Whew! I hope you didn’t pick last weekend to cut the cable cord. Bama goes down to Texas, Miami beats A&M, and the Rebels survive Tulane. We’re two weeks into the season, and we’ve gathered more data to analyze. The PICK 5 is off to a winning record! We’ll talk about some points of concerns, where we need to improve, and the SEC landscape thus far.
I want to start by saying, Tre Harris might be the best receiver in the country. No, Seriously. You won’t hear it on every blog, but you will on this one. We all know what he did in the first game. He then comes out on the very first drive of the game and has 2 huge receptions, breaking the second one off for a touchdown like it was nothing! Unfortunetly that would be the last that we saw from Tre for the day due to an injury. Our offense was clicking on all cylinders and all the sudden we start to realize… wait where did #9 go? Maybe he was better than we thought. Going into the season, we were sold that we’d have Tre Harris and Zakhari Franklin as our #1 and #2 recievers, and that Jordan Wilkins, Dayton Wade, and Ayden Williams could fill in as really nice 3rd and 4th options. Not to mention the high hopes that we had for tight end, Caden Prieskorn. We really weren’t worried about receiver at all, and that was BEFORE we knew just how good Tre Harris was! Now, only two weeks in, we're without Harris, Franklin, and Prieskorn. All of the sudden our receiver room looks bleak. That’s okay, we still have Quinshon Judkins though! He must’ve carried us to a win on Saturday right? Not so much. It’s been a frustrating start for the preseason heisman hopeful. He had 18 carries for 48 yards and couldn’t get anything going against Tulane. I don’t blame Judkins for the running game woes however, I blame the offensive line. The line couldn’t get a push a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel, and Judkins ran into traffic almost immedietley all day long. Is that something that’s fixable? I’m not sure, but it better get fixed quickly, because we play a pissed off Alabama team in just 8 days, and while we might be able to get by against Tulane and Georgia Tech, the Tide will certainly make you pay.
I will give Tulane thier kudos. They played really hard and gave us a true scare in what was their “Super Bowl”. The final score was 37-20, but that doesn’t tell the full story. With 1:57 left in the game, Caden Davis drilled a 56 yard field goal to go up 10. If that misses, Tulane has the ball down one possession and anything can happen. He didn’t miss though, and Khari Coleman makes a great play late to force the fumble, we scoop and score, and pull away with the win. While we can get frustrated about how it looked, we got the win on the road against a pretty good team, and it’s on to the next one.
For the first time in a long time the SEC West is genuinely wide open. Every team thus far has shown real vulnerability. Hell, Alabama, LSU, and A&M have already lost. While none of their losses are in conference, it doesn’t seem that we’re dealing with any true juggernauts. Mississippi State and Auburn were extremely lucky to win their games last week against average Pac-12 competition. Arkansas will get their first test this weekend in BYU, but there’s no reason to believe they are overly special. We’ve already gone over our own weaknesses, but we’ve got strengths too. If we can get healthy and figure some things out, who knows what can happen? As far as the SEC East goes, it’s still Georgia, but that’s not our problem… not until November 11th.
Let me paint you a picture in golf terms. We’re two holes in, and we played the first hole perfectly. The drive was smacked right down the middle, followed by a graceful approach shot, and a simple two putt for par. Just how you draw it up. The second hole however, our drive drifted to the right side of the fairway and into the thick stuff. We were able to punch out just short of the green, and get up and down for par. As you walk off the green, your partner may give you a slight eyebrow raise, and an audible exhale. I mean we got the par, but you both know that for a second there, we were in a little bit of trouble. So where do you go from here? Do you put the driver in the bag for the day? Absolutely not. Your partner slaps you on the back with some words of encouragement, and you move on to the next hole, which happens to be very manageable one. It’s a short par 3 with no glaring hazards and it should be an easy par. Let’s hit us a good one here, take it one shot at a time, and get back to playing good golf (football). Remember, you can’t par ‘em all, if you don’t par the first two.
PREDICTION TIME:
You may remember Georgia Tech put up nearly 500 total yards of offense against Louisville in the stand-alone Friday game to start the season. They had tons of explosive plays, but weren’t able to hang on late. I’ll admit, watching that game, I saw a team better than I was expecting. With that being said, I think defense makes a point to take away the explosive plays and forces some turnovers. Running game gets back on track and passing game follows. This whole team knows that we’ve got to be better than we were last week. That’s all the motivation we need to keep our focus on the Jackets, and not look ahead to the Tide.
Georgia Tech 23
Ole Miss 45
PICK 5 (3-2) (60%)
Tennessee @ Florida +6.5
Florida stock is down, and I’m buying the dip. This series always gets chippy, and I love a home dawg. GO GATORS!
South Carolina +27.5 @ Georgia
That’s a lot of points against a Georgia team that is still finding it’s stride. The Gamecocks have had a slow start to the season, but once again, I’m buying the dip. I think they show up just enough to cover the number. GO COCKS!
Louisville @ Indiana +10
12ET game? Home Dawg? Excuse me ma’am, I’ll have another please. GO HOOSIERS!
Alabama -33.5 @ USF
Yes, you read that correctly. Alabama is going on the road to play South Florida. The worst thing that couldv’e happened for the Bulls is a Texas win. This one gets ugly. ROLL TIDE.
VANDY -4.5 @ UNLV
Vanderbilt looked horrible last week. Lifeless. Gutless. Heartless. A true embarrasment to the SEC per usual. If you didn’t watch, it was worse than you think. By this logic, I’ll take them to cover a small number in their final win of the season. GO DORES!
Looking forward to checking in next week. GO REBS!
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