AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2008 > October > 06
Monday, October 6, 2008
Will Tennessee make its last stand at Georgia?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Five things we learned over the weekend:
1. Georgia had better be ready for Tennessee: Call me crazy, and I’m sure a lot of you will, because what I am about say is just not logical. But I just get this sense that Tennessee is going to come to Athens and play well on Saturday. Yes, the Tennessee offense was bad again in a 13-9 win over Northern Illinois on Saturday night. Nick Stephens started and will probably be the quarterback from now on. He did throw a 52-yard touchdown pass to Denarius Moore but the offense had only nine first downs and converted only 3 of 13 first down opportunities. The negative energy in Knoxville is thick. In fact, I’m going up there to give a speech today and I know I’m going to get a lot of questions about the future of Phillip Fulmer.
But the Tennessee defense is starting to get a little better, holding NIU to only 190 total yards. But the Tennessee defense has yet to face an really good offense (Florida shut its offense down after getting up 17-0). The defense should give the Vols a shot in most games. I could be wrong. Tennessee might come down here and get its doors blown off by a Georgia team that has had a week’s rest. Why do I feel that is not going to happen? Tennessee will come here as a desperate football team. Willl that be enough to keep it competitive?
2. Michael Johnson’s not blowing smoke: Young Johnson said that the only team that could beat Georgia Tech is Georgia Tech. It sounds like bulletin board material but let’s look at that. Georgia Tech beat a very sound Duke team 27-0 on Saturday . Trust me when I tell you that the game was not that close. Georgia Tech dominated the game in the first half and had only three points to show for it. But the Georgia Tech offense is just relentless. It just wears out opponents both physically and mentally. And Coach Paul Johnson showed yet again on Saturday that he will do whatever it takes to win. You want to put eight guys up there to stop the option? He’ll use a true freshman quarterback (Jaybo Shaw) to throw nine passes to Bay-Bay Thomas. But Georgia Tech has a chance to win every game it plays because Johnson has never had a defense this good to back up his offense.
3. Auburn has to go back to the drawing board—again: For two possessions against Vanderbilt Saturday night, Auburn was the Auburn of old. The Tigers lined up in a power formation and just blew the Commodores off the ball. But then Vanderbilt made a couple of adjustments and committed another defender to the run, and suddenly Auburn had no answers. Auburn only had four yards rushing in the second half. Now Vanderbilt has a good defense but only four yards? It’s a good thing for Tommy Tuberville’s team that they are playing Arkansas this week. Auburn has a good offensive line and good running backs and is very average, at best, at quarterback. The offense has to reflect that. Tuberville said that OC Tony Franklin is in charge of the offense and will be given a chance to fix it.
4. Somebody is going to try to hire Bobby Johnson: Vanderbilt plays in the toughest league in the country with a host of financial and academic obstacles that have to be overcome relative to the competition. But here the Commodores sit at 3-0 in the SEC and 5-0 overall. Now the toughest part of the schedule is still ahead but the fact is that Bobby Johnson has done one of his best coaching jobs ever in the first half of this season. A year ago Vanderbilt had Georgia beat and Tennessee beat before letting them slip off the hook in the fourth quarter. Johnson consistently gets as much out of his available talent as any coach in the country. His staff takes a back seat to no other staff in the country. I know Vanderbilt would hate to lose Johnson but you have to figure his name will come up for a high-profile opening.
5. Alabama is human: Yes, Alabama played a sloppy game against Kentucky and managed to win 17-14. If not for Mike Hartline’s fumble deep in Kentucky territory, which Alabama turned into a touchdown, the Crimson Tide could have been beaten at home. But they didn’t lose and are 6-0 heading into an open date this week. But Alabama’s opponents shouldn’t read too much into the near miss against the Wildcats. Alabama still ran for 282 yards (218 by Glen Coffee) against a pretty good defense. The penalties (10) and turnovers (3) just killed the Tide. Kentucky is going to make a bunch of teams struggle. Alabama coach Nick Saban has been riding his team pretty hard but now they get an off week before hosting Ole Miss on Oct. 18. He’ll give them a little love, let them heal up, and start cracking the whip against next week. He’ll remind them that Ole Miss went to The Swamp and won. That is all he’ll need to do.
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