Bulldogs4

Mine was kind of tongue-in-cheek. But honestly (3-11) on most Saturday’s one team could beat the other. There seems to be huge gap between 2 and 3 and 11 and 12. I should have included USCe as #12. I do agree that OM, Arky, Auburn, KY, FL are generally higher than the others but there is not a huge separation amongst the middle nine teams.

Yep. Bama&Georgia then most everybody else missouri&vandy

Florida played today like I thought they would last week. Maybe KY is better than what they had shown in the first four games.

I will say it is a great win because this team needed something good to happen after the last two games. NO TURNOVERS tonight. Now we still left some points on the field (two missed FG’s) but the defense was outstanding again. I can not overstate enough that we took care of the ball on offense. For the most part the OL was very good (had one bad series of plays in the fourth quarter). Ball control was big as well. TOP was 36-24 and we almost doubled them in FD’s. Rogers did a great job of taking what the defense gave him. Proud of this team for taking a step forward. A&M is certainly no where as good as they were last year but they are still very talented across the board.

Well I will stand in the corner for 30 minutes. I was WRONG. Arky stunk it up completely.UGA appears to be the real deal this year. Complete domination. Bama still wins today but some curious 4th down calls by Kiffin certainly made it much easier for Bama.

I am not going to pick the State game other than I agree it will be a low scoring ugly defensive game. Ole Miss breaks the assistant coach hex and beats Bama 45-42. Bama is just due for a loss. They skated by Florida and I think they are vulnerable this week. It is going to happen. Florida 40, Kentucky 10. Florida in a romp. I thought they may have had a letdown last week against Tenner but they took care of business. Auburn-LSU may be the only other game that could be uglier than the State-A&M game. Going out on a limb and will say Auburn wins 22-21 in a fugly game. Arkansas beats UGA if they have Jefferson and they have a two score lead late. If it is only one score, then the officials will ensure that UGA wins a tight one. If Jefferson does not play, then UGA wins comfortably 24-7. ND beats Cincy. Okie beats KState, Michigan over Wisconsin (that hurts my fingers to type that but Whisky is terrible and they will out bad Michigan for the loss) and Mary Land will wimp out against Iowa.

UTSA scores 17 unanswered fourth quarter points to defeat Memphis 31-28. Why I am not surprised? Kind of expected it. With the COVID hangover and the transfer portal, this years unpredictable scores are going to continue through the season. Buckle up as it looks like it is going to be a fun and frustrating ride this year.

Imagine the melt in Georgia when they lose to Arkansas. That will be quite funny to see. OM beating Bama wouldn’t surprise me either. Actually I like OM to win this game. Just a gut feeling there. But I am going to go ahead and say it. Arkansas beats UGA unless the SEC officiating crew protects UGA which would not surprise me either. The conference is good at protecting certain teams in certain games and this will be one of those times. We will see.

The good We run 88 plays to their 51 TOP - 36-24 FD’s 29-15 150 more yards of offense Now to the bad 3 big plays for them for TD’s 2 turnovers to 1 for them One TO leads to their other score and one prevents us from scoring or at least having an opportunity to score. 1 missed FG all leads to a 3 point loss. Frustrating to say the least. I really do not know what to think. We are good enough to bad and bad enough to be good like one of you have already stated. Why can’t the 4th quarter team show up earlier in the game? NC State beats Clemson who is obviously not at the same level they have been over the recent years But they are still Clemson and it is a good win for NC State. Just shows how unpredictable college football is. ARKy is for real though I have said from the beginning that A&M was way overrated. I don’t expect it but I would not be surprised if we beat A&M next week.

CC I was not able to go but did listen on the radio. Excited to get the win. Hopefully we can get some injured players back in the coming weeks. Kids seem to be playing hard and that bodes well for the future. Prayers for the Levi Madison family. That is sad.

I actually watched the first half and thought both teams played well. You have to give credit to App. State. They are the modem version of what USM used to be. They have developed niche program that plays good football and they can play with just about anybody on any given Saturday (or Thursday) anywhere.

In the present day that is probably true. Historically, Meridian never had to recruit because kids wanted to play for the Wildcats. Obviously that is not really the case in the present day. Whether Coach Douglass can restore us to our former glory is still to be determined. However the team has made steady improvements since 2019 season which was easily the worst in school history. The team in Lauderdale County that has quietly become a pretty good team is Clarkdale. They are 4-0 and Coach Soules has done a phenomenal job building that program from scratch over the last 3-4 years. They have had zero success in football ever. So that is great story to follow and I think a lot of local people are pulling for them to have a great season.

Neither Leach or Orgeron will be on the hot seat if they lose Saturday. Everyone needs to take a deep breath and not micromanage every game. Both of these coaches did not forget how to coach just because they lost a game. Leach has been a HC for 20 years and O about 10 years. They know what they are doing. Each squad has some issues. LSU seems weaker at the LOS this year than I remember them being in the recent years. However they still have a lot of talent and definitely has some playmakers on offense. Their defense is solid though it did struggle against the run game with UCLA (something they will not have to worry about Saturday). For State, it is pretty simple. Clean up the penalties, avoid costly turnovers and dumb mistakes and just play with great consistent effort and execution for 60 minutes. Simple to say but obviously much more difficult to actually do. Which State team will show up? We will see what happens Saturday. I like Arkansas to finally beat A&M who I think is way overrated. I think USM covers the 46 point spread just because that is a lot of points. Does Florida have a hangover and slip up against Tennessee? Possible but not likely. KY lubes USCe in an ugly game. Missouri beats BC. Iowa State defeats Baylor.

It is wwwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy premature to even talk about a coaching change at State. Leach has coached 14 games, probably half the roster that was here last year has been purged, so the whole development of the program is still a work in progress. The issues that you all have brought up are legitimate but they are also things that can get better or be improved upon. I have no idea what will happen Saturday against LSU. LSU will obviously play their best game against us. We did a lot of good things this past Saturday that have been overshadowed by the dumb things we did. If we develop some consistency across the board we can win Saturday regardless of how LSU plays. If not, we can very easily lose this game. We will see what happens.

Did Alabama just beat the brakes off of Florida? You make some valid points. I think Leach has tried to drill this into our players but they had to learn the hard way yesterday. As painful as the loss was, I hope it works it out for the better in the long run. Forget all the issues with the officiating. Had we played clean football and taken advantage of our scoring opportunities, the score in the third quarter is 24-0 and the game is over with because there is no way our defense was going to give up that many points (in fact they only gave up 14 points on the day). Leach has been doing this a long time. I know he hates to lose but this loss might just be what this team needed. We have great potential but we are consistently inconsistent and that will not win many games. Memphis has been a top 25-40 team in the recent years so why our players would not take this game seriously is beyond me. In this case, I believe our coaches tried to impress upon them the importance of playing hard and consistent every play but as we all know you can lead horse to the river but you can’t…. We will see what happens Saturday.

Mout, I was not aware of our injuries on the defensive side of the ball. Proud of the kids for persevering last night on the road. Hopefully some of those guys will be back Friday for start of divisional play. Will be good to get back home after three straight road games.

Bizarre play. I would think any scoring play is reviewable. Pretty clear that the ball was touched and the play was over. All the pathetic officiating aside, we made too many mistakes, made poor coaching decisions and just failed to make plays as well. Defense played very well and was good enough to win the game, Offense and special teams cost us this game. When you play a game like this, you have to take care business to the point that the officiating can’t have a hand in deciding the outcome. We failed miserably there today. A hard lesson to learn but I hope we did learn a hard lesson today.

Meridian is still not very good. Glad to get the win tonight. Certainly, Hattiesburg has had difficult start of the season but is a better team than the 0-4 record indicates. We have got a lot to clean up. Failing to take advantage of opportunities, a costly turnover when we are going into the end zone when we could have taken control of the game early on , defense is way too soft, penalties etc. But the real season starts next week so you can put these games in the rear view mirror.

Agreed, we should never lose to West Lauderdale. I was not at the game nor was I able to listen to it. So I have no idea what happened. It was a very disappointing loss because I thought the team was slowly getting better. Still not where we need to be but improving nonetheless. So that game was a huge setback IMO. We will see starting tonight at Hattiesburg if it was a blip or a trend.

This game is shades of the 2017 Bama-State game. UF has an opportunity here but can they finish the job? State got all the way to end but we failed in the last part of the game. I think UF covers the spread and if they can get a lead in the first half by more than one score, they can put some pressure on Bama. A big IF, but is possible. So I am going out on limb and say that CDM finally gets the best of Saban and UF beats Bama. I think Auburn sh*ts the bed (field) against Penn State and loses in fugly fashion. A new coach and staff usually have some WTF games in their first year. This is going to be one of them. Auburn has played two cupcakes at home so far. PSU on the road is big boy football and this week they are going to get rolled over. Tulane will give Ole Miss some Maalox moments but the Oxford group will outlast the New Orleans group. I think Tulane played over the heads at Oklahoma and will not quite duplicate that effort here. Ole Miss covers but it will come late. State @ Memphis. An intriguing match up. State is definitely trending in the right direction. Memphis can score but their defense is…well non existent. If there is ever an opportunity for the State offense to really get on track (possibly similar to the Missouri game last year), this is it. Again I see some uncomfortable moments here for State but I think we will prevail 51-35 or somewhere along that line. But what the heck do I know? Troy @ USM - I am pulling for the Eagles here but Troy is solid this year. 24-10 final for the Trojans.

Kiffin definitely not going to USCw. That bridge was burned years ago. He is definitely an enigma so what he might do is anybody’s guess. However, I don’t see him jumping from Ole Miss this fast. After 3-4 seasons (if he has had great success) then yes I could see it. He might even jump back to the NFL. If they are not careful, USCw is going to end up like Nebraska/Tennessee. Perpetually unsuccessful (or perceived underachieving) and changing coaches way too quickly. Rinse and repeat. Don’t see O getting fired at LSU even if they have a tough year. With COVID and the Hurricane(s) causing so much havoc, I think he will make it through this year.

Reb, But coming off the 2011 season where USM almost crashed the NY6 bowls with a 12-2 record and then losing 23 straight games was just a death blow to the on the field football team. Then combining that with getting left behind in the conference realignment was a double blow. Had they maintained the momentum of the 2011 football season through 2012/2013, by winning 8-9-10 games each season they would have been in a much better place at the bargaining table. They very well may have gotten a AAC invite because they had a strong football program with good attendance. Those two years going 1-23 destroyed any chance they may have had. That is not to say it would have actually happened but the on the field performance of the football team ensured that it would not happen. Yes they have recovered somewhat over the last 5-6 years but the days of “The Nasty Bunch” and “To The Top” are over and in the history books. I like Will Hall and have ever since he was the HC @ West Alabama. So I hope he can compete and win some games over the next few years. He is capable but just has a tough hill to climb going forward.

Unfortunately, for USM the future looks bleak. Will Hall is a very good coach who is going to do very well. But the region competition is much tougher now. UAB, USA and Tulane all have brand new stadiums with plenty of money to spend. USM has tradition but Ellis Johnson killed that in 2012 and the program has never really recovered from that debacle. The Sun Belt would also be a good conference as well. I just don’t see the discombobulated CUSA surviving in its present form. In the old days , USM recruited S LA, MS, AL, GA and NW FL and found many good players who were just under SEC level and in some cases , SEC quality. Those days are gone. Now you have ULL, La. Tech, Tulane, Troy, UAB, USA, GA Southern all recruiting those areas and the monopoly they had on the talent pool is over. They have no money, are in a small market so their options are limited severely. But glad to see him win his first game.

Two weeks in a row, Tulu Griffin with a big KR to jumpstart our Dawgs. The blocking was great as well but he also broke a couple of tackles last night. Defense was lights out all night long. As 83 mentioned, offense is still a work in progress but we did some good things last night. 0 turnovers is a big stat. I think we all wondered which State team would show up? The 2nd/3rd quarter team or the fourth quarter team? It is safe to say that the fourth quarter team did show up last night. A very good win against a team that was supposed to beat us and beat us handily from what I could gather. As the Alan Parsons Project band said “Where do we go from here” is the $64,000 question. Memphis will be a tough game as they always play their Super Bowl against OM and State. But if we can take care of business and go 3-0, that will be a good start to the season before conference play starts. We will see.

I remember the 1969 Texas-Arkansas game. They were ranked 1-2, President Nixon attended the game. Arkansas was up 14-0 and poised to go up 21-0 but Texas intercepted a pass on the end zone. They then drove down the field for a TD, went for two and cut the score to 14-8, then scored again late to win 15-14. This all happened in the fourth quarter. One of the all time great games in CFB. We were Texas fans then because my Dad liked Coach Royal (he was the HC at State back in the early 50’s). Tonight I will be a Hog fan though. Good to see the rivalry renewed.