Thoughts of the day: October 14, 2022

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning:

OH MY! THIS WEEKEND HAS GATOR WRITTEN ALL OVER IT Mick Hubert will be Mr. Two Bits. Cornerback Dijon Johnson (6-1, 190, Tampa, FL Wharton) and safety Bryce Thornton (5-10, 190, Alpharetta, GA Milton) are going to be Gators. It’s going to be Tom Petty Day at a sold out Swamp Saturday night where the Florida Gators (4-2, 1-2 SEC) take on LSU (4-2, 2-1 SEC).

First things first. Mick Hubert will be back at The Swamp after a long and mega-successful career behind the microphone as the voice of the Gators. When he does the Two Bits cheer, they need to give him a microphone and let him say “Oh my!” so everyone in the stadium can hear. And while they’re about it, let Mick lead the Gators out of the tunnel when they come onto the field. That would also be fitting.

The commitments of 4-star Dijon Johnson and 3-star Bryce Thornton improve the Gators to No. 8 in the recruiting rankings. A top five class once seemed out of the question. Now, with two months remaining before the early December signing period, it seems inevitable.

Tom Petty has been gone from us five years, but his music lives on. When everbody finishes swinging and swaying to “We Are the Boys” at the end of the third quarter, bet the farm that “I Won’t Back Down” will be sung louder and with more meaning than ever before.

On top of that, Florida comes into the game having won two in a row for the first time this season and LSU comes to Gainesville having been poleaxed by those same Tennessee Vols – in Baton Rouge no less – that the Gators were a play away from beating in Knoxville. LSU didn’t have a prayer against the Vols. By game’s end, the Vols were praying the clock would flatline before the Gators got the ball in the end zone for a game-winning touchdown.

Now all those omens don’t guarantee that the Gators are going to show up focused and ready to play something close to a complete game for the first time this season, but it’s about time they put it all together. This is as good a weekend as any, particularly with the bombardment of so much good news.

Here is what it will take for the Gators to win: (1) Set the edge defensively so that Jayden Daniels can’t get outside the tackles where he is most dangerous; (2) beat those LSU freshman offensive tackles off the edge (Daniels has been sacked 21 times) and make sure there is someone in his face at all times; (3) don’t let the LSU wide receivers to get deep; (4) keep BJ Ojulari out of the backfield so he can’t harass Anthony Richardson; and (5) if there’s nobody open Richardson has to take off and run the football.

This is a very winnable game for the Gators if defensively they keep Daniels under control and don’t give up chunk plays on defense and offensively get a big game out of Richardson. A week ago, the Tigers were burned regularly by Hendon Hooker, who was just enough a threat with his legs to freeze the safeties, opening up the passing lanes. If Richardson comes up big, the Gators are going to win this game.

One last note. A year ago, just an hour west of I-10 in Lafayette, Billy Napier was winning a championship at Louisiana while LSU was floundering. Even though Billy was an hour down the road in Lafayette, he was never a serious candidate. If the Tigers had gone after him, he would have been – at best – the fourth or fifth choice. Instead, he’s at Florida where he’s going to have a long, successful career. His accent is like the one Tom Petty sang about in “Southern Accents.” LSU, meanwhile, has Brian Kelly, the yankee carpetbagger from Notre Dame with the fake southern accent and the rotten dance moves. The Sayer says sooth!: Real Southern Accents 27, Fake It Til You Make It 20

The SEC Soothsayer

Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-2 SEC) at No. 1 Georgia (6-0, 3-0 SEC): The spread is 39 points and if Georgia represents like it did last week against Auburn, Gloria Vanderbilt is in deepest and darkest. Now if Georgia plays like the flag football team from a little dive bar in Dahlonega, which is how it did against Kent State and Missouri, then it could be interesting. One thing that’s for certain about this edition of the Poodles: they aren’t even remotely close to the team they were a year ago. The Sayer says sooth!: Midnight Train to Georgia 38, Anderson Cooper’s Mother 10

No. 3 Alabama (6-0, 3-0 SEC) at No. 6 Tennessee (6-0, 3-0 SEC): The folks up in Dollywood are like a dachshund with a weak bladder. They’re so excited about Alabama coming to town that they’re about to pee all over themselves. They do believe that with a big win this week they’ll leapfrog a whole bunch of teams to become the No. 1 team in the country and that Hendon Hooker will play so well he’ll do what Peyton never could and that’s win a Heisman. In the immortal words of the late, great Patsy Cline: “Crazy.” Bryce Young is playing. Will Anderson is playing. Nick Saban is coaching Alabama. The Sayer says sooth!: Been There Done That 31, East Tennessee Hoedown 21

Auburn (3-3, 1-2 SEC) at No. 9 Ole Miss (6-0, 2-0 SEC): The only reason Bryan Harsin hasn’t told Auburn to “Take This Job and Shove It” is because if he is patient enough to get fired, he gets 18 million squeezing by dollars to avoid the food lines at the Salvation Army. The Lane Train has it going so big those poor folks from the Loveliest Village on the Plain will have a bad case of the “Three O’Clock Blues” long before the clock flatlines at zero. The Sayer says Sooth: Night Train Lane 37, Just Go Ahead and Fire Me 10

No. 16 Mississippi State (5-1, 2-1 SEC) at No. 22 Kentucky (4-2, 1-2 SEC): In the last couple of weeks, Mike Leach has offered up advice about getting married and having babies. The ponies are running at Keeneland. Maybe he can offer up the Pick Six at Keeneland? There is a 33 percent chance of thunderstorms in Lexington. By the time the charter lands in Tupelo Saturday night, the Bulldogs will be 3-1 in the SEC and moving on up in the AP. The Sayer says sooth: Tupelo Honey 35, Kentucky Rain 24

Arkansas (3-3) at BYU (4-2): Legend has it that when Brigham Young rose from his sick bed and saw the Salt Lake Valley he said, “This is the place!” and the Mormon exodus across the fruited plain came to an end. There is no truth that when LaVell Edwards arrived at the football stadium in Provo that he, too, said, “This is the place!” although BYU teams have played at the stadium that bears LaVell Edwards’ name like it is every bit as sacred as the tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Arkansas arrives at “the place” Saturday in desperate need of a win to break a three-game losing streak complied against SEC foes. Getting outside the SEC isn’t going to be a picnic even with KJ Jefferson back, but the hunch here is that the Hogs will avoid getting slow smoked over 225-degree coals. The Sayer says sooth: Hog Jowls 30, The Place 27

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Little Jimmy Phillips, commissioner of the Almost Competitive Conference, who a year ago was claiming that expanding the College Football Playoff to 12 teams would endanger the health of the players, is now telling us there is unity to expand the playoff in 2024. This is the same Little Jimmy Phillips who, along with the Pac-12’s George Kliavkoff, got duped into forming an “alliance” with Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren. Georgie and Little Jimmy never realized they were being duped by good ole Kev, who was already engaging in talks with Southern Cal and UCLA to bolt the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten.

Little Jimmy is also trying to tell us we should be expanding the NCAA Basketball Tournament to 96 teams, giving all 32 conference champions a bye while 64 at-large teams duke it out in the first round.

What Little Jimmy is trying to tell us in so many words is that the ACC is so desperate for money that it’s in favor of wholesale expansion of both football and the NCAA Tournament. Because of the rather silly media rights contract with ABC/ESPN that locks up the ACC until 2036, the league is a financial bottom feeder that won’t be paying out $40 million per school until 2025. The SEC and the Big Ten, meanwhile, will be paying out something close to $100 million by 2025.

The ACC and Pac-12 can’t keep up with the SEC and Big Ten when it comes to money and they both stand a chance to drop behind the Big 12, which probably gets a decent contract from ESPN in exchange for freeing up Texas and Oklahoma to join the SEC in 2024.

Expanding the basketball tournament to 96 teams would actually add only a couple of days to the tournament but the reality is it would add more schools from second tier leagues than the ACC. The ACC reputation in basketball is such that just about any team that finishes with a winning record in conference play gets in the NCAA Tournament already so most of the at-large bids would be taken by the mid-to-low majors that are typically one or, at the most, two bid leagues.

The College Football Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams. That much has already been decided. It isn’t a question of if but a matter of when. If it happens in 2024 it will be because there is a deal in place for Texas and Oklahoma to join the SEC. ABC/ESPN which owns the playoff rights until 2025 and will likely own them when the playoff expands, isn’t about to let the Big Ten, which has its new deal with Fox/CBS/NBC to have a chance to get more playoff teams than the SEC. So deals will be made and they will benefit the SEC and Big 12, not the ACC or Pac-12.

As for basketball expansion, that’s for another time and another place. Maybe in the spring there will be talks about adding more teams to the tournament. The small, basketball-only conferences would love expansion but there is a large contingent that believes the current model isn’t broken so there is no need to fix it.