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Blame game: 3 key reasons 5 SEC football teams lost in Week 11
By Chris Wright
Published:
Five SEC football teams lost games Saturday.
Only one was relatively close. That meant there was plenty of blame to go around, and much of it centered on the men wearing the headsets, collecting the big checks.
LSU
Lost 31-14 to Arkansas
O? No. (45 percent): Everybody excused/rationalized Leonard Fournette’s 31-yard rushing performance last week against Alabama as, well, that’s what Alabama does. Arkansas? Everybody seemed to forget the Razorbacks bottled up Derrick Henry pretty well, too.
Arkansas's defense held both Derrick Henry (27-95) and Leonard Fournette (19-91) below 100 yards rushing this year.
— Phil Steele (@philsteele042) November 15, 2015
Fournette finished with 91 yards and a TD run but was a nonfactor during the competitive portion of the game.
Without Fournette, LSU’s offense is a no-go.
Big bang theory (35 percent): LSU allowed far too many explosive plays. Arkansas scored on a 52-yard pass, 80-yard run and 69-yard run. Three plays. Three defensive mistakes. “You can’t play defense like that,” Les Miles told reporters afterward.
D-line dominated (20 percent): Arkansas coach Bret Bielema said when you play his Razorbacks, you better be prepared for a street fight. Score this one a second-quarter TKO. Alex Collins ran for 141 of Arkansas’ 299 yards. He ripped an 80-yarder on a play designed to get 6 yards, not points.
Arkansas is just killing LSU up front with their o line.
— Ralph Malbrough ? (@SaintsForecast) November 15, 2015
Mississippi State
Lost 31-6 to Alabama
Dak sacked (50 percent): Dak Prescott had to play like a Heisman contender to give the Bulldogs any chance. Alabama sacked Prescott 9 times — after the Bulldogs had allowed just 13 sacks all season.
In back-to-back weeks, Alabama has shown there isn’t an offense built to handle the damage its defense is inflicting.
Run defense issues resurface (30 percent): LSU ran over the Bulldogs in Week 2 (266 yards on 47 carries). Missouri and Auburn topped 200, and Texas A&M nearly did.
Alabama ran for 235 on just 30 carries, with Derrick Henry looking every bit like a Heisman Trophy favorite.
Running … backward (20 percent): Prescott had 26 carries — not all by design — and no other Bulldog carried more than 7 times. Sack yards skew rushing totals, but 2.1 yards per carry is 2.1 yards per carry.
Auburn
Lost 20-13 to Georgia
QB issues continue (50 percent): Jeremy Johnson threw for just 61 yards — a figure that certainly seems like it is missing a crooked number at the beginning of it. There’s no secret that Auburn wins with its run game — and the Tigers cracked 200 yards for the fourth time this season — but trailing late, needing multiple scores, teams need to make plays through the air. Auburn couldn’t.
Turnovers (35 percent): Despite the continuing aerial issues — Johnson’s interception set up Georgia’s first field goal — the Tigers were in position to win but fumbled twice in the fourth quarter. The first fumble set up another Georgia field goal. The second fumble — Ricardo Louis at Georgia’s 1 — prevented the Tigers from pulling within 20-17. That essentially sealed it.
Georgia redux (15 percent): Bulldogs fans want to run Mark Richt out of town, and Auburn fans probably wouldn’t mind. Georgia has beaten Auburn 8 of the past 10 times. The two exceptions? Cam Newton and Louis’ “Prayer at Jordan-Hare” in 2013.
South Carolina
Lost 24-14 to Florida
Played it safe (60 percent): Florida’s ranked, still vying for a Final Four spot, has its coach of the present and future. It is everything South Carolina is not. The one opportunity the Gamecocks had was to pressure QB Treon Harris into even more mistakes than the two INTs he threw.
The defense needed to score.
The Gamecocks blitzed a couple of times early, then backed off, allowing Harris to actually look comfortable at times in the pocket.
Grounded (35 percent): The reason the defense had to take chances was the offense wasn’t going to win it. Twenty-three rushing attempts for 21 yards?
QB issues continue (5 percent): Maybe Pharoh Cooper is the answer. He completed another trick-play pass Saturday, hitting Perry Orth on a pretty throw for 17-yard TD. South Carolina was held below 200 passing yards for the sixth time this season.
Kentucky
Lost 21-17 to Vanderbilt
Lack of focus (75 percent): It’s a one-score, one-play game, and the biggest play was a botched play by Kentucky that allowed an uncovered Vandy wideout Caleb Scott to catch a wide open screen pass near the sideline and race 37 yards for a touchdown.
Kentucky thought Scott was racing off the field. Instead, he stopped just short of the sideline. Quick snap. Easy throw. Easy touchdown. The kind of play that defines losing teams.
That type of confusion and lack of communication simply can’t happen.
Coach Mark Stoops admitted as much, blaming himself for the loss and calling it the low point of his tenure.
Goal-line blues (22 percent): Kentucky had 1st-and-goal at Vandy’s 1. Stanley Williams was stuffed twice. Patrick Towles threw an incompletion and then was tackled for a loss on fourth down.
Three possessions later, Kentucky was back again at Vandy’s 3. Towles threw an incompletion on first down and an interception on second down.
Kentucky OC Shannon Dawson: “The two things that stick out are the red-zone opportunities and the turnovers."
— Eric Crawford (@ericcrawford) November 15, 2015
Pick a QB, already (3 percent): Towles continues to struggle. Drew Barker provided a spark, throwing a TD pass to give Kentucky a 10-7 lead, then tossed a pick-six for Vandy’s go-ahead points.
Kentucky- different season, same 2nd half failure, qb is killing team, pick 1 and go w/kid, loved Williams effort and heart yesterday
— Booger (@ESPNBooger) November 15, 2015
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
