From the “Talks too much” studios, lock the hubs on your jacked-up, drop ‘er down 4×4.
College football rewind
We knew going in it was going to be a rough weekend, and we were correct. So it goes.
Here’s our five takeaways from Week 4:
Butch Jones1) Swamped. Butch Jones made a quarterback change, and Nathan Peterman offered up game-time evidence why Justin Worley was the Tennessee Vols QB1 to start the season. Peterman was epically bad in a disastrous first half of the Vols’ 31-17 loss at Florida. Peterman’s terrible first half in his first – and almost assuredly last – start for the Vols put UT in a 17-7 halftime hole. While the score does not look historically bad on the surface, considering that Florida gift-wrapped UT’s first TD on a play when the Gators lost starting Jeff Driskel for the season and were overwhelmingly stagnant offensively early on, merely bad QB play for the Vols could have been a 10-7 lead or better. (Side note: Tyler Murphy looked the part in replacing Driskel and now appears to be the QB1 of the Gators. Which is awesome because it raises the ‘M’ QBs total in the SEC to six with Murray, McCarron, Manziel, Marshall, Mettenberger and now Murphy. It could be seven if UT listed their starting QB as “Missing.” Where were we…) Worley rallied the Vols in the second half, but take that with a grain of salt considering it was facing a Florida defense that had lost its top two corners at some point. There is some obvious frustrations as UT beat ace Patrick Brown tells us here. Let’s play letter grade Monday – and we’ll continue this on Press Row from 1-3 p.m. on ESPN 105.1 with David Paschall. So what grade do the Vols get? We’ll share ours around lunch.
2) If you go to Louisiana at night, bring a lunch and a hard hat. Because if a stranger don’t get it a shotgun will. The LSU Tigers built a 21-0 lead in a driving rain storm that became a 35-21 win over a fiesty Auburn team. LSU is physical and tough and talented all over the field. (Side note: LSU is currently getting three points from Georgia. Interesting, no?) Running back Jeremy Hill was a load, and proved the winning Tigers have no problem lining up and running right at people. (Buckle up, Grantham, the Tigers like to run it.) It also proves the losing Tigers will struggle with that approach, which is hardly surprising for those that follow Auburn considering Jake Holland appears to be the only middle linebacker on scholarship on The Plains.