This division again highlights the imbalance that occurs with a 12-team conference. In the battle for 2nd place in the SEC West, Ole Miss does not have to play either Florida or Georgia (the two best in the East) while LSU has to play both, one on the road. LSU is quietly playing one of the more difficult schedules in the country. Tough to say that with Louisiana-Lafayette, Tulane, and Louisiana Tech on the schedule, but they play road games against 3 teams in the preseason top 10, and play the defending champ and #1 team in the country at home. Traveling to Washington will look like a decent game by season's end as well. All this from a team that usually plays 8 home games.
1: Alabama (yeah, not much else happening in the division this year, so we'll just go ahead and give them the top slot despite what they lost on O: great defense though!)
2: Ole Miss (nice-looking schedule, but they just aren't good enough to win road games consistently in this league: 2 league losses for them)
3: LSU (TOUGH conference schedule, and I'm really not sold on Les Miles' ability to coach a consistent winner: he won with Saban's players)
4: Arkansas (it must kill Razorback fans to see Houston Nutt consistently finishing above them in the standings, especially at Ole Miss!)
5: Auburn (if they can win at Arkansas, they'll move up to #4, but I have ZERO confidence in Gene Chizik down there: he couldn't make Iowa State competitive in a slumping Big 12 North, how is he going to make Auburn competitive in a down SEC West?)
6: Mississippi State (I'll miss Sly Croom, he did good things for a dwindling MSU program: the Bulldogs will miss him this year too as they rack up 8 or 9 losses)
Your lack of faith in Chizik is well, well founded. Up here (at ISU) he blew his coaching money (about twice the payroll his predecessor had, if not a little more) on uninspired buddies. He cut lines of communication, not just between himself and the public, but between players, as well.
ReplyDeleteMost remarkable was the response by players after he left: they stayed at school and waited for his successor. The team did not lose a recruit. A few former players were on the local radio here and very diplomatically detailed how much of an upgrade the ex-Auburn assistant, Paul Rhoads is, over Chizik. One big difference is in the weight room. With virtually the exact same players as last year, ISU's average weight is up 10 pounds, and the players are looking forward to the games just to get out of strength and conditioning. S&C was not a priority with Chizik. He said as much to the players when he instructed them to build "good-looking" muscles in lieu of "football strength."
Auburn fans who think Chizik just wasn't the right guy for the job in Ames, but is a great fit for the Tigers are going to be disappointed. The guy can't manage a game, can't delegate authority and demonstrated a laughable ability to adapt.
The dude's favorite band is ABBA, for God's sakes.
I hope, for Auburn's sake, I'm wrong. If not:
War ABBA, I guess.