Granted, it’s just the first night of SEC Week 1, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start over-reacting already. Everyone saw Texas A&M go into Columbia and throttle South Carolina. Everyone saw Ole Miss and Boise State stumble over each other in the ESPN prime time showcase, and some of you may have stayed up to watch Temple erase a seventy year losing streak to the SEC by beating Vanderbilt in Nashville. Four teams, three games, two rainbows and one night: What does it mean? Let’s over-react.
SEC Kick-Off Analysis: Opening Night Over-Reaction
Texas A&M 52, South Carolina 28.
The reports of Texas A&M’s demise in the post Manziel era have been greatly exaggerated. Why was A&M able to go to Columbia and win so convincingly? First, A&M controlled the line of scrimmage. The SEC has always been and continues to be a conference won and lost at the line of scrimmage. Kenny Hill was not pressured much, and when he was there was no containment so he was able to scramble and have open looks at mid-level passes. Secondly, the improvement of the Aggie defense. A&M’s defense played decent team defense holding South Carolina to 2 of 9 on third-down conversions. They did give up some big plays but applied enough pressure and controlled the line of scrimmage to prevent the Gamecocks from sustaining drives. Lastly, coaching. While Kenny Hill’s 44-60-511-3-0 line is crazy impressive, the offensive scheme was masterful. A perfect mix of short-, mid- and deep-route play selections terrorized South Carolina’s linebackers and secondary in coverage. The continued up-tempo offense wore down the South Carolina defense. For an “Air Raid” type offense to have a 37-22 time of possession advantage is incredible. A&M also went from side-to-side on multiple consecutive plays. They used their scheme to both wear down the Gamecock defense and enable Kenny Hill’s monster night.
There is reason to over-react to this game. Aggie fans have to be excited after watching this game; this should set up a meeting of undefeated teams in Tuscaloosa in mid-October. Meanwhile, South Carolina is staring at Todd Gurley and Georgia in two weeks and Missouri, another club that will throw the ball a lot, two weeks after that. South Carolina’s hopes for an SEC East title could be over before week four of the season.
Ole Miss 35, Boise State 13.
Hugh Freeze’s Ole Miss club enters the season with expectations not seen in Oxford since Eli Manning’s tenure. Two false starts before the first offensive play is certainly an ominous start to a season and inexcusable. What should be even more concerning for Ole Miss fans is Freeze’s explanation: “We had some noise issues that I didn’t prepare my team for.” (ESPN Game ReCap) Wait, what? First off, the Georgia Dome was less than half full with an announced crowd of 32,823. Secondly, Roughly 75% of that was Ole Miss fans. How do you have noise issues in a less-than-half-full cavernous dome with mostly your fans? You don’t. You had a team that was unprepared – yes – but also nervous and unsure of themselves. That’s not good. And it wasn’t just the first two plays. Ole Miss had 14 accepted penalties during the game; one of those resulting in the ejection of linebacker Sederius Bryant. Bo Wallace had three interceptions – in one half!
The reason this is important, and the reason why first games actually do matter when analyzing teams, is because from here on out you have a limited amount of time to work on the basics and fundamentals in addition to the game plan. Ole Miss had all spring and summer to work on “noise issues”, learning the targeting rules, and working on progressions and reads. Practice during the season should focus more on game plans than fixing the fundamentals. And don’t let the final score fool you. Most of the 28 fourth quarter points were on Boise State miscues. Boise State just is not the same Boise State of the last five years. Two of Wallace’s touchdown strikes were for 31 and 76 yards. Ole Miss only had three or four legitimate sustained drives against an outmatched Boise State team. Ole Miss does have the schedule working in their favor.
Ole Miss open SEC play next week at Vanderbilt and then have LA-Lafayette and Memphis before their first real test at home against Alabama October 4th. Ole Miss better use the month of September to fix their fundamentals or their expectations of competing in the SEC West will certainly go unrealized this year. There is definitely reason to over-react to this game.
Temple 37, Vanderbilt 7.
Vanderbilt looked like the Vandy of old last night with as many turnovers as points. In addition to the seven turnovers they used three different quarterbacks. How does a team go through spring ball, summer work and fall camp and not come out with a quarterback? The quarterback position needs repetitions – for timing, for learning the play book, for learning audibles, and for learning defensive schemes and looks. Constant rotation of quarterbacks is exactly how you get seven turnovers and 3-14 third-down conversions.
That’s not ever the most concerning part for Vanderbilt. What people aren’t talking about is the 145 rushing yards, 352 total yards and 37 points Vandy gave up. Granted, almost all of that came off turnovers, but Vandy still yielded those yardages numbers to Temple. Not Auburn, not Georgia, Temple. Derek Mason was Stanford’s defensive coordinator. Vanderbilt has built its’ recent resurgence on defensive. To open a season like that on defense ought to cause major panic in Nashville. Vandy has Ole Miss, South Carolina and Georgia in the next five weeks. Fans in Nashville should over-react and be worried that last night’s game is a key indication of a rough season ahead.
The Thursday night openers provided plenty of over-reaction material and gave us a great start to another SEC season. Key games to pay attention to this weekend include Alabama-West Virginia in Atlanta, Clemson at Georgia, Wisconsin-LSU in Houston and Utah State at Tennessee. The first week will be in the books come Monday morning and everyone will have a better picture of the start of the season…and plenty to over-react about.
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