SEC Football Week 8 Breakdown
LSU won by 31 points last week. Alabama won by 45 points. They both played conference foes on the road. Ho hum. Unfortunately though, there are still two more weeks to go before the national championship semi-final of sorts when the Tigers travel to Tuscaloosa.
There was other SEC news outside of the top two teams however. South Carolina, a hopeful to be called the SEC’s third best squad, took a huge hit with the news that Heisman hopeful Marcus Lattimore would miss the rest of the season with a knee injury. He went down during their game against Mississippi State on Saturday and the Gamecocks will have a hard time the rest of the way without their number one weapon. Mercifully, they have a bye this week and can regroup.
Saturday, October 22
Auburn vs. 3rd ranked LSU
Auburn travels to Louisiana this weekend in the hopes of spoiling the Tigers’ season. Auburn has had an odd go of it thus far. They are 2-1 against ranked opponents with one victory coming on the road. However, that remains their only road win all year. They started off hot, lost all their momentum with the Clemson loss, regained some with the takedown of a top ten team, then got crushed the subsequent week. Last week they won ugly against a recovering Florida club and will look to avoid yet another down on their seesaw season with the trip to LSU.
In all likelihood, LSU will win this game. Auburn does not have the horses to stick with LSU. Even though Auburn is ranked 20th in the first BCS poll released, a win here would certainly qualify as the biggest upset in the Southeastern Conference this season.
Other notable matchups:
Week eight is another rather disappointing slate of games.
Games of no particular note or significance whatsoever:
Saturday October 22
Jacksonville State vs. Kentucky
11th ranked Arkansas vs. Ole Miss
Army vs. Vanderbilt
Tennessee vs. 1st ranked Alabama
A couple remaining thoughts on the rest of these games: With the slippage of Florida and the injury of Lattimore in South Carolina, Arkansas is making their case as the third best team the conference has to offer. I continue to say this like it matters because the third best team in the SEC could be BCS bowl-worthy at the end of the year, even though rules prevent three schools from the same conference from making it. Tennessee is running the Florida gauntlet by playing LSU and Alabama back to back without their starting quarterback. Of course Florida lost theirs during one of these matchups rather than before, but look for Tennessee to follow Florida’s lead anyway by losing again here. By the way, Volunteer fans, UT plays the 12th ranked South Carolina Gamecocks the following week. There is no rest for the weary.
