THE SCOOP
Technically, Missouri quarterback James Franklin came back two weeks ago against Kentucky, playing two fourth-quarter series and handing the ball off on all five snaps. His true comeback won’t be until 7:45 p.m. Saturday, when he returns to the starting role as the Tigers visit Ole Miss, needing a win to keep alive hopes for an SEC East Division championship.
Franklin hasn’t played otherwise since having a shoulder sprained Oct. 12 at Georgia. “He’s been very sharp,” Missouri associate head coach/quarterbacks coach Andy Hill said. “He threw the ball very effectively in practice. The thing you’re looking for is velocity and reads, things like that. He’s been practicing for three weeks. It’s not like he’s been standing around or over at the library.”
COACHING ADVICE
Words of wisdom from Don James, the famed Washington coach who recently died, to Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, when Pinkel left Washington and asked his advice after taking his first head coaching job at Toledo in 1991 (as told by Pinkel to FootballScoop.com in a video):
“When things get tough, they’re really going to get tough. That’s just how this profession is. You wake up and you focus on doing your job. You get up in the morning and you do your job and you focus every hour on doing your job and then you go to bed, and you wake up and do it again. Don’€t let any outside influences get to you because if you do that in this business, it will chew you up. I walked out of that meeting, and as a first-time head coach I was expecting something a little different than that, but it was probably the greatest piece of advice I could have gotten. I don’t know if I would have survived this business if he wouldn’t have given me that.”
HAIL MARY TALK
“As the receiver, the Lord blessed that man. It kind of bounced right back into his hands, and he said, ‘oh, my gosh’ because I certainly think that once he started heading north and south, after he turned back and realized that the ball had been made a play on, that in fact when he caught it in his periphery about right there, there had to be a wide grin on that man’s face. I can’t imagine how the Georgia team must have felt. But that’s college football.” — LSU coach Les Miles, who had a bye week, when asked if he watched the Georgia-Auburn game and what he thought of the Hail Mary play
“First of all, coach (Nick) Saban tells us to bat it down. That’s the first thing that comes out of his mouth. If you get the pick, fall down. But the first thing is batting it down and playing the next play. We don’t need anybody being a hero.” — Alabama safety Landon Collins on what the coaching staff tells Crimson Tide players about Hail Mary passes
BY THE NUMBERS
10-1 Record of Coastal Carolina, the opponent for South Carolina on Saturday. The Chanticleers have scored 50 or more six times this season
7-4 Auburn record vs. Alabama in Iron Bowl games played at Auburn
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