September 11, 2002

The results from the first two weeks of play show that the SEC, now that it's finally venturing outside the conference to play schools that are a little more competitive than Louisiana-Monroe, is turning out to be not nearly the powerhouse its fans have been claiming for so long. Miami beat Florida by, what, 25 points? And don't be so deluded as to think that the result would have been different if Steve Spurrier hadn't left. Spurrier knew good and well what playing Miami would be like and got his butt out of Gainesville as quickly as he could.

Georgia Tech started off the season in fine form by whipping Vandy - which is, lest we forget, an SEC team. It's impossible to say from the outcome whether Tech was that good or Vanderbilt that bad, but I would point out this: in the last three games between Georgia and Vanderbilt, Georgia has won by scores of 27-17, 29-19 and 30-14. So we can say that Tech beat by a margin of 42 points a school that Georgia has had trouble putting away in recent seasons (in fact, Vanderbilt would have upset Georgia in 1999 if Woody Widenhofer hadn't made a rock-headed decision to go for it on fourth down late in the game.) Take it for whatever it's worth.

Virginia, which was winless at 0-2 going into its game with South Carolina, laid the wood to Granny Holtz and his Gamecocks to beat them by 13 points. There was more bad news for the SEC as two conference members traveled to the left coast and got their butts stomped. The Atlanta talk radio geniuses Buck Belue, John Kincaid and Beau Bock were sneering at the PAC-10 for being a supposedly "soft" conference full of surfer dudes who don't know how to play defense, but look at what happened on the field: Oregon laid a 36-13 whipping on Mississippi State, and Southern Cal stuffed Auburn in the second half for a 24-17 victory. SoCal even wrapped it up in the fourth quarter by ramming the ball down Auburn's throat for the go-ahead score - which is something SEC teams are supposed to do to their OOC opposition. Not bad for a bunch of surfer dudes. My question to Beau, Buck and John is - how soft does the PAC-10 look to you now?

LSU, a preseason favorite in the western division, was drilled by Frank "Jim" Beamer's VaTechers. Hey, wait a minute. Virginia Tech plays in another supposedly "soft" conference, the Big East. How could they possibly beat the defending SEC champions? Surely that was a misprint.

Alabama, to their credit, played a decent game against Oklahoma but still gave up two late touchdowns to lose it. It's a measure of how far the mighty have fallen to consider that on talk radio shows on the Sunday morning after the game, Bama fans were woofing and celebrating because the Tide only lost by 10 points. That's something that would have Bear Bryant spinning in his grave (if not for the fact that he's already burning in hell).

My tabulation shows that the SEC so far is 4-7 against meaningful out-of-conference opposition. The ACC is 6-4 against meaningful OOC competition. In head-to-head encounters between the two conferences, the ACC holds a 2-1 edge over the SEC (that would be a 3-0 edge if Clemson had a placekicker).

1. One big difference I see already is that, under George O'Leary, Tech tended to play to the level of its competition. In other words, Tech usually played well when it was playing good teams, and it played badly when it was playing bad teams. Just look at the tape of last year's Virginia game to see what I mean.

   Under Chan Gailey, on the other hand, Tech has gone for the early knockout against two teams (Vanderbilt and Connecticut) that it should have put away early. Both games were essentially over at halftime, giving Gailey plenty of opportunities to play second- and third-teamers. Chan seems to have his team ready to play and beat the teams it's supposed to defeat. Now we'll see how he does against a team that's a little closer to Tech in the level of talent.

1. The most pleasant surprise of the young season has undoubtedly been the jet-propelled performance of Tony Hollings, who now has 297 yards on 33 carries in two games - an average of 9.0 yards per rush, which ain't bad. I knew from watching him in spring practice that he had some moves, but I didn't know the guy could motor that fast. Now, his superior performance is partly a product of the level of competition Tech has been playing - Tony is fast, but Vandy and UConn are also a little slower than most high-quality Division I teams. You shouldn't expect Hollings to keep averaging nine yards a carry once Tech gets into the meat of its schedule. I like this endorsement, however - Johnny Gresham, who knows a little about playing running back at Tech, told me Hollings is the best the Jackets have had at that position since Robert Lavette. He may well be right.

   Hollings is the latest of several in-state players who have successfully made the switch from defensive back to offensive threat. C. J. Williams was originally a DB before he was moved to offense, as was Robert Edwards at Georgia. If we're going to use automobile metaphors, then Carnell Williams at Auburn is a Cadillac, Tony Hollings is a turbocharged Porsche and Musa Smith is a Yugo (because he breaks down a lot at crucial times).

   Tech also seems to have some depth behind Hollings. Sidney Ford showed plenty of zip against UConn, while Jermaine Hatch is slowly getting his old game back. I'm not worried about this position any longer.

1. I don't think anyone should have been worrying about A. J. Suggs. This is a guy who was good enough to start for Tennessee as a freshman and guide the Vols to what would have been a victory over Florida if not for a horrible officiating call that gave the Gators the winning touchdown. I had no doubts that A. J. would do just fine, and he more than lived up to those expectations. He's shown me he can get the ball to Tech's quality wideouts.

   While we're on the topic of the passing game, I mentioned in my last column that Buck Belue was running his big mouth on talk radio about how Vandy's defensive backfield would shut down Tech's wide receivers. He was correct as far as Jonathan Smith and Nate Curry were concerned - neither of them caught a single pass against Vanderbilt. Of course, neither of them suited up for the game either because of injuries. The other wide receivers - Will Glover, Kerry Watkins, Levon Thomas and LeKeldrick Bridges - didn't have any problems getting open against Vandy's secondary. Buck, I think you better go back to your old job of selling double-wides. There's a whole bunch of Georgia fans who'll buy from you.

1. I don't think there'll be a problem at Tech. It's obvious that Damarius Bilbo is a marvelously gifted athlete - he looks very similar to Steve "Air" McNair in the physical presence he brings to the game - but he's obviously still learning the fine points of the offense. While he has a stronger arm than A. J. Suggs, he's not nearly as accurate a thrower. I see Bilbo making a valuable contribution as a backup quarterback and a situational player, but he's not quite ready to take over as starter this year. Now, for next year, who knows? We'll have to wait and see.

   There's a different situation at Georgia because D. J. Shockley was obviously more effective at quarterback in the Clemson game than the putative starter, David Greene. Mark Richt will be under a lot of pressure to put Shockley in as a starter, which could cause some morale problems on Greene's part.

1. Gailey claims he didn't want the assistants to think he was "looking over their shoulders" while they talked to the spotters in the press box and called the plays, but he was just being diplomatic. The real reason is this: the coaches ate free chili dogs from the Varsity at their pre-game meal and were firing monstrous gassers on the sideline. My sources tell me it was like a South Georgia swamp down there. Chan had to move away from the other coaches just to be able to breathe.

1. If you read the newspapers recently, you might have seen the story about Georgia dropping to number 50 out of the 50 states in the average SAT scores of high school seniors. About a week before that story appeared, the Cobb County school board surrendered to the Christian Coalition types and said it would stop requiring high schools to teach evolution in favor of some Baptist-bible-thumping theory of "Intelligent Design." Do you think the timing of those two stories was a coincidence? There's a very good reason why Gailey and the staff are concentrating on out-of-state players. Most Georgia high school athletes can't even spell "SAT," much less score 700 on it.

1. After blowing the opener to Georgia, I'd have to say Tommy's in a world of hurt with the big-money, tobacco-spittin' alumni at Clemmons. He's a Bowden, after all, and he's had four years now to recruit his kind of player. His fan base naturally expects him to be winning these marquee games, not losing them because the placekicker shanks two field goal attempts. If Clemson comes in with another four- or five-loss season this year (especially after Tech gets through with them on Saturday), Tommy's gone.