Five-stars abundant at Georgia
After Georgia beat South Carolina 40-13 last week, the first question asked to Gamecocks Coach Shane Beamer on his video call was about the Bulldogs’ defense.
Beamer got pretty worked up and went on a bit of a rant.
“They’ve got like 100 five-star football players on their defense,” Beamer said. “They have a defensive lineman [Jordan Davis] that weighs 340 pounds and runs better than everybody on this call. They’ve got fivestar defensive backs. They’re big and physical and fast.
“I mean, other than that, they’re really freaking good. That’s why they have the top defense in the country. They’re hard to run the football on, so there wasn’t some magical scheme they came out with. They’ve got five-star recruits everywhere and they play really physical … damn.”
Georgia led South Carolina 40-6 in the fourth quarter before the Gamecocks became the first opponent to score a touchdown against the Bulldogs.
“I didn’t mean to be short,” Beamer said in wrapping up the call. “Just no, they’re not doing anything special on defense. They’re really freaking good. That is a fantastic front seven and a fast and physical defensive line.
“But scheme-wise? No. They line up and say, ‘We’re better than you, and we’re physical, and come beat us.’ And that’s what they did, like they do every week. So I didn’t mean to snap.”
Rebs’ open date
Having two weeks to prepare for No. 1 Alabama should be a good thing.
But Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin, whose No. 13 Rebels have an open date Saturday before playing at Alabama on Oct. 2, didn’t sound excited about the situation.
Kiffin opened his remarks on the SEC coaches’ teleconference by saying he wished Ole Miss didn’t have its only open date so early in the season.
Then asked if it helps to have an open date before Alabama, Kiffin sounded less than enthusiastic.
“I don’t know that,” said Kiffin, who was Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator with the Crimson Tide from 201719. “As we know, they have a great team, great players.
“I wish the media would stop upsetting Coach Saban by saying that this is a weak team, that they’ve got weaknesses.”
Alabama, which has an 18-game winning streak, beat Florida 31-29 in Gainesville last week after jumping out to a 21-3 lead in the first quarter.
“I mean, they went on the road against a top-10 team into The Swamp and won with a freshman quarterback [Bryce Young], got an early lead and hung on at the end,” Kiffin said. “And now all of a sudden, it’s not a good team and they’ve got weaknesses and can’t stop people.
“That doesn’t really help us a lot being around there and knowing how that place works. This is a great team.”
Kiffin said the transfer portal has made the Tide even better.
“For years now, you’ve had the issue of if you try to play Alabama, they’ve got 5-star players that look like an NFL team and better than some NFL teams at certain positions,” Kiffin said. “Now, they get to go cherry-pick players for any holes that they have, like the Ohio State receiver [Jameson Williams] or the Tennessee linebacker [Henry To’o To’o].
“So it’s like not only do they get all the top draft picks, but now they get to go in free agency and pick players. It really is going to set up the most talented teams ever, which is what we’re getting ready to play.”
Williams has 7 receptions for team-highs of 157 yards and 2 touchdowns. To’o To’o shares the team lead with 13 tackles.
Pass rusher lost
LSU, which leads the SEC with 19 sacks, has lost one of its top pass rushers.
Tigers defensive end Andre Anthony, a sixth-year senior and team captain who had 31/2 sacks in the first three games, suffered a season-ending knee injury against Central Michigan last week.
“It’s sad news,” Tigers Coach Ed Orgeron said.
5 / 2Anthony sacks last led season LSU with —
1 including two against Arkansas for 12 yards in losses — in the 10-game AllSEC schedule.
Right call?
Penn State held on to beat Auburn 28-20 last week in Happy Valley after the Tigers had a fourth and goal from the Nittany Lions’ 2 with 3:12 to play.
A touchdown and twopoint conversion would have tied the game, but Penn State’s defense held when Auburn quarterback Bo Nix threw incomplete on a fade route for Kobe Hudson in the end zone.
ABC analyst Kirk Herbstreit immediately questioned the call — saying he would have preferred a pass-run option for Nix on the edge or getting the ball to running back Tank Bigsby — and other media chimed in with criticism as well.
“Was it the right play call? It didn’t work, so you know everybody’s assumption on that,” Auburn Coach Bryan Harsin said Tuesday. “That’s a good play. It’s something down there, in that situation, that had been prepared and we had executed in practice. It was the first time we’ve had the chance to use it in a live game.”
Harsin said Nix had five options on the play, but he wasn’t specific about whether Hudson was the first read.
“There are options on that play, and from the standpoint of having a good play, we did,” Harsin said. “It didn’t go our way. Obviously, we’ve got to go back and look at why it didn’t go our way and what we can do better and how we improve in that situation.
“Credit to Penn State, too. Penn State did a good job. They had themselves in good position in a fourthdown call, whatever their call was. Those guys work those same things just like we do.
“We’ll be in that situation again and next time we need to have a better result.”
More than Couch
Kentucky quarterback Tim Couch held the SEC record for completions for 23 years after he hit 47 for 66 for 498 yards and 3 touchdowns in Arkansas’ 2720 victory over the Wildcats in Little Rock on Oct. 3, 1998.
Mississippi State sophomore Will Rogers broke Couch’s record by completing 50 of 67 passes for 419 yards and 3 touchdowns without an interception in the Bulldogs’ 31-29 loss at Memphis last week.
Couch, the No. 1 overall pick by Cleveland in the 1999 NFL Draft, threw one interception against Arkansas — which David Barrett returned 52 yards for a touchdown.
The Razorbacks held on to win when they got a defensive stop after Couch had driven Kentucky to the Arkansas 15 in the final seconds.
Boston trip
Missouri’s game at Boston College on Saturday will mark the first time the Tigers have played an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent since 2000 when Clemson beat them 62-9.
“This is by no means is any knock on Boston College, because I think it’s a great game and it will be a tremendous test,” Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz said. “If I had my pick of it, I would love to play a regional matchup that was maybe more of a rivalry game that would be maybe a little bit more exciting for recruits to watch from a TV perspective.
“Or maybe we’re playing in front of your family. I don’t know the last time Missouri signed a kid from the great state of Massachusetts.”
According to the Columbia Daily Tribune, Noah Robinson, who played linebacker at Missouri in 2017-18 after transferring from Memphis, was from Worcester, Mass.
But Drinkwitz’s point about playing programs closer to Missouri makes sense, and there are games that fit that philosophy coming up.
Missouri is playing former Big 12 rivals Kansas State (in 2022 and 2023), Kansas (2005 and 2006 and 2031 and 2032) and Colorado (2030 and 31). They also will play Illinois home and home in eight games from 2026-29 and 2032-35.
Boston College will return its game to Missouri in 2024.
Saturday will be the second time Drinkwitz has coached a game at Boston College. He was North Carolina State’s offensive coordinator in 2017 when the Wolfpack beat the Golden Eagles 17-14.
Missouri’s games against Boston College were announced in 2016 when Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom was the Tigers’ coach.
It’s a secret
LSU Coach Ed Orgeron said the Tigers have a plan for defending Mississippi State after allowing 623 passing yards in a 44-34 loss to the Bulldogs last season, but he didn’t want to get into the details with the media.
“That’s something I can’t tell you,” Orgeron said when asked if the Tigers will change their defensive scheme for Saturday’s game at Starkville. “We have a plan. We have been looking at Mississippi State ever since we couldn’t stop them last year.
“It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed as a coach and I take full responsibility for it. Yes, we have some plans to do some different things, but I can’t tell you.
“We weren’t expecting to get burned [last season], but we just couldn’t cover them. We just didn’t have the answers.
“Hopefully, this year we do have the answers. I don’t think it was our players’ fault at all. They just weren’t in good position. They were confused. Hopefully, we’ll fix that.”