SEC report
Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn (above) is 3-4 in his career against Alabama and Coach Nick Saban heading into Saturday’s game against the top-ranked Crimson Tide. He is the only current SEC coach who has beaten Saban more than once during his Alabama tenure.
A 3-4 record isn’t good, right?
Unless it’s against Alabama and Coach Nick Saban. Then it’s not bad at all.
Saban has a 93-15 record in SEC games in his 14th season as the Crimson’s Tide, but he’s only 4-3 against Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn.
Saban has an .881 winning percentage against the other SEC coaches he’s faced at Alabama with an 89-12 record, but just a .571 percentage against Malzahn.
Malzahn is the only current SEC coach to beat Saban more than once in his Alabama tenure. LSU Coach Ed Orgeron is 1-4 against Saban after the Tigers beat the Tide last season. He is 1-3 against Saban at LSU and was 0-1 against him at Ole Miss.
Learn from mistake
Ole Miss wide receiver Elijah Moore got national recognition last season after he caught a touchdown pass with four seconds left in the Egg Bowl that brought the Rebels within a point of Mississippi State.
It wasn’t the catch that made Moore famous, but what he did afterward when he crawled through the end zone and imitated a dog urinating on the goal post. Moore was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct, and kicker Luke Logan missed the 35-yard extra point attempt as Mississippi State held on for a 21-20 victory.
In the aftermath, Ole Miss fired Matt Luke as coach and hired Lane Kiffin.
It was a tough ending to a season in which Moore had 67 catches for 850 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Moore apologized for his actions in a statement after the game, and he has continued to make up for that lapse in judgment by becoming the SEC’s leading receiver this season.
Going into Saturday’s Egg Bowl, Moore has 74 catches for 1,083 yards and 8 touchdowns.
“That was a long time ago,” Kiffin said of last season’s Egg Bowl controversy involving Moore. “A lot of catches ago. I talked to him about it when I first got here, [about] learning and moving forward.”
Moore was on a Zoom interview with media Monday.
“I’m human,” he said. “I make mistakes. You’ve just got to learn from them and don’t let them happen again.”
Moore, a junior, said he never considered transferring from Ole Miss to get a fresh start somewhere else.
“I’m not that type of kid,” he said. “I don’t just fall out when things get tough. That never really crossed my mind.”
Kiffin is glad Moore stuck around.
“He’s a great player, first off,” Kiffin said. “He prepares really well. Very smart player. A lot of players wouldn’t be able to line up outside, inside and in the backfield all in the first series of the game. He’s a true professional.”
‘Only’ 3 TD passes
Florida beat Vanderbilt last week, but give the Commodores credit for ending Gators quarterback Kyle Trask’s streak of at least four touchdown passes.
Trask had to settle for three at Vanderbilt.
It was the first time this season he hasn’t thrown at least four touchdown passes in game, including highs of six against Ole Miss and the University of Arkansas.
Trask might have been able to throw at least one more touchdown against the Commodores, but he didn’t play the final eight minutes after Florida built a 31-17 lead.
After the game, Florida Coach Dan Mullen didn’t apologize for Trask — a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy — falling short of four touchdown passes.
“That’s not my job — that’s his job,” Mullen said jokingly. “He had a bunch of plays to do it. He missed a bunch of throws that he could have scored touchdowns on.”
Trask, who completed 28 of 35 passes for 383 yards without an interception, wasn’t complaining, either. He didn’t lobby Mullen to stay in the game.
“Absolutely not,” Trask said. “We’re here to win games. I’ve said this enough times — I don’t care if I throw 10 touchdowns or zero touchdowns, I just want to win.”
Trask has passed for 2,554 yards and 31 touchdowns with 3 interceptions.
Big spread
Alabama as a 24-point favorite against Auburn is big spread for the Iron Bowl, but not the biggest in recent years.
According to Al.com, Alabama was a 34-point favorite when it beat Auburn 49-0 in 2012, and a 25 1/2-point favorite in 2018 when the Crimson Tide beat the Tigers 52-21.
Auburn beat Alabama as an underdog in 2013, 2017 and 2019.
Half bad again
Tennessee has been outscored 108-14 in the second half — including 24-0 at Arkansas in a 24-13 loss — during its five-game losing streak.
The nasty trend continued last week when Tennessee lost 30-17 at Auburn after jumping out to a 10-0 lead before the Tigers tied the game 10-10 going into halftime. Auburn then had a 20-7 edge in the second half.
“I’m going to talk about this game, because this is the one that just happened,” Pruitt said in his postgame news conference when asked about the continuing second-half meltdowns.
Pruitt, who proceeded to list the second-half issues against Auburn, didn’t want to address fans who might be questioning the direction of the program in his third season at Tennessee.
“It ain’t my job, guys,” Pruitt said. “My job’s to coach, OK? If you want to ask me a football question, ask me a football question.”
Someone obliged by asking whether Pruitt still trusts offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, who used to have the same title at Arkansas. Pruitt hired Chaney from Georgia last year.
“Did you watch the game?” Pruitt asked. “We had more yards than they did.”
The Volunteers indeed outgained the Tigers 464 yards to 385, but that doesn’t reflect Smoke Monday’s 100yard interception return of a Jarrett Guarantano pass that gave Auburn a 20-10 lead in the third quarter after the Vols had driven 63 yards to the Auburn 12.
It was the third pick-six thrown by Guarantano this season, including two in a 34-7 loss to Kentucky.
Bobo and Smart
Mike Bobo and Kirby Smart weren’t just teammates at Georgia in the 1980s, they also were roommates who became best friends. They were Georgia graduate assistants for Jim Donnan in 1999 and full-time assistants with the Bulldogs for Mark Richt in 2005, before Smart left for Alabama.
Bobo and Smart remain close friends, but they’ll be going against each other as head coaches for the first time when South Carolina plays at Georgia on Saturday.
Smart, in his fifth season as coach at his alma mater, knew he’d be facing Bobo’s team, but assumed it would be with Bobo as the Gamecocks’ offensive coordinator.
Bobo became South Carolina’s interim coach when Will Muschamp was fired Nov. 15.
“We had planned to get together [with Smart and his family] this offseason when I moved back to the South,” said Bobo, who returned to the SEC at South Carolina after being Colorado State’s coach the previous five seasons. “Obviously, this year has been tough for anybody to travel and see anybody else out of your immediate family with the pandemic.”
Smart downplayed facing Bobo.
“It doesn’t change a lot for me because it’s a game that we’re trying to win based on the players on the field,” Smart said. “It’s not between Mike and I.”
Four times previously, Bobo and Smart met as assistant coaches, when Bobo was Georgia’s offensive coordinator and Smart coached defensive backs at LSU and was Alabama’s defensive coordinator.
Their teams split the four meetings with Georgia beating LSU in 2004 and Alabama in 2007, and the Tide beating the Bulldogs in 2008 and in the 2012 SEC Championship Game.
Leach, Kiffins
Mississippi State Coach Mike Leach said he has a good relationship with Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin, even though they’re now at schools that are bitter rivals.
“I guess we both know Monte,” Leach said explaining his connection with Kiffin.
Monte Kiffin, Arkansas’ defensive coordinator when the Razorbacks beat Oklahoma 31-6 in the 1978 Orange Bowl, is Lane Kiffin’s father and also an adviser on his Ole Miss staff now.
“Lane knew Monte Kiffin first, and then I met Monte,” Leach said. “Monte introduced me to Lane, so, I guess we’re both mutual friends with Monte.
“That kind of brought us together. Just over the years seeing him around coaching and spending time with him.”
Leach said Lane Kiffin is an enjoyable guy.
“The worst thing — especially in this day in age, and then coaching for life or anytime that you’re doing something as repetitious as football — you try to avoid as many boring people as you can,” Leach said. “Lane’s not boring, so I’ve always been excited to spend time with him.”
Alabama’s kicker
Since Nick Saban became Alabama’s coach in 2007, the Crimson Tide have churned out star players at every position on offense and defense.
But finding a reliable kicker, let alone a star at the position, has been a challenge.
The previous five seasons, Alabama kickers combined to hit 91 of 134 field goal attempts — 63.6%. Not horrible, but certainly not up to Saban’s high standards for his program. Things got so bad in 2018 that Alabama missed nine extra points, going 83 of 92.
This season it appears the Tide finally have found a kicker to match their excellence most everywhere else.
Will Reichard, a sophomore from Hoover, Ala., is 8 of 8 on field goals — including a long of 52 yards — and 46 of 46 on extra points.