After some of the chaos of the last few weeks, this weekend didn’t have a lot of upheaval, but the message boards were still in meltdown mode in a few places. Let’s get started with the Unconquered in South Florida.
The Seminole fan base is in complete meltdown now as Florida State loses big to Miami. Mike Norvell’s buyout is probably $70 million at this point plus the buyouts for his staff. Does the university (or the donors) have the money to make this happen? FSU wants out of the ACC, and there’s going to be a buyout of some kind to make an early exit. The big question for Georgia fans is whether this season is going to make blue-chip recruit C.J. Wylie reconsider his commitment to play in Tallahassee.
The Spanx lady as she’s called by this genius didn’t make her money to give it away to pay off a football coach. Good luck with that, Noles.
Let’s leave the beauty of South Florida for the backwoods of western Alabama to check in on the mess that is Missouri.
An empty win over Ohio State in a meaningless bowl game set up Missouri with outsized expectations for this year. An injured Brady Cook has also hampered the Tigers, and all of this culminated in a 34-0 whitewashing at the hands of Alabama. Is Missouri the worst team in the SEC as the genius posted? I don’t think so because Mississippi State, Oklahoma and Auburn are still in the conference. I do think this season is regression to the mean when it comes to Missouri. The Missouri fan base has to come to understand they may be a good bowl team, but they aren’t going to be a consistent threat to the rest of the league.
Let’s jump across the state line to check in on Oklahoma after another loss in Oxford to the Rebels.
After getting off to a reasonable start against Ole Miss, the Sooners eventually succumb due to a solid game by Jaxson Dart and the complete disaster that is the Oklahoma offense. Now the question is whether the OU oilmen will raise the money for Venables’s buyout or if Oklahoma will give him another year to figure it out.
Let’s move up to Columbus to check in on the Buckeyes and their Just for Men spokescoach.
Ohio State escapes with a win over Nebraska and their freshman quarterback, and the Columbus geniuses are wanting Ryan Day’s head on a pole. As the calendar changes to November, arguably, Ohio State is in a possible elimination game for the playoff in Happy Valley this Saturday. If Penn State wins Saturday, will the long knives start coming out in Columbus?
Let’s end today’s trip at Kyle Field to check in on the Corn Dogs.
Texas A&M hammers LSU with 31 2nd half points, and Mike Elko may have found his quarterback. Turnovers, bad defense and the 12th Man end up as LSU’s kryptonite, and the Aggies now have an inside track for their first appearance in Atlanta. At the same time, the Cajuns’ patience with Brian Kelly seems to wearing thin. If Kelly loses to DeBoer in 2 weeks in Baton Rouge, Kelly’s seat may be extremely warm entering year 4, and it may be as much about who Kelly is as it is how his team has performed.
Here’s to turning the page and getting ready to put a smackdown on the Handbags on Saturday afternoon on the St. Johns River.
Now you’re on to something, bringing the smack down on that hogtown candy ass early Saturday evening…#FTMF!!
Careful folks. This game could be uncomfortably close at least until halftime.
I agree … I also want us to smack them down.
Oklahoma will be interesting to watch moving forward. They can certainly get it together and be a top SEC team given the amount of money they have and their tradition of success.
Or they could be a cautionary tale for conference expansion as they’ve been (like Ohio State) more or less successful every year since WW II and left a league where they played one team in conference (Texas) that had as many good players as them year in and out.
They look bad this year but even in their heyday under Stoops they were a team that more often than not lost to the top teams in the SEC, Ohio State, USC, and later Clemson.
Could they be Nebraska 2.0?
Nebraska 2.0 is a good parallel if they don’t fix it fairly quickly.
One thing Oklahoma has going for it is a fertile recruiting area though. Nebraska is much harder to recruit kids to and they have zero in state talent. At least Oklahoma has always been able to recruit Texas well. That could be what saves them from becoming Nebraska.
Speaking of these two programs. I sure do miss the Oklahoma/Nebraska rivalry. I would say that is the biggest rivalry game that we lost due to conference expansion/realignment.
FSU and TCU have never recovered from being destroyed on national tv by the Red Clay Hounds. Who is next?
“Red Clay Hounds”
Love the Leonard’s Losers reference
I used to have a Red Clay Hounds/Leonard’s Losers t-shirt. I remember listening to that radio show driving to Athens on Saturdays as a kid in the 1980’s. There was also a Leonard’s Losers weekly football paper you could pick up during the football season. I sed to grab one from the Varsity on Jimmy Carter Blvd in the 90’s when I was working in that area.
I think Norvell’s buy out is $63 million. That is just for the head coach. I don’t think FSU loves football enough to pay that for a coach.
I seriously doubt FSU has TAMU level buyout money laying around
If Prime hints that he’s ready to come home and fix the ‘Noles, they’ll find the money.
I don’t think Coach Prime wants to return to FSU. Apparently, there was some falling out between FSU and Deion years ago. I think it was over him not being considered for the job after Willie Taggart was fired or something like that.
Kirby killed Florida State football. Straight up. They were already mostly living off a reputation that was fading farther Rand farther into the rear view mirror. But they benefited from the Kick 6 in ‘13 and were able to win a title and sort of pretend they were still relevant. Kirby ruined them.
The arrogance of Ohio State fans knows no bounds. Lanning and Sarkisian have no interest in Columbus. What makes them think they have any chance of out spending Texas anyway? Stupid is as stupid does.
As long as Phil Knight is alive, they won’t outspend Oregon either. The man wants to see the Ducks win a NC before he dies.
Color me unimpressed with Sark. Nothing about that offense is spectacular when not playing high school teams. We’ll see. Is Mizzou still in the SEC? They really should jump to another conference. FSU will get to spread Norvell’s buyout over 10 years so they’ll dump him but won’t get a premier replacement. They need a guy to fix the culture and toughness. Good luck with that. Venables might get one more year, but Sooners aren’t getting the players to compete in the SEC. Portal won’t help either. They will want to jump with Missouri to another conference soon enough if the CFB overlords smooth out the TV money for everyone with a new super league.
Gawd, I love this weekly trip around the message boards. Thanks ee!
Great job EE, you’ve certainly expanded our overview of misery beyond Stingtalk. I agree with FPD above, there may be a time in the future that the Johnny come latelys to the SEC might find the competition too stiff and decide to breakaway to form another league. They could call it something catchy, like the South Western Conference.
We broke Bama so bad they lost to Vandy…