The Soothsayer: Texas big unless the UF defense finds an exorcist

“Out in the ocean, a rope is put around a man’s neck. The other end of the rope is attached to an old jukebox and it is thrown overboard. The man invariably follows.” – From “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” a novel by Jimmy Breslin.

This is what the Florida-Texas game (noon ET, ABC) feels like. Florida is the man with the rope around his neck. Texas is the jukebox about to be tossed overboard in waters inhabited by great white sharks several miles from the nearest beach. The Gators (4-2, 2-2 SEC) have plunged from college football’s surprise darlings to here we go again thanks to a defense that seems bent on channeling its inner Todd Grantham and an offensive line that evokes memories of batters who faced Sandy Koufax in his prime. Whiff! Texas (4-1, 1-1 SEC), meanwhile, is the jukebox. The seventh-ranked Longhorns have an offense that desperately needs to get well and who better than the worst defense in the SEC to have the same healing properties of a few days soaking in the hot springs at the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica. Texas also has a defense coordinated by Will Muschamp, who remembers all too well being dumped by the Gators in 2014 when he was the head coach. The multiple millions of buyout money have not soothed that wound.

Throw in the fact that starting quarterback Aaron Philo is almost certain to be Captain Clipboard on the sidelines due to a shoulder injury and Tramell Jones Jr. will be starting his first football game since he was in high school at Mandarin over in Jacksonville. The 100,000 or so fans at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin aren’t as inhospitable to opponents as Florida fans are in The Swamp, but they will be very, very loud and well aware that Jones is attempting to avoid a deer in the headlights performance. If that isn’t bad enough, neither Vernell Brown III, Bailey Stockton nor Eric Singleton Jr. are anything close to 100 percent.

Across the line of scrimmage will be a Texas defense that has given up only one sustained drive for a touchdown since halftime of the Longhorns’ win over then-No. 1 Ohio State. When they visited Tennessee, the Longhorns’ front four sacked the quarterback nine times and that was against an O-line that just a week before was being anointed as best in the country. Florida’s O-line has been sputtering like a Yugo with a cracked manifold the last couple of weeks. Will Muschamp is drooling.

And then we have Florida’s defense, which effectively cures slumps by opposing offenses the way the Salk vaccine eradicated polio. Like Will Muschamp, Arch Manning is drooling.

The jukebox is ready to be hurled into the ocean from the starboard side of the boat.

But what happens if the change at QB results in a change in mentality that allows the Gators to revert back to their September to Remember form? Probable? Hardly. Possible? Well, anything is possible. For example, it’s possible to drive across the Colorado River in Austin to the Broken Spoke to discover they’re out of chicken fried steak with cream gravy. Possible? Yes. After all, the Red Sea was once parted and water was changed to wine. Probable? A better chance for lips to be found on chickens.

Here is how The Soothsayer analyzes it.

Best case scenario Saturday: Jones looks like the next Tom Brady, Jadan Baugh runs wild behind an O-line that discovered it isn’t illegal to block someone, VBIII plays and goes wild, and the defense hires an exorcist to cast out the Grantham demons that have been haunting the locker room.

Worst case scenario: Muschamp’s defense has a game like Tennessee and Arch Manning avenges last year when the Gators humiliated him in The Swamp.

The Sayer Says Sooth!: Texas is favored by 11.5 points. The way Muschamp’s defense has been playing, that might be all the points the Longhorns need. Arch Manning doesn’t have to have a great game, just protect the football and get a couple of touchdowns. If Texas doesn’t win by three or more TDs it might say more about Arch than it does about the UF defense having a Lazarus moment and rising from the dead.

The SEC Soothsayer

Auburn (3-2, 1-2 SEC) at No. 1 Georgia (6-0, 4-0 SEC): This might be Kirby Smart’s best coaching job at Georgia. He has neither the overall talent nor the depth of past Georgia teams and the Bulldogs certainly aren’t flashy. What they are is boringly consistent. They just don’t make mistakes on either side of the football. Gunner Stockton won’t bamboozle you with plays that make your heart feel like it’s going to explode through your chest and stick to the wall, but he will get the Bulldogs in the end zone early and often. Auburn may make it close for about three quarters, but eventually Georgia will wear the Tigers down. The Sayer Says Sooth!: Auburn QB Byrum Brown can make spectacular plays but he also has a habit of making spectacular goofs. The Georgia defense will bring out the worst in him and Stockton will have another one of those 250-yard, three touchdown pass kind of games. Nothing for the highlight reels but more ammo than necessary to keep Georgia on top of the polls.

No. 6 Alabama (5-1, 3-1 SEC) at No. 14 Tennessee (5-1, 2-1 SEC): Except for an SEC zebra swallowing his whistle on a blatantly obvious pass interference call Alabama would be unbeaten and challenging for the No. 1 ranking. How the Crimson Tide responds to that loss to Georgia will determine if the fan base is back on Kalen DeBoer’s side or thinking he’s worn out his welcome in Tuscaloosa. A win and DeBoer stays in good but shaky graces with the Bammer Nation. Lose and it’s the 10th loss in three seasons. Nick never did that, did he? Tennessee hasn’t been nearly the same since Texas sacked Faizon Brandon nine times in a single game. Brandon is now keeping a seat on the bench toasty while George MacIntyre keeps proving why there is such a thing as Division IAA (I refuse to call it FCS just as I refuse to call Division I the FBS; dumb names both of them). The Vols don’t have the kind of QB that beats a team like Alabama and the UT offensive line, supposedly the best in the country if you listened to the September pundits, should be nicknamed The Matadors! Olé! The Sayer Says Sooth!: The pressure is all on Alabama, which looked like a team capable of playing for a national championship last week. If Bama responds in a big way this could be over by halftime. If the Tide lets Tennessee linger, and MacIntyre isn’t shell shocked, an upset is possible, something Josh Heupel needs in the worst way. DeBoer needs it worse. Bama, but brace yourself for a white knuckles finish.

No. 13 Missouri (5-1, 2-1 SEC) at No. 9 Ole Miss (4-1, 2-1 SEC): Mizzou has looked capable of beating any team in the SEC the last two weeks. Of course, it’s one thing to win in CoMo, something totally different to go on the road in the SEC. The last time Mizzou did it, the Tigers were ambushed by Mississippi State. The trick Saturday will be to keep Trinidad Chambliss in the pocket and neutralize a now healthy Kewan Lacy. Florida ran all over that Ole Miss defense with Jadan Baugh looking like the second coming of Jim Brown. Missouri’s Jamal Roberts is coming off consecutive 200-yard rushing games. Can Ole Miss stop him? And how will Ole Miss deal with Austin Simmons? He was the Rebels’ starting QB when the season began a year ago only to suffer injury and lose his job to Chambliss. Can Ole Miss handle him? And, can Missouri contain Trinidad Chambliss? This has the makings of the best game of the day. The Sayer Says Sooth!: At home the nod would definitely go to Missouri, but this one is in Oxford where the Rebels are 5.5-point favorites. Missouri has the best defense but the O-line is banged up and the offense might struggle a bit. Ole Miss has Chambliss. A great game for him might be a Heisman statement. Trepidation fills the heart and mind of the Soothsayer. The heart says Mizzou. The mind wins this time and calls it for Ole Miss.

No. 15 Kentucky (5-1, 3-1 SEC) at Oklahoma (3-2, 1-1 SEC): Two straight overtime wins by identical 35-34 scores have Wildcat faithful believing there is life after basketball. They’re even thinking they can go to Stormin’ Norman, Oklahoma, and whip up on the Okies. There’s only one problem with that dream. It’s called the Oklahoma defense. The Sooners might be dog’s butt ugly on offense, but there is nothing wrong with that defense, which will be the best Kentucky has seen all year. Now, that’s not to say Kentucky has no chance. They do. Any team that faces Oklahoma has a chance because John Mateer completes a lot of passes to the other team. If Oklahoma ever plays turnover free, however, the Sooners are going to become that team nobody wants to play. The Sayer Says Sooth!: Dreams have a way of dying hard when it’s been 50 years since the last time you won an SEC championship. Kentucky was SEC co-champ along with Georgia in 1976. Before that it was 1950 when Bear Bryant was the coach when Kentucky was a champion. So it’s easy to see why the fan base is fired up and dreaming big dreams. Oklahoma is favored by 6.5 points. If the Sooners get any kind of offense they might win this one by a couple of touchdowns.

No. 16 Mississippi State (4-1, 2-1 SEC) at No. 22 LSU (4-2, 1-2 SEC): Kamario Taylor and Fluff Bothwell are listed questionable for this one, as in donkeys will fly before Mississippi State wins without them. If they play and they aren’t full speed it’s going to be a bad day at Black Rock for MSU. Even if they are full speed, playing LSU on the road is no picnic. The Tigers can’t afford another loss if they are to make the College Football Playoff so they should come out angry. They’re favored by 15.5 points. Imagine what the spread would be if this were a night game instead of a nooner (ESPN). The Sayer Says Sooth!: This is Lane Kiffin against one of his former offensive coordinators (Jeff Lebby). What Lebby has done at MSU is remarkable. What Lane has done at LSU has folks asking if buying out Brian Kelly for $51 million and then paying Lane $13 million was really worth it. Losing to Kentucky has that kind of effect on folks. Without Taylor and Bothwell, no chance for the Bulldogs.

Arkansas (2-4, 0-3 SEC) at Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-3 SEC): This is the REPUS Bowl. That is Super spelled backwards. The loser of this one wins last place in the SEC. Arkansas had the Vols on the ropes last week only to gag on the big one in the fourth quarter. Vandy was on the receiving end of a holy hell beatdown in Oxford. Prior to that, Vandy got poleaxed by Georgia. Georgia did something similar to Arkansas earlier in the year. Vandy is at home which is why the Commodores are 6-point faves. These two teams are so bad offensively that boredom should set in sometime around the second quarter. By then the Vandy faithful will be thinking about the grapes, brie and Chardonnay in the postgame tailgate and Arkansas fans will be asking themselves why they chose this game over a night at the Grand Ole Opry. The Sayer Says Sooth!: SEC football at its worst on display for the whole wide world to see on ESPN2. Add to that an evening of having to listen to the Vandy band. That’s what is called cruel and unusual punishment. The Razorback fans will leave for the bars on Broadway believing the football program is truly at rock bottom. Vandy wins. The Hogs are doomed for life in the cellar.

The Citadel (2-4) at Texas A&M (3-3, 1-3 SEC): This is a conveniently scheduled get well paycheck game for the Aggies, the single most disappointing team in the SEC and perhaps the entire country. There is nothing like a midseason blowout of a D1AA team to take the edge off a season that has a chance to finish up in Birmingham or Shreveport. The Citadel is so bad Marcel Reed might even throw something longer than a 2-yard pass. The Sayer Says Sooth!: The Aggies are favored to win by 45.5 points. Anything less than that should be deemed an upset. The euphoria of winning won’t last long. The Aggies have to go to Alabama next week.

Photo: Florida’s defense swarms an Auburn ball carrier at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Sept. 19. (Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media)