Bulldogs4

Looking at WF’s schedule, they are a pretty good team. One bad loss to Free Shoes. But a one point loss to GT, and losses to NC State and Duke. Some good wins in there including VA, SMU, NC and Kennesaw State (who won the CUSA and won 10 games). Should be a very competitive game.

I am good with it.

Lost in all this is the job that Manny Diaz has done at Duke. First ACC Championship in over 60 years. A tremendous win last night over a really good Virginia team. Kudos to him.

It happened in 2016. This particular year it would be a good thing. Arnett could get a head start on the defense.

Well interesting that there were a few pundits on this site back in August/September that said Tupelo was going to be unbeatable in 7A. Looks like GPT busted that up tonight. Heck of a good win for GPT and first for a Coast team in quite a long time.

Why would Georgia not be #2?

1982 State Championship game was in Ray Stadium in Meridian. One of my buds and myself went out to watch it. West Point vs Gulfport. Gulfport jumped out 14-0 early and appeared to be poised for a blowout. But WP settled in and came back for a 21-14 win. After that they settled in on playing the games in Clinton and later Jackson. I think the game drew about 7K (stadium was about half full). The week prior Gulfport played Meridian at USM in Hattiesburg. Meridian kicked an apparent FG to win 10-9 at the end but there was some fishy refereeing that called the FG no good.

Bama is probably still in but let’s not kid ourselves. If Vanderbilt had the same resume as Bama they would most likely be out.

Derrick Nix at USM would make good sense.

Hopefully we will see Meridian become relevant again with Vance as the coach. There is still talent here and the youth & Jr. high programs are doing a good job. Now we just need to get those kids to continue playing when they reach high school. Lot of work ahead but I am more optimistic now than I was at the end of this season.

Not too surprised by that. With all these openings it was inevitable that he was going to be scooped up by somebody.

Interesting to say the least. But he was put into an impossible situation after Leach died. Admittedly he handled it terribly. We know can coach defense so I am good with it. Kind of excited actually.

I would presume they will try to avoid rematches, at least in the first round. Tulane will be no gimme. I know OM handled them easily early in the season but that was a long time ago.

Franklin was the coach there 11+ years. Expectations are high there but DeBoer will never last 11 years at Bama. He is in an impossible position at Bama. If they lose to Georgia and in the first round of the playoffs I can see him leaving. Being the coach after the legend is the worst coaching gig period.

Could Penn State hire DeBoer after Alabama is eliminated from the playoff? Originally it was far fetched but now I would not be surprised. At Bama he is in a no win situation. At Penn State, he could probably have a good gig going for a while.

Much needed road win tonight for State at Georgia Tech. Still have a long way to go but maybe the SMU game was our low point. We will see.

My hope is that with a QB like Taylor in the fold, we will be an attractive place for players to come to as the future looks bright. We will see how it develops.

Can’t help but believe The NY Times were back door poking fun at Kiffin with today’s Wordle word. It was LEACH. I can say with confidence that the Pirate would have never pulled an idiotic stunt that Kiffin just did. Though obviously it is not really surprising. Even the Ole Miss guys on this site said as much back in 2020 when he was hired. Great hire but they were going to have to deal with all his idiosyncrasies. And that has come to fruition.

Shades of Croom getting fired after losing to OM 45-0 in 2008. Losing to your rival 41-0 when said rival was not really that good will get you fired. And this was a KY team that was playing its best football at the end of season. Totally dumbfounded on how they could get beat so badly.

Karma will come full circle when Kiffin is fired at LSU after 3-4 seasons of winning 8-9 games a year. Kiffin’s loyalty is to Kiffin and only himself. Me, Myself and I.

Welp KY and SC have laid eggs today.

Very disappointing to blow nine point lead in the second half at home. Again it was missed FT’s at crucial times and inopportune turnovers that cost us the game. Plus only 11 assists for the game. Way too much one on one basketball. That will get you beat every time out.

Yep. I miss our days when our defense was legit good. Hopefully we can get back to that again.

I was not saying that keeping Hutzler would be the right decision. Making a change there would certainly be appropriate as I think our Defense needs a complete overhaul and starting with a new coordinator would be hopefully get us going in the right direction. At the end of the day the DC is responsible but we just did not have the horses to be a dominant defense this year.

Arnett and Lebby are two different universes as far as State is concerned. Leaving emotions aside after getting beat by your rival, this is my take on this year. The 4-0 start including the big win over Arizona State gave the team confidence and we were clearly better than last year (albeit with some weaknesses). The Tennessee game let us know that we could compete with the better SEC teams even though we lost it in OT. But it was small chip in the armor. The Florida game was a big crack in the armor of our confidence though I put that more on the HC for a poor play call at the end. The Texas game finished us off. Here we play our best three quarters of the season only to see it unravel in the fourth quarter. One costly penalty (late hit on Arch) cost us that game and the season for all practical purposes. Our mental confidence was gone. All the good vibes from September had evaporated. Yes we beat Arkansas but that was more about them self destructing than anything else. Then these last three games, we got whipped across the board. In summation I give this season a C. Three more wins than last year. A big win over Arizona State. Three very competitive losses against quality SEC teams. But there is a lot of work ahead to move the needle upward. OL & DL need serious overhauls. With Taylor at QB, we have a chance to build a great offense around him. The defense had some bright spots this year but in these recent games our run defense has been porous. I don’t think the coaching has necessarily been bad but you have to have quality players to execute any defense. One last word on yesterday. Ole Miss was the team that had the perfect balance between confidence and execution. They made the big plays at the right time. We played hard but our confidence was not in sync with our execution. They were the better team. KT did some good things and the future is bright there. But we have got to build around him to make it happen. And if Kiffin leaves, karma is going to bite him in the butt. He has a good thing and he is going to leave to go to a cess pool?