing higher education as for decades they only had a single engineering, law and medical school. UGA got the law school. Georgia Tech got the engineering school. The medical school was actually a separate institution until they tacked it onto a small nearby liberal arts college. They are SLOWLY untangling this mess in order to build a workforce for a modern economy.) The problem is there are no obvious candidates out there to replace Vandy. FSU has been offered multiple times but chickened out each one. There may actually be legal issues preventing Clemson from coming (plus it would make life for South Carolina even worse). I have always had a soft spot for N.C. State - the UNC folk live for making their lives miserable - but they would never leave their tobacco road rivalry. Virginia Tech? Miami? USF maybe? I don't know, but as they have A BILLION DOLLAR ENDOWMENT AND ARE IN NO WAY HURTING FOR MONEY unless they show some desire to compete in athletics they should be asked to leave and join the likes of Emory University.

At this rate Alabama, Clemson, ND and Texas A&M are going to be the field. The Big 12 champ will have 3 losses and the Big 10 and Pac-12 teams may not play more than 6 games.

I won't cuss you. But I will wish for you guys to go back to Francione, Sherrill and Sherman ball when you'd be lucky to get 6 wins in a whole season and your offenses wouldn't produce 16 TD passes in 2 years. It would be no less than what this fanbase deserves and you guys are making it crystal clear why absolutely no one in the Big 12 misses you.

The QB who owns every single career passing record at Texas A&M being yanked isn't. I know that you Aggies dislike Mond, but I guess fans have forgotten all those decades of 4-7 and 7-5 seasons in the SWC and Big 12, much of that time barely being capable of a forward pass. Jackie Sherrill nostalgia I guess? Or maybe Dennis Francione! The winningest coach in A&M history: 124 wins, most of them coming in an SWC that wasn't as good as the WAC/MWC and certainly didn't merit all those Cotton Bowl invites. Ryan Tannehill: the only A&M QB ever to become a longtime NFL starter, make a Pro Bowl or win a playoff game. And you guys are itching to get rid of Mond as if you win like Alabama or produce star QBs like Florida. (Or even like LSU, Tennessee, Auburn or Georgia.) Amazing.

"Some other young lady may get that opportunity at the P5 level, or maybe even Fuller." No they won't. Because guys will be competing for the same opportunity and - despite all the feminist propaganda that you have imbibed from the media - no female athlete is capable of winning a competition against a male athlete. (This means of similar caliber. So no bringing up Hall of Fame Olympians against second string 9th graders. And even there, the US Women's soccer team that so many call "the most dominant sports team in history" was decisively beaten by a Dallas U-16 team ... no one talks about this for obviously reasons.)

"What is the harm to teach girls they can be kickers?" Because guys are better ones. So were there to be an equal competition between male kickers and female kickers, male ones will win every time. Had there been an open cattle call for someone to get in that game and do a squib kick, it would have been answered by members of the male soccer team as well as guys who played football in high school but chose Vanderbilt academics over Division II ball. And all of them - 100% of them - would have performed better than striker for the US Women's National Soccer team at her athletic peak, let alone a goalie for a college soccer team.

Please know that when the women's US national soccer team - the best female sports organization in history - faced off against a bunch of Dallas 9th and 10th graders THEY LOST DECISIVELY. So yeah, a women's soccer player did an OK job of executing a squib kick. But a male soccer player, basketball player, track athlete OR OTHER FOOTBALL PLAYER could have done the same job FAR BETTER. So please, don't delude yourself. This was a PR gimmick plain and simple.

Though I will always be a Kellen Mond defender ... he should leave for the draft. There are a lot of people - which includes no few scouts and coaches in the NFL - who will never be sold on the kid, so if his 5th season as a starter drops off any at all, even if it is due to issues beyond his control like injuries or surrounding talent, his stock will nosedive. They will say "he has had 5 years and two coaching staffs to get it together so no more excuses" and they wouldn't be wrong. Also, Mond isn't exactly a physical specimen. He is 6'2" - below average - and his arm is only "OK" in terms of being able to make the tough deep and intermediate NFL throws. Also his cred as a dual threat QB is overrated: 1400 yards in 40+ games at under 4ypc. By comparison Ryan Tannehill is 6'4", has a stronger arm and was athletic enough to actually be A&M's starting WR before moving to QB. His ceiling is basically a 3rd or 4th round pick. Which means he has more to lose by staying and having a worse year in 2021 than he had in 2020 than he has to gain by returning and doing anything short of throwing for 4000 yards while winning a Heisman and/or national title, which is what it would take for him to play his way into the 1st round.

Steve Sarkisian: no. While he is very good with Xs and Os, he is a west coast guy and his tenure at Washington and USC West - the two Pac-12 programs with the best recruiting potential - showed that he can't recruit. Jamey Chadwell: no P5 experience in any capacity (player, grad assistant, assistant coach) and was Division II/FCS coach until 2017. Based on that I wouldn't even recommend him for an ACC job, let alone an SEC one where you get worse recruits than Clemson, UGA, UF and Tennessee yet are expected to occasionally beat them. Let him start out at an AAC or better yet C-USA school instead maybe. Napier: A good fourth choice. Ideally you would want a guy who has been at a school for at least 4 years so that he could show what he could do with his own recruits. Remember that Will Muschamp looked like a good hire after year 2 at Florida and South Carolina also. Shane Beamer: the best option of the bunch IMHO. Though you wonder how long he would stick around (which is why South Carolina hired Holtz and Spurrier in the first place).

The Heisman candidates are as follows: Kyle Trask Mac Jones Justin Fields Ian Book (don't laugh, read until the bottom) If Kyle Trask runs the table through the SECCG he wins it. No doubt. But calling him the frontrunner at this point is spurious because no one outside Gainesville believes that their combination of suspect defense and one dimensional offense is going to beat Alabama in Atlanta. Mac Jones: his Heisman candidacy would be enhanced by Texas A&M going undefeated. No one else in the country would have the trifecta of being a healthy UGA - not the walking wounded that Trask beat - as well as A&M and UF. However, Trask having clearly superior numbers is a problem. Which would open the door for ... Justin Fields. He takes a hit with the game getting cancelled this week ... but say he makes it through the rest of the season without an INT (or with only 1)? And a door #3 candidate: Ian Book. Not as impressive as the other guys statistically, but if they beat Clemson AGAIN in the ACCCG - which similar to Trask vs Jones no one outside of South Bend (but maybe fans envious of the once little-regarded Clemson program surpassing their own ... and are secretly afraid of playing the 2 time title winner in the playoff) - then he might just be the most compelling of the bunch. Book would benefit from midwestern/northeastern/far western folks sick of Alabama (and the SEC generally) and from the fact that with Penn State and Michigan down Ohio State really won't have played anybody (Indiana and Wisconsin look to be it).

Those Dan Mullen teams that "choked" actually weren't that talented. For example: that Dak Prescott team that was ranked #1 at one point? Name another NFL player off that team. Exactly. Meanwhile this Florida team is loaded with future NFL players (on offense anyway). Don't expect them to lose again.

Did you see the actual play? Cine absolutely did launch his body. It is why he was called for targeting and ejected. The announcers AND the referees said as much. They stated: 1) Cine DID NOT lead with the helmet and the helmet DID NOT make contact. Instead, Cine lead with the shoulder and the shoulder made contact. So why was it targeting? Because even though Cine DID NOT lead with the helment and the helmet DID NOT make contact: 2) CINE LAUNCHED HIMSELF. There is no discretion here. If a player launches himself and hits another player, targeting. The solution to this is simple: don't launch yourself at other players.

@JTF: And if Pitts had become a competitive chess player instead of playing a full contact sport he would be fine also. But in the reality that we currently exist in, had Cine not launched himself into Pitts - which is illegal precisely for this reason - Pitts would also be fine.

Had Kirby Smart tried to land Franks there would have been a complete and total meltdown of the UGA fandom. The UGA fandom is absolutely convinced of 2 things: 1. Jake Fromm would have been the next Tom Brady and won 3 national titles given proper coaching at UGA 2. Feleipe Franks is one of the worst QBs in NCAA history So following one with the other would have sent them into a downward spiral

"Florida’s defense has finally gotten it together" I do not think that Missouri or any team with Stetson Bennett as QB is a sufficient indicator of a defense's quality. Especially considering UGA helped you guys out by continuing to play Bennett until Florida had a 20 point lead until late in the second half and oh yeah ONLY GIVING ZAMIR WHITE SEVEN CARRIES. I mean granted you guys will win and easily ... but I remember when everyone was hyping Mike Leach and the Air Raid in the SEC after hammering LSU. Turned out that LSU wasn't a good indicator either. And even against Stetson Bennett ... remember that UGA had 21 points and was driving for more until taking that shot that injured his throwing shoulder.

He never got undeveloped at Florida. The kid had 3000+ total yards and 31 TDs while leading Florida to a 10-3 season and #7 final ranking, including victories over LSU (outplayed Joe Burrow) and Michigan (outplayed Shea Patterson). And he started the 2019 season completing 76% of his passes before getting hurt. Not saying that he was a great QB. Just that he wasn't nearly as bad as everyone claimed. Especially since it isn't as if he followed behind Danny Wuerrfel, Tim Tebow, Chris Leak, Kerwin Bell or even Rex Grossman. Instead, Florida hadn't had good QB play IN YEARS before Franks, even the year they went 11-2 and to the Orange Bowl under Muschamp. Flat out never understood the vitriol from folks that had been exposed to Jeff Driskel, Luke Del Rio, Treon Harris, John Brantley, Will Grier etc.

Franks ... found his way and succeeded with Florida. Seriously, Franks' turnover problems were way overplayed. In 2018 he had 6 INTs. Guess what? Kyle Trask had SEVEN in 2019. Franks had 31 TDs in 2018. Trask? 29. If you are going to knock Franks, it would have been because his 58% completions in 2018. But .... he was at 76% in 2019 before he got hurt. Even if Kyle Trask is a great player - and I will believe that he is if he beats Alabama and avoids going 0-4 for big games during his career - it doesn't change the fact that Feleipe Franks is a good one, and no losing to Trask and the much better talent that he has around him doesn't change it either.

G8RFan107: "Well did they lose the game winning fumble, or did they lose the ball earlier in the game?" Ummm ... had they not lost the fumble earlier in the game, it wouldn't have been the "game winning fumble" because the Gators' fumble directly led to Florida's 7 points. In other words, take away the A&M fumble and the score at that point is 41-31. Meaning that even had the fumble not been lost and even had Florida actually scored the TD, the score would have still been 41-38. And we still haven't talked about how A&M lost their 2nd best WR and best deep threat early in the 3rd quarter (on a TD reception no less). Had he played the entire game, A&M likely would have had 44 or 48 points instead of 41 anyway. Granted, he is out for the season and wouldn't be present for the rematch, but in any case that would eliminate the whole "Florida got lucky, they only won by 3 because they were at home which makes it a tie and we lost a fumble which makes it a moral victory!" argument of the sort that I thought that only programs like South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss that never win anything indulged in. My how the mighty Gators have fallen, and just since 2008 too ...

You left out Florida-South Carolina versus Texas A&M-South Carolina. Is there a reason for that? Oh yeah, that it doesn't fit your narrative. But ... it doesn't matter. Alabama eats one-dimensional teams for lunch. In the first half they will play Florida straight up, giving the Gators false hope just as UGA had false hope in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 at halftime. But in the second half, Alabama's LBs, DL and safeties will ignore Florida's nonexistent running game and focus entirely on generating pressure against Trask. And we know from the games that Trask lost in 2019 - UGA and LSU - that while he is nimble, he isn't mobile so you can force the Florida offense into 3-and-outs and INTs if you generate consistent pressure. And Florida actually had something of a running game in 2019 behind Lamical Perine. So the game will be close - with Florida leading perhaps - at halftime but the final score will be a rout. Beating Florida and getting to Atlanta will be progress ... but then Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney will all leave to be 1st round NFL draft picks. Oh yeah, both OTs and your center are seniors also plus an OG is a grad transfer. Add that to Trevon Grimes and 8 of Florida's starting 11 are moving on. (I get that a couple might stick around thanks to the extra year, but all the guys who have a legit shot at being drafted are going to split.) I will grant you that Mullen has recruited better than the UGA fans give him credit for, but getting back to Atlanta in 2021 is going to be a huge challenge.

It is simple. Ohio State, Clemson and UF go automatically as winners of the only 3 conferences to win a national title in the playoff era. Also in your scenario, Ohio State is unbeaten making it a no-brainer. As for the 4th team: it is clearly Alabama. Why? 1. Texas A&M didn't win their conference (unlike Florida). 2. Texas A&M didn't win their division (unlike Florida and Alabama). 3. Texas A&M played Alabama head to head and lost so badly that the writers on this very site were questioning the future of both Jimbo Fisher and Kellen Mond. While they have beaten Florida (barely) and not lost any games that they should have since then, nothing they have shown indicates that they are a top 5 team. Top 10 team? Definitely. Yes, A&M beat Florida, but Florida in this scenario will have two titles (division and conference) plus the win over Alabama plus a better overall record (11-1 versus 10-1). That is 4 feathers in their cap. A&M would have the sole feather in their cap and 4 beats 1 easily. Really, merely being SEC champs would be reason enough to choose them over A&M despite the head-to-head but in this scenario A&M has no case and it isn't close.

Same place LSU is.

Huh? All the time. He run blocks as well as pass blocks. He is not one of those "guys playing TE in a spread offense because they don't run well enough to play WR" like Jacob Tamme for Kentucky back in the day or Mark Andrews for Oklahoma (even if Tamme then and Andrews now are doing pretty well for themselves in the NFL). Pitts is a legit all around TE. Put it this way: Pitts is a better blocker than NFL perennial Pro Bowl TE Jimmy Graham ever was.

In 1999 UGA had Quincy Carter at QB and scored plenty. It was the defense - or rather the defensive coaching as the talent was there - that was the problem. Remember UGA losing to Georgia Tech 51-48? Yeah, combining that team's offense with this team's defense makes the playoff easily.

So between Missouri's hit on Trask and UGA's hit on Pitts in back to back weeks, what is up with the competition in the east? And why are the respective fanbases defending both? Last week it was the Missouri people claiming that the Trask hit was neither that late or bad and this week UGA fans are claiming that launching yourself at a player isn't targeting merely because he didn't lead with the helmet. (No, targeting is a 1 game suspension, leading with the helmet is a one game suspension, targeting while leading with the helmet is a multi-game suspension.) Wow. Just wow. I am not exactly a Gator fan either, but folks who despise the Gators this much simply need to root for their own teams to play better and win something.

What color is the sky in your world? So you totally missed THAT PITTS HAD TO BE IMMEDIATELY ASSISTED TO THE LOCKER ROOM? The guy was totally dazed - in a fog - and had to be guided to the locker room. Good grief why are you folks defending a hit in which the safety clearly launched himself at a defenseless receiver? Is that REALLY the hill that you want to make your last stand on? Why not just admit "yeah, Cine is a good kid but you can't launch yourself full tilt like that EVEN IF YOU DO LEAD WITH THE SHOULDER in today's football"? Look, I know that Pitts moved at the last second. But guess what ... PEOPLE MOVE AT THE LAST SECOND. IT HAPPENS. People move at the last second ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE GOING OVER THE MIDDLE TRYING TO CATCH A FOOTBALL. You NEED to be able to account for the VERY LIKELY POSSIBILITY that the PERSON - NOT STATUE - that you are attempting to tackle is going to move or shift WHICH IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU ARE PLAYING A SPORT AS OPPOSED TO STANDING GUARD THE BUCKINHAM PALACE which is why you aren't supposed to LAUNCH YOURSELF at people in the first place ... because you can't see when that person moves and even if you do you can't do anything about it anyway BECAUSE YOU ARE ALREADY IN MIDAIR. For crying out loud, even if it wasn't a dirty hit with an intent to injure, it was a classic example of why launching yourself at people IS NO LONGER ALLOWED. Had it been an Auburn player launching himself at Jake Fromm's head and giving him a concussion that caused him to miss the next game we would never hear the end of it for 25 years.

The hit: A) drew blood B) resulted in a dazed player with a concussion But hey, if you feel that it was a terrible call then by all means let us have Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia Tech make those same hits against your players all the time. You would be completely fine with that. Right?

Not really. Even as they were hammering UGA, it was obvious when looking at their RBs, DL and LBs that Florida isn't a top 5 team, and that without the Trask/Pitts combo they are barely a top 15 one. Give UGA a healthy defense and an average SEC QB and they beat Florida by 10 points. An average SEC QB would be able to take advantage of UGA's WR talent - which isn't great but much better than in 2019 as guys were in fact frequently open against both UF and Bama ... the QBs just couldn't find or hit them - and take advantage of UGA's possibly best in the SEC offensive line and stable of above average (no Gurley, Chubb, Michel or Moreno but still quite good) RBs. And an AJ McCarron - I get upset when he is called a game manager as the guy had 3000 yards and 28 TDs to a bunch of WRs that Amari Cooper excepted are nowhere near as good as the WRs that Alabama has now - would possibly make UGA the favorites to win the national title. Until Mullen shows that he can recruit at the level that Saban, Richt and whoever is at Ohio State or LSU seemingly (the Buckeyes and Tigers change coaches but reel in top 5 classes regardless) does, then all UGA will ever need to add to be two steps ahead of them is mere competence at the QB position. Fortunately for the Gators, that competency probably won't be there in 2021, but unfortunately Kyle Trask is going to be a #1 pick in the next draft so he won't be there in 2021 either.

Arky only has a shot if Pitts isn't 100%. And even then only a shot. As far as Franks' "motivation" goes, he isn't Brenton Cox by a long shot. I think that the kid knows that he was recruited by a different staff for a different scheme and his skills aren't a good fit for what Dan Mullen and Brian Johnson want to do in the passing game. So he has no reason to hold anything against the administration - he was there for the 4-7 so knows fully that that the guy who recruited him was fired for a reason - or against the current coaches. Also, he benefited from the turn of events as the Arkansas scheme seems to be a better fit for his skills than what Dan Mullen and Brian Johnson prefer to do on offense anyway.

It is sad ... but please remember that police officers are human beings just like you or I. So unless you have never EVER gotten sloppy or cut corners on your job ... well if you haven't then good for you but please remember the vast majority of the rest of us are incapable of meeting your peerless standards. We can't set the standards of conduct for police officers so high that practically no one is willing or able to meet them (especially for what most jurisdictions actually pay police officers ... yes you can make LOTS more money doing something that doesn't involve the possibility of getting run over, stabbed or shot). Indeed, doing precisely that - so there basically won't be any police officers left - seems to be the goal of the "defund the police" movement. Even if you don't openly state that as your explicit goal, make the climate around police officers so hostile that no one in his right mind would want to be one accomplishes the same effect.