When enough is not enough ...

Ah, yes. It's time to pull out my favorite ax again for a little grinding -- the BCS.

Turns out, there are quite a few interesting articles on the BCS today, some from bloggers and some from regular old MSM'ers. But I'll start with the MSM, just for the heck of it.

This first piece comes from the Lawrence Journal-World out in Kansas. The piece is written by Gil Lebreton from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is very much on the same page as I am:

The cynics and troublemakers want to see chaos.

They want to see upsets. They want to see Missouri, the college football Cinderella, turn into a pumpkin. They want to see Dave Wannstedt’s underachieving Pitt team spoil West Virginia’s heavenly dreams.

They want bloodshed in Baton Rouge and Columbus.

They want a total Bowl Championship Series meltdown. They want to see some sort of combination of aligned planets, howling dogs and Southeastern Conference losses where the final rankings send, oh, Hawaii and Appalachian State to the BCS title game.

And it’s hard to blame them. The BCS deserves all the misery and criticism that it gets.

Oh, hell yes! That describes my attitude to a T. I want outrageous injustice, something as over-the-top as anyone can imagine ... except apparently this guy -- Hawai'i and Appy State? But I like your thinking, Gil.

His argument is that whenever the BCS works out, it is more by accident than by design, and I think he has it exactly right, as is his ultimate conclusion:

As colleague Nico Van Thyn put it so well Sunday, the path to the BCS title game is often clearly drawn. It begins with basic geography: Play in a major conference that lacks major competition. If a team can count the dangerous opponents on one hand, it probably has a chance at playing in the BCS title game.

That's exactly what we have seen this year. Yes, we have seen the humans and to some extent the cyborgs try to insert some semblance of schedule strength in there, but with only a modicum of success. Extreme top-heavy conferences have a much easier path to the BCS championship than, say, any SEC team. Add the league championship game into the equation, and you wind up with virtually two different levels of football. Try to imagine, if you will, an NCAA basketball tournament where one team gets to play nothing but 7 seeds and lower until it gets to the championship game.

Sweet deal, if you can get it -- and some conferences have it (I'm looking at you, Big 10 and Big East).

The always outstanding Sunday Morning Quarterback sideswipes this issue in a recent post, where he quotes Kirk Herbstreit thus:

... Ohio State will gain more respect if it plays USC in the Rose Bowl and wins that game, than if it goes and beats West Virginia and wins the national title. From an image standpoint, Ohio State would score more points going to the Rose Bowl than by going to the national championship game. If you can believe that, that's the truth.

Well. So Kirk is sayin' that the Rose Bowl means more than the BCS championship, I guess, because the quality of the teams likely to be playing there are better than that of the BCS championship? How else could a victory there "gain more respect" for anyone, or is this some sort of nouveaux logique that keeps the Worldwide Leader ... well, the Worldwide Leader?

Naturally, SMQ reaches the same conclusion:

But this remains the only time I'm aware of that a well-known, mainstream talking head has suggested there is a greater reward than being selected for the concocted championship. USC got a little sympathy in 2003 with the AP vote, but that didn't seem to dent the myth of a real, be-all, end-all championship. I don't remember anyone on ESPN in 2004 arguing that Auburn should be considered on par with USC for its 13-0 season. The Tigers were just screwed. Sorry, guys, and better luck next time.

Let's see -- Does that only work for Ohio State, Kirk, or can, say LSU or Georgia play? Sheesh.

LSU's student newspaper, The Daily Reveille, has an excellent interview with SEC Commissioner and BCS coordinator Mike Silve about the BCS system. In spite of this year's season Silve is still sticking to one of two possible changes to the BCS:

One potential system would produce an additional set of standings after the bowl games. The No. 1 and No. 2 teams based on that week would then play in the title game.

The other possibility would mimic a tournament. The top teams would be seeded in bowls based on the regular season standings with the winners playing for the title the following week.

Slive said there are three components that he considers in developing such a system. He said he aims to protect the regular season, the bowl system and the length of the season interfering with the academics of athletes.

Silve also admitted that undefeated Auburn in 2004 being left out of the mix for the championship affected his thinking, but I personally don't think it affected it all that much. Still, either of the two possibilities Silve appears open to would be an improvement over the current (non) system.

AEM, writing for MVN's SEConds to Victory, notes that #1 Missouri is a 3-point dog against #9 Oklahoma in their face off in San Antonio for the Big 12 championship:

So, a neutral site, number one against number nine, a 11-1 team against a 10-2 team, should be that Missouri is going to be the favorite, since the BCS has them as the top team in the nation. Well, surprise surprise to one and all, Oklahoma is the team that is favorite in this game, by all means, a small 3 points, but it still makes no sense does it now. The number one team in the country playing either at home or on a neutral site should be favorite against anyone except maybe the number two team. However Oklahoma is the ninth team in the nation, not the second, and is favored in this game. And in my non professional opinion the Sooners will win this game pretty easily.

I don't really know who wins, but he has a point. There is no way that the #1 team in the nation should be a dog at a neutral site against the #9. The only way that happens is with a seriously flawed system, and perhaps this is the most egregious example of all. It might not be an issue if Oklahoma were #3 or even #4. But #9?

An argument would be that Vegas doesn't care about BCS rankings, but let's get serious -- Vegas probably knows these teams' potentials better than any voter in the BCS system. Not one of the BCS voters have any money at stake in the BCS, and the Vegas casinos most certainly do. The argument that "Vegas doesn't vote in the BCS" is true, facile and utterly flawed if applied to the argument.

Bottom line -- we need something better, and this year is just one more reason.

The SEC goes Nutts

Hump day. I posted that on a blog one day and somebody asked me what that meant. Maybe I am dating myself a bit, but good grief.

Just so all you Mississippi State fans out there don't get confused, hump day doesn't have anything to do with your gym. It means "over the hump", as in heading on the down side of the week. Just kidding.

Moving right along, there are understandably lots and lots of blogs and news items and what have you about Houston Nutt and his trip down I-40 to Oxford. I have to admit, I wasn't surprised Arkansas and Nutt parted ways. I was surprised that they spun it as an amicable parting when nobody is going to believe it. All I can say is, Nutt came out waaaayyy ahead in this deal money-wise, and all his recruits appear to be fleeing their vows to Fayetteville like rats deserting a sinking ship. Is this karma, Razorback fans?

HogBlogger writing for RazorBloggers has the explanation of why Houston Nutt had to go. Basically he cites a number of weird email exchanges that is just to complex for me to get my mind around, but sums it up this way:

It’s easy to say that the real issue was that a small group of fans were simply out to get Houston Dale…but that is a total cop-out. The things I’ve mentioned above are part of the public record today and have been so for quite a while. These things alone are enough to justify why Houston Dale had to go. No fan caused his, or his wife, or his coaches, or their wives, involvement in the e-mails. Houston and Diana Nutt did this to themselves.

Interesting. I think maybe you had to be there. Scott at the Hog Source says Nutt will be missed:

As you all know by now, Houston Nutt has “resigned” from the head coaching job at Arkansas. Not alot of resignations come with a payout of 2.4-3.5 million bucks, sounds more like a buyout where they let him go out on a high note. They are alot of people out there who dislike Houston Nutt, and those are the ones that really made it public. The unfortunate thing is that it wasnt public how many people really did like him. Love him or hate him there is one thing for sure, he will be missed.

He, along with his brother Danny Nutt helped bring in 2 of the best players that have ever played Arkansas Razorback football. We, over the last 10 years, have had one of the best running games in the country.

Sunday Morning Quarterback decides to skewer the Hog fans a bit:

Actually, I think Nutt did a fine job at Arkansas: three division titles, two ten-win seasons, however many bowl games, etc. He was 18-8 there the last two years with wins over Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee, and was a few minutes away in three very close losses this season from finishing the regular season 11-1, almost entirely with one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the country (Marcus Monk) on the bench. At Arkansas, that's a solid record on the field.

It's not necessarily his fault that the crazy underbelly of his Ozarkan fan base gave the impression the program was careening out of control and helped drive away possibly the program's most significant recruiting class in decades while specializing in vicious personal attacks, lawsuits, and melodramatic amateur sleuthing.

Heh. Funny, that. What isn't funny is the whole recruiting class thing. As a Kentucky fan, though, I can't be too upset that Nutt's departure drove the best player in the state of Kentucky to decommit from the Hogs and become a Wildcat. So hey, I'm feeling a little sympathetic towards Nutt. For sure, though, he doesn't need it. Will Collier writing for From The Bleachers has this observation:

That's mind-boggling. Here we have a middling, just run off from his own alma mater coach who'd be the biggest clown in the SEC if not for Les Miles and Ed Orgeron (and I guess now I should limit that to Miles)... and Sexton's got two founding members of the conference firing their coaches and upping the ante to hire the guy. Yeah, they're founding members who ain't what they used to be by a long shot, but still.

Hey, that's mister 3.5 million-buyout+2.4million/year middling, just run off from his own alma mater coach to you, bub. Houston may be a Nutt-case, but his banker just don't care.

I have to give it to the Arkasas Athletic Administration -- they really know how to generate publicity for themselves. First they go through the whole Heath/Altman/Gillispie soap opera in basketball, and now this. The bad news is that it doesn't look as likely to work out well for the football team. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong about that.

The Iron Bowl in the rear-view mirror

The Iron Bowl. The biggest rivalry game in the SEC, in my opinion, and for pure bitterness and hatred, probably the biggest in the entire country.

Unfortunately, I didn't see any of the game whatsoever. Kentucky had a basketball game Saturday night, and well, loyalties are loyalties. But this Iron Bowl was significant not only for the usual bitter rivalry, but also for the fact that this was Nick Saban's very first Iron Bowl. I wonder how he likes it now?

Eight in the Box says he has heard this song before:

Congratulations to the Tigers for playing a solid game and turning the screw just that much tighter into the brain of the Alabama fan base. Alabama has had a decent opportunity the last two years to end the streak, but in both games have been unable to generate enough offense against an aggressive Tiger defense to pull out a win. So how will the Tide end the current slide against the Tigers? It will take some hard work on the recruiting trail, the weight room, the film room, and a whole lot of aggression. The Iron Bowl shifts to Tuscaloosa next year where the Tigers are undefeated against the Tide.

Classy, first-rate blogging, that. Here in Kentucky, we know a thing or two about being on the wrong end of streaks, so know where it is he is coming from.

The Tide Druid thinks mistakes by the Tide were the difference in this one:

So basically, here is what I think of this game if you want to skip all of what I said above: Auburn didn’t win because of fancy play calling, superstar athletes, or extra prep time. Auburn won because they didn’t make as many mistakes, which is what it takes to win big time games like this one. I don’t view this as an excuse, I view this as a major part of every single game out there: if you make the fewest mistakes, chances are good for a victory. It’s called leadership and discipline. Congrats Tigers, we’ll see ya on the recruiting trail.

Recruiting is a common thread in these two posts, and that has been an area where Saban as excelled lately. But it takes more than talent, it takes a common will and sacrifice, and I think Alabama was lacking a bit of both this year.

Memphis Tider looks forward to next year:

I expect the senior class for next season to be better. I expect this team to gel more because of the senior leadership. I don't forsee any discipline issues like we had this season. I don't forsee stupidity from the "leaders" of the team. I think it took an ending to the season, like the one we just endured, to get these guys to pull together. The off-season conditioning program will be ridiculous. The players will be stronger and better because of it.

Hope springs eternal in the breast of the Alabama fan.

What do the Plainsmen think? Understandably, they are much more satisfied with the outcome of the season, and are reveling in just a bit of schadenfreude. Jay Coulter at Track 'em Tigers writes:

It never gets old. After all these years, beating Alabama just seems to get better and better. You could see it on the face of Tommy Tuberville. You could see it in the smiles of the fans at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Is six the sweetest?

In a lot of ways it is.

Jerry Hinnen at The Joe Cribbs Car Wash thinks some lionization is in order:

Honestly? After the debacle against Georgia two weeks ago, I wasn't expecting it to feel this good.

But oh, for now, all is forgiven. Give Tubby whatever he needs and a pony. Ready the bronze for the Cox bust and the marble for the pedestal and square off the necessary area in Foy. Someone send Lester and Tate each one of those baskets of sausage and cheese, like, the hugest ones in the world.

Happy, happy.

Well, I have to say that Auburn was pretty well set up for this game, new coach at Alabama, playing at home. That doesn't make a rivalry win like this any less sweet, and I have a feeling the pressure on Saban to get this monkey off Alabama's back will be ratcheted up significantly in the post season. Yeah, he gets pretty much of a pass this year, but next year is another matter.

Week 13, and what a week it was!

The regular season is over. Bowl season will officially begin in a week, and the Heisman will be awarded soon. That is what remains of the football season 2007.

We will look at the rest of the football universe later this week, but first, I think it's better if we examine what happened this weekend. There is a lot to cover.

First, the SEC East championship was settled when Kentucky was defeated by the Tennessee Volunteers. This was an incredible, 5 hour, 4-overtime game, and was every bit as suspenseful and meaningful as the 3 OT thriller Kentucky had against LSU earlier this year. Make no mistake, Kentucky wanted to end Tennessee's 22 (now 23) year domination of the series, but alas, it was not to be.

Tennessee had a great game plan for this game, and seemed to be rolling to an easy victory after the fist half. But as has been the modus operandi for Kentucky all year, they came out and dominated the second half. Kentucky even had a chance to win the game outright, but Woodson missed a wide-open Keenan Burton in the end zone. I think Woodson just got rattled by the short time he had to make that decision, and he had to throw on the move, which has never been his strength.

Both teams played great football, each team dominating a half and neither team dominating the overtime. Kentucky lost when Woodson failed to make it into the end zone for the two-point conversion in the fourth overtime. It was simply a marvelous SEC game, and as disappointed as the UK fan in me is in the loss, the SEC fan in me loved the fact that both teams left it all on the field. Congratulations to the Vols for getting to Atlanta, and to the Cats for their second 7-win season in a row.

Messenger from Wildcats Thunder wants to talk about the state of Kentucky football, not the loss to UT:

I truly appreciate what Rich Brooks has done for UK's football program. When Brooks took the job in December, 2002, Barnhart couldn't give it away. At least five other candidates turned it down before Brooks said yes. Brooks' first three seasons in Lexington were miserable, and I know that directly from people inside UK's Athletics Department. Brooks persevered and took UK to bowls in 2006 and 2007. If he wants to keep coaching, he will have my support and, I hope, everyone else's.

But this kind of a season can suck some of the positive momentum out of a program, and out of a veteran coach. Closing with four losses in the last five games will, unfortunately, have a certain amount of negative impact on UK's recruiting class. Losing the seniors will present a huge challenge to UK's coaching staff in 2008. If this challenges excites and reinvigorates Brooks, then obviously he has earned, and deserves, his opportunity to overcome it.

I don't necessarily agree with his second paragraph. Yes, going 1-4 to finish out the season isn't ideal, but two of those games were very winnable, one lost only by the narrowest of margins in 4 overtimes. I think UK has made its case that it is a program that is moving up. Whether or not they can sustain that momentum remains to be seen, but the Wildcats have sufficient talent coming back next year to likely preclude a slippage back into the dark dungeons of the SEC basement. The Cats may not make the bowls next year, but they could just as easily do so -- I consider it a 50/50 proposition. It will be a bit more of a crap shoot than this year, but Brooks continues to improve Kentucky's depth, and that is what cost them most of their losses this season.

Joel at Rock Top Talk says this was a case of two even teams doing battle to the end:

The outcome was: indeed, like Everest, K2, and Mars, all wrapped up into one, just not for the Kentucky fans. Putting enough discernible distance between the Vols and the 'Cats for society to permit one of them to claim they were better on this day was a feat requiring enormous effort and dedication. Consequences? The SEC Championship. We're going to Atlanta despite the Cal, Florida, and Alabama debacles. We're spending the week plotting revenge on the LSU Tigers for 2001, when they trampled the rose clinched between Casey Clausen's teeth.

Indeed. It was a great battle, and I think the better team won this one. UT's depth wore us down, and they looked fresher on defense in overtime.

Jon at Fulmer's Belly is incoherent:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!eleventy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heh. I think he's happy.

But how about Georgia fans? Well they were too busy exulting over the Dawg-pounding of the Yellowjackets to worry about the goings-on in Lexington. Oh, I'm sure they looked in on it, but they had other fish insects to fry. Paul Westerdawg saw it thus:

Tech lost because they couldn't handle the moment.
Tech lost because Gailey hasn't recruited or developed a QB in six seasons.
Tech lost because Tenuta is grossly overrated and takes too many chances.
Tech lost because their WRs have hands of stone.
Tech lost because UGA has more talent, depth and better coaching across the board.

They did not lose because of officiating or luck.

Senator Blutarsky says that the statistics tell the tale, and the result is what matters:

The box score doesn’t lie on this one. Georgia racked up 432 yards of offense - 214 passing, 218 rushing - on what had been the #7 school in the country in total defense. The only thing Tech’s defense did well was to hold the Dawg offense to a poor 4 of 13 performance on third downs.

Seven in a row.

Georgia winds up the season ranked 4th in the AP, which could guarantee them an at-large berth if the BCS works out the same way. Paul Westerdawg does the math for those of you who don't have the time or inclination. Congrats to the Georgia Bulldogs on a great season.

More on the weekend and what it all means later.

Who's your daddy now?

The strangeness of this season just will not let go. Just when you thought you knew how it would all turn out, wham!

The LSU loss has serious repercussions for the SEC. Gone are any realistic hopes for a representative from the SEC in the BCS championship game with LSU's loss to Arkansas last night. With Mississippi State's win, the SEC now has at least 10 bowl-eligible teams and possibly 11 if Vanderbilt somehow manages one more win. With LSU now out of the BCS championship, that means only 8 SEC teams are sure to get a bowl bid out of the ten eligible. But with Georgia looking pretty certain to wind up with an at-large bid in a BCS bowl, there should be nine SEC teams fairly certain of a bowl bid.

South Carolina or Alabama are looking like the odd team out at the moment, but that could shift strongly toward the Gamecocks if the Tide gets it done in the Iron Bowl today. If both USC and Alabama win, I say 'Bama gets the nod. If both teams lose, I would like to say USC gets the bid, but truth be told, Alabama is a much bigger draw, and when $$ are at stake, you have to like the Tide's chances in that scenario. Also hurting USC's chances would be a 5-game losing streak. If the Tide loses and USC wins, the Gamecocks should go bowling with 'Bama sweating it out.

So what does LSU's loss to Arkansas do to the SEC other than change the bowl picture a bit? On the one hand, it adds to the perception that the SEC is just too strong a conference for its own good, and argues much more strongly for a playoff system if you are an SEC fan. If you are a Big 10, Big East, ACC or Pac-10 fan, you are happy with the status quo. From their perspective, its fun to watch the SEC eat its own, and you know you don't have to worry about schedule strength -- in the six BCS conferences, that is only going to be an issue if a team has a loss. An undefeated team an any of the six BCS conferences will almost always get to the championship, regardless of their strength of schedule.

So this year, after the latest LSU loss, we are left to wonder if the SEC is really all that strong, or if LSU is just not the team that they were cracked up to be. Strong arguments can be made both ways -- LSU has looked vulnerable on more than one occasion this year, and has played much worse in the second half of the season than early on. One could argue that LSU is just not worthy of a BCS championship berth, and absent a playoff system of some kind, we will never really know. But whatever the situation, LSU will not be the national champion this year.

Not much reax from the bayou bloggers so far, but Geaux Tuscaloosa has a post up, and he agrees with me that LSU has been regressing:

Yes, that was a very disappointing loss, but honestly, have we looked like the best team in the country lately? Not really. We just kept winning. No matter what happened, we just kept winning. Yesterday, we weren't able to do it.

Ryan Ferguson of Fanhouse thinks Les Miles' luck just ran out:

I've contended at times this year that Les Miles has been lucky rather than good, or more specifically, his talent has carried him when his coaching acumen has not.

Today, he finally ran out of extra chances. LSU fans will now likely send Miles to Michigan with their compliments.

The old saying is, "I'd rather be lucky than good." I can't really decide how much of Miles' success this year has been luck vs. good coaching, but it will be very interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of this loss. With Lloyd Carr being run out of Ann Arbor retiring after this year, Miles will almost certainly be Michigan's first choice.

David Ching at the Georgia Bulldog Blog comes up with a scenario where the Dawgs wind up in the title game with Ohio State:

Updating a post earlier in the week, Georgia now needs the following to happen to play Ohio State in the national championship game:
1) Georgia to beat Georgia Tech
2) Oklahoma to beat the Missouri/Kansas winner in next weekend's Big 12 championship game
3) UConn or Pitt to beat West Virginia
4) It wouldn't hurt for Kentucky to beat Tennessee, enabling Georgia to play LSU in the SEC championship game; Virginia to beat Virginia Tech on Saturday; UCLA to beat USC next weekend. These things might not be absolutely necessary, but would greatly strengthen Georgia's case should items 1-3 take place.

As wild as this season has been, I wouldn't be at all surprised if something like this happened. I really don't think the stars are aligned for an SEC team in the BCS championship, though.

From an Arkansas standpoint, it's hard to argue that McFadden didn't just make a statement for his Heisman candidacy. Heisman pundit notes the results of Friday, and tries to sort through the madness:

Is that the kind of game McFadden needed to get back in the Heisman race? Yes, but it is most likely too little, too late. If anything, his performance will shake up the final order of the vote and will probably knock Dennis Dixon out of the top three. But I don't think it is enough to win. Hence, it's possible that McFadden may become the first two-time runner-up since Charlie Justice of North Carolina in 1949.

Heh. Well, the one thing helping McFadden over Tebow is his upperclassman status. Arkansas has somehow magically pulled eight wins out of the hat with this upset, and despite HP's doubts that this is enough, I am not so sanguine. McFadden may well have done all that is required -- after all, Tebow wasn't enough to get the Gators a win in Baton Rouge, and McFadden got that job done.

Stephen at Razorback Expats had difficulty watching the game:

* Being a true Arkansan, I watched the fourth quarter and the overtimes with an almost overwhelming sense of dread. I could hardly look at the television screen. I just knew we were going to get our hearts broken - the only question was how. My pessimism faded somewhat when Felix Jones scored the two-point conversion in the third overtime; at that moment, I began to wonder if the football gods were on our side.

CallTheHogs.com says that both Miles and Nutt could be elsewhere after this season

Nutt, who will have his team in a bowl game, may not be back with the Hogs next season after growing unrest in Fayetteville, Ark. Arkansas officials have yet to confirm that, however, and firing Nutt may be a less popular move now.

Miles job is not in jeopardy, but there's been talk he could be moving after this season, too. Miles, who played at Michigan and was an assistant coach there, is widely considered a top candidate to replace Lloyd Carr as the Wolverines' head man.

One thing is certain -- Houston Nutt's tenure at Arkansas, whether it ends this year or not, has been a roller coaster ride for Razorback fans.

In the final analysis, it looks to me that, barring a miracle, the SEC is out of contention for the BCS championship. In the end, the SEC's top teams were either too weak or too numerous, depending on who you talk to, to get there.

Some Friday SEC Action

Some hot and heavy action in the SEC for a Friday. We have one really important game today for the SEC (Arkansas at LSU) and one game that is really important for the two teams involved (Mississippi at Mississippi State, otherwise known as the Egg Bowl).

Well, the Egg Bowl is over and done, and MSU wins 17-14. Jeremy at Mississippi State Sports reports:

After trailing the rebels for most of the game, the Bulldogs tied the game on a punt return for a touchdown by Derek Pegues. Adam Carlson put the Dogs on top with a 48-yard field goal with 12 seconds left to play.

MSU is now 7-5, and has some really interesting bowl possibilities. MSU hasn't been to a bowl since 2000, so this has got to feel really, really good to Bulldog fans. Congratulations to MSU and to Coach Croom on a fine year. MSU is a team on the rise in the SEC.

Parish Alford, writing for Ole Miss, had this cryptic post:

I hope everyone saw it. You wouldn’t believe it otherwise. Read it tomorrow in the Daily Journal.

I will. Apparently, MSU came back from a 14-0 deficit after 3 quarters with scores including a 75 yard punt return and ended with a 48-yard career field goal for the MSU kicker. Croom was apparently running around the stadium with the MSU flag. Big day for the Dawgs.

As I write this, LSU is in serious jeopardy against Arkansas. Arkansas has just scored the go-ahead touchdown, 28-21, and now the Tigers have all of 5 minutes left to save their shot at the BCS title game. It doesn't look good for the Tigers. Fanhouse has the tale at the moment, and LSU needs another miracle comeback to save its championship hopes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this blog, or just happen across this post.

Enjoy stuffing yourselves, or the stuffing itself, or something. I know I am looking forward to a day of rest, because there are some big games coming up this week both in football and basketball.

I just saw South Carolina beat Penn State, and I am looking forward to more SEC basketball this weekend. Not only that, but we have Tennessee at Kentucky, the Egg Bowl, and the Iron Bowl this weekend. That's a feast for any sports fan.

I'll be back tomorrow, but today, I am taking a break. Enjoy your holiday!