SEC West

[Hawgphish]

Dang, Bama and LSU can play defense.  Going to be a rough and rugged run through the schedule this year.  But what's new.   I have always been real excited for the season, but this year I feel luke warm.  I sure do need a TCU win for a spark.

But on a side note, Texas lost and Baylor lost to Liberty.


Go hogs!

[JoeyCapital]

Bama looked great.

Not sold yet on lsu. Plenty of talent but byu is still just byu.

[Arkansas Fan]

Bama looked great.

Not sold yet on lsu. Plenty of talent but byu is still just byu.

BYU would give us all we want. LSU on defense will be tough.

[Al Boarland]

Dang, Bama and LSU can play defense.  Going to be a rough and rugged run through the schedule this year.  But what's new.   I have always been real excited for the season, but this year I feel luke warm.  I sure do need a TCU win for a spark.

But on a side note, Texas lost and Baylor lost to Liberty.


Go hogs!

Agreed. So much for DL taking a step back in the SEC. Auburn looked very good as well against a crappy team.

[Hawgphish]

And we see Texas AM tonight play UCLA.  Not sure whether to pull for the SEC or hope AM looks bad. 

[Hawgphish]

Bama looked great.

Not sold yet on lsu. Plenty of talent but byu is still just byu.

BYU did not cross the 50 the whole game. 

[Rayzback]

BYU would give us all we want. LSU on defense will be tough.

I hope not with BYU.  I think their game last night should be classified as a sports comedy.

[JoeyCapital]

BYU did not cross the 50 the whole game.

Famu only had 2 runs of more than 7 yards against our first string D, and less than 200 yards of total O.

That don't mean we are gonna be a top 10 defense (looking through my colored glasses, it doesn't mean that we won't, though!).

[JoeyCapital]

BYU would give us all we want. LSU on defense will be tough.

Horse crap.

We would mop the floor with byu. I ain't no 11-1 homer, but byu giving us all we want is derp level lulz.

[hawgdavis]

Bama looked great.

Not sold yet on lsu. Plenty of talent but byu is still just byu.

Looked great on D , offense looked not so great maybe even average, Hurts is not the star everyone in the sports media wants him so desperately to be.

If you can make Bama have to pass the ball to beat you then you can beat them.

[ballz2thewall]

it's difficult to tell who falls in behind bama in the west.

as far as who had the worst opponent, i'd nominate ole miss. south alabama looked awful on defense. the players just quit on pursuits and went out of their way to avoid contact.

byu was terrible. lsu's offense looked much like last year and the year before, despite decent passing numbers early.

the team that stood out to me was mississippi state. they seemed more together than basically everyone else. i'll admit to not having seen all of the game nor have i read the box scores.

i'd say

1. bama
2. miss/st.
3. lsu, auburn, arkansas
4. ole miss

a&m is unknown.

[hawgdavis]

Horse crap.

We would mop the floor with byu. I ain't no 11-1 homer, but byu giving us all we want is derp level lulz.

LSU is over hyped again this year, we should be able to get a W there.
Solid D and still no O and won't have one for some time. DG is a solid RB but not a great Back and QB play is suspect as well.

Just like with Texas , everyone ( sports media mostly) thinks it can be fixed in one off season. It cant. ESPN just wants it that way but it doesn't work that way. It's extremely difficult to change the culture of a program in 2 seasons let alone 1 off season. Texas at least has a real good coach until they fire him for not fixing a disaster in one or 2 seasons and LSU got a clunker of a Head coach that will destroy them.

[hawgdavis]

it's difficult to tell who falls in behind bama in the west.

as far as who had the worst opponent, i'd nominate ole miss. south alabama looked awful on defense. the players just quit on pursuits and went out of their way to avoid contact.

byu was terrible. lsu's offense looked much like last year and the year before, despite decent passing numbers early.

the team that stood out to me was mississippi state. they seemed more together than basically everyone else. i'll admit to not having seen all of the game nor have i read the box scores.

i'd say

1. bama
2. miss/st.
3. lsu, auburn, arkansas
4. ole miss

a&m is unknown.

Not sure about MS State either, I truly feel it's as wide open as it has been nationally as its been in a long long time, but it is just the opening weekend.

I think we have a truly solid shot this year

[WizardofhOgZ]

SEC West will come down to winner of Alabama-Auburn.

Hate to say it, but that's the way it looks. 

[Hogwild]

will be interested in see what BYU (1-1) does in their next few games   (Utah, Wisconsin, and Miss State), their back the schedule sets up really nice for the.  Probably favored in their last 6 games of the year-  ECU(lost to James Madison by 20 points) San Jose State, Fresno State, UNLV (just lost has 45.5 point favorite to Howard) UMASS, Hawaii

[DeshaHog]

lsu will destroy us just like last year.  so will bama but that is a given at this point.  outside of those 2 games we have a good chance in all of them (except may be auburn, PTSD of 56-3)

[HogsonHicks]

I don't know how we can make broad proclamations after one game against mediocre competition (Bama the exception).  Most SEC teams took care of business and performed as expected.  Missouri was the one team that surprised...they scored at will, but their D was shockingly bad.

[DeshaHog]

watching mizzou get torched was friggin aweosme

[JoeyCapital]

Looked great on D , offense looked not so great maybe even average, Hurts is not the star everyone in the sports media wants him so desperately to be.

If you can make Bama have to pass the ball to beat you then you can beat them.

Agreed. I was responding to the op specifically regarding their D.

I still can't wrap my mind around why bama doesn't just run power/ISO 40x game. With their ol, rbs and D they would be unstoppable if they stopped being so cute.

[JoeyCapital]

LSU is over hyped again this year, we should be able to get a W there.
Solid D and still no O and won't have one for some time. DG is a solid RB but not a great Back and QB play is suspect as well.

Agreed. Plenty of athletes. Solid to possible great D. Mediocre O, if you take Guice out of the equation. Time will tell if ol Cajun Ed can actually win as a HC.

[12247]

Its after just one game for all of us.  Only game worth grading was BAMA/FSU.  BAMA D looked mid-season.  Uh, um, isn't that the side of the ball that Saban actually assists in coaching.  Those 4 and 5 stars looked pretty good against some other high star players.  But, really, I doubt it had anything to do with that old worn out past his time HC that Bama hangs on to.  Cannot help but note that I have heard nothing from BAMA about just not having time to prepare.  Appears they found time.

This season, as all seasons, can read like a soap opera, As the Cream Rises to the Top.  Hope we get a small taste of the cream.

[Hogwild]

BYU did not cross the 50 the whole game.

LSU had 13 players not make the trip, including 3 defensive starters (Key, Alexander, Tolliver), they started 5 freshman and 26 played in the game.

http://www.nola.com/lsu/index.ssf/2017/09/lsu_football_true_freshmen.html

[sickboy]

SEC West will come down to winner of Alabama-Auburn.

Hate to say it, but that's the way it looks. 

Nothing looks the same at the end of a college football season as it does after the first weekend.

Been watching college football for a long time. I'm not getting worked up one way or another over how any of these teams are looking right now.

[ballz2thewall]

Agreed. I was responding to the op specifically regarding their D.

I still can't wrap my mind around why bama doesn't just run power/ISO 40x game. With their ol, rbs and D they would be unstoppable if they stopped being so cute.

therein is the potential weakness. they tried against fsu and it wasn't working. fsu stacked the box all night.

[longpig]

BYU would give us all we want. LSU on defense will be tough.

BYU struggled mightily to defeat Portland State, couldn't do jack on LSU's defense.  Arguably little to no dropoff from the LSU D to ours and our offense is arguably better than theirs.

[HogsonHicks]

BYU struggled mightily to defeat Portland State, couldn't do jack on LSU's defense.  Arguably little to no dropoff from the LSU D to ours and our offense is arguably better than theirs.

I love the optimism, but "...little to no dropoff from the LSU D to ours..."?

[Hogwild]

Arguably little to no dropoff from the LSU D to ours and our offense is arguably better than theirs.

You think there is no dropoff between our defense and LSU's defense?

[RazorbackBassist]

Looks to be a tough season ahead of us. I am always optimistic, although I want to see improvement next week against TCU. As always Go Hogs

[hogcard1964]

And we see Texas AM tonight play UCLA.  Not sure whether to pull for the SEC or hope AM looks bad.

We're guaranteed of finishing ahead of Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Miss. St. I think we're evenly matched with Auburn, but we're still pretty far back from LSU and Bama.

I think UCLA will bunghole A & M.

[bennyl08]

Bama: Looked shaky that first half. Didn't really do a whole lot better the second half, but FSU panicked, made mistakes, and Bama capitalized. Not too dissimilar to last year vs USC, though Bama picked it up a bit more in the 2nd half that game and FSU week 1 this year is much better than USC was week 1 last year. Their defense looks just as susceptible to the pass this year as they were last year. Austin could definitely throw for 400 on them again. Hurts does not look improved as a passer either. Bama's OL showed signs of what I talked about in my thread comparing depth charts. Their OL isn't bad by any stretch, but it isn't amazing either. Namely, they have several returning starters who got no post-season love last year or pre-season love this year. They are a mortal offensive line. Ridley was the only receiver/TE to catch a pass. 10% of Hurt's completions were to himself... Their ability to run the ball though is still very good as is their ability to stop the run. This is still a Bama team we are talking about, and they won't be easy to beat. We will have to play mistake free football and bring our A game. However, there are some very noticeable kinks in their armor this year that we have the tools to take advantage of. Just need to not make mistakes and panic like FSU.

Auburn: Anybody watching that game who feels worse about being able to beat this team than they did before the season must not have actually watched that game. Against similar competition, we performed much better than they did and for all of our mistakes, looked smoother as a team. Auburn has some good RB's, but Stidham did not look all that good. Capable of making some nice throws, is mobile but not very fast. However, he has no pocket awareness and can make some really terrible throws as well. Key with Auburn will be stopping their run game. Force Stidham to pass and don't drop the inevitable interceptions.

LSU: Efficient at QB. Deadly at RB. Their defense did what was expected and shut out byu (a team that struggled against Portland State). Not a whole lot to glean from this game.

OM: Struggled to run the ball, but were able to pass just fine against a team worse than we played. They started off much worse than we did, being up 13-10 at the half. OM didn't get a chance to put in their backups and had to play their starters the whole game to win 47-27.  This is not going to be a good team. However, I do think this is our trap game this season. While they appear to be in the dumps this year, we get them at the end of a 4 game SEC stretch, after playing @Bama and before getting a somewhat bye agaisnt CCU the next week.

MSU: Not a whole lot to say about this game. Nobody really did anything crazy for the bulldogs good or bad. They did about as expected, took care of business, and went home. They did get 9 TFL on defense, but their opponent rarely passed, so that skews the stats a bit. It is worth noting that Charleston did have 5 passes defended and Fitzgerald only completed 55% of his passes. Signifying that, like Hurts, he hasn't made any huge strides in his passing.

aTm: Hasn't played yet.

SC: Couldn't run the ball to save their lives. Gave up a ton of yards, but became stingy in the redzone. People expecting some miraculous turnaround from SC are going to be sorely disappointed. Muschamp will have a well coached defense, but their offense won't frighten our defense at all, and if we play half as good on offense as we did vs Bama last year, we should easily come out with a win.

Mizz: Has absolutely zero defense. I bet if we sent in our 11 2nd stringers on defense, at least 8 of them would be starters for Missouri. However, as predicted, their offense is going to be one of the best in the SEC. If our 3-4 can hold them down and Austin doesn't regress, we should win this one at home. However, their offense will be tough to stop.

TCU: Not a whole lot to be gleamed from that game either. TCU likes to score from the air rather than the ground, and that definitely benefits our defense as we are pretty stingy against passing scores in the redzone. They definitely over powered the opponent defensively as well. I'd guess that this game should go about as expected for us. Both teams similar in talent. Both teams returning a similar amount of experience. We came out on top last year at their place so should come out on top at our place this year, but probably a single possession victory, perhaps even overtime again.

[longpig]

You think there is no dropoff between our defense and LSU's defense?

"Little to no", only time FAMU moved the chains was on a fake punt and on our backups.  Our D will likely cause Trill to panic and GP a cardiac arrest this Saturday.

[JoeyCapital]

therein is the potential weakness. they tried against fsu and it wasn't working. fsu stacked the box all night.

Yeah, I see them as almost running two separate offenses at once. Back in the Greg McElroy & Aj mccarron days they had a power run game with solid play action from the same looks. Now it seems like they either go power formations or spread. It just seems like they're trying to be too cute with their pass game instead of the power, power, play action game that they ran a few years ago.

Obviously Saban has a slightly better grasp of the X's and O's than I do, but if I had his horses I never would've started moving toward the spread concepts that they've employed the last few years.

Just my opinion.

[Hogwild]

SC: Couldn't run the ball to save their lives. Gave up a ton of yards, but became stingy in the redzone. People expecting some miraculous turnaround from SC are going to be sorely disappointed. Muschamp will have a well coached defense, but their offense won't frighten our defense at all, and if we play half as good on offense as we did vs Bama last year, we should easily come out with a win.

Mizz: Has absolutely zero defense. I bet if we sent in our 11 2nd stringers on defense, at least 8 of them would be starters for Missouri. However, as predicted, their offense is going to be one of the best in the SEC. If our 3-4 can hold them down and Austin doesn't regress, we should win this one at home. However, their offense will be tough to stop

that should be an interesting game next week-

If South Carolina wins next week, they get Kentucky and LA Tech at home the following two weeks.  They would have a legit shot at 4-0 before facing their two West opponents (@A&M/Ark)

[ballz2thewall]

Yeah, I see them as almost running two separate offenses at once. Back in the Greg McElroy & Aj mccarron days they had a power run game with solid play action from the same looks. Now it seems like they either go power formations or spread. It just seems like they're trying to be too cute with their pass game instead of the power, power, play action game that they ran a few years ago.

Obviously Saban has a slightly better grasp of the X's and O's than I do, but if I had his horses I never would've started moving toward the spread concepts that they've employed the last few years.

Just my opinion.

benny said it above. their OL is good but not stellar. last night the rb's struggled mightily in the run. while they have the big new back whose name i can't remember, he didn't produce the derek henry kind of yards.

fsu really blew this game. they stuck bama all night in the box. bama only got things going later in the game after stupid fsu mistakes and turnovers.

i further agree with benny; as of right now bama's passing game is lacking.

fsu was baiting bama's tackles with two staggered defenders several times during the game. it paid every time with good pressure. the passing game wasn't there to catch the slack, nor were the draws and screens. 

[GuvHog]

You think there is no dropoff between our defense and LSU's defense?

Too early to say. LSU has played 1 team with a bad offense and mediocre defense that struggled badly against Portland State. We'll see how good LSU is on Defense when they play against a team that has at least a decent offense.

By the same token, we'll find out a lot about the Hogs this Saturday in DWRRS. Last Thursday night however, the Hogs #1 defense looked very stout.

[WizardofhOgZ]

Nothing looks the same at the end of a college football season as it does after the first weekend.

Been watching college football for a long time. I'm not getting worked up one way or another over how any of these teams are looking right now.

I saw nothing to alter my pre-season feelings that the Auburn - Alabama game would decide the SEC West.  It's not that "the results" of week 1 changed my mind.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Too early to say. LSU has played 1 team with a bad offense and mediocre defense that struggled badly against Portland State. We'll see how good LSU is on Defense when they play against a team that has at least a decent offense.

By the same token, we'll find out a lot about the Hogs this Saturday in DWRRS. Last Thursday night however, the Hogs #1 defense looked very stout.

Oh yes, LSU's defense played a patsy offense, but we played a juggernaut.  Yes, I'm certain we are as good as LSU's defense.

[GuvHog]

Oh yes, LSU's defense played a patsy offense, but we played a juggernaut.  Yes, I'm certain we are as good as LSU's defense.

Re-read my post you quoted. I specifically stated that we will find out a lot about the Hogs the Saturday. Both LSU and Arkansas played against teams with bad offenses this week and both dominated their opponent's offense. BYU's offense wouldn't have done any better against the Hogs #1 defense.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

Re-read my post you quoted. I specifically stated that we will find out a lot about the Hogs the Saturday. Both LSU and Arkansas played against teams with bad offenses this week and both dominated their opponent's offense. BYU's offense wouldn't have done any better against the Hogs #1 defense.

No, you go back and read the first sentence of your post that I quoted.  That's what I was addressing. 

[RollHogTide]

It's way to early in the season to crown a king OR admit defeat.  We'll know what everyone has come mid-Oct.  Players and teams improve throughout the year as they adjust to the speed of the game.

[GuvHog]

No, you go back and read the first sentence of your post that I quoted.  That's what I was addressing. 

I was correct, it IS too early to say.

I was also correct when I stated that BYU is a team with a bad offense and a mediocre defense.

[Bubba's Bruisers]

I was correct, it IS too early to say.

Yet you know BYU wouldn't have done any better against our D.  You have no clue what BYU would have done.

[ChicoHog]

And we see Texas AM tonight play UCLA.  Not sure whether to pull for the SEC or hope AM looks bad. 

That's easy.   Go Bruins! 

[GuvHog]

Yet you know BYU wouldn't have done any better against our D.  You have no clue what BYU would have done.

Wrongo. I watched BYU play Portland state last week and BYU's offense struggled badly in that game too.

[hogblitz]

All of this talk concerning how good OR bad our team is at this point is quite silly.  I knew before the season started that it would be game 2 before we could tell anything about we have.  There is very little one can take from game 1 against an opponent like that.   After TCU, we will have a fairly good idea. 

[Tedock]

You people are delusional if you think the Arkansas defense is even close to LSU's. LSU was without four defensive starters last night and still held BYU to less than 100 yards. BYU had more points than they had rushing yards and they were held scoreless.

Arkansas handles a little sister of the poor type team and suddenly you people have delusions of grandeur.

[GuvHog]

You people are delusional if you think the Arkansas defense is even close to LSU's. LSU was without four defensive starters last night and still held BYU to less than 100 yards. BYU had more points than they had rushing yards and they were held scoreless.

Arkansas handles a little sister of the poor type team and suddenly you people have delusions of grandeur.

If you had watched BYU play against Portland State last week you'd know how bad BYU's offense is. They really struggled against Portland State.

[Deep Shoat]

You people are delusional if you think the Arkansas defense is even close to LSU's. LSU was without four defensive starters last night and still held BYU to less than 100 yards. BYU had more points than they had rushing yards and they were held scoreless.

Arkansas handles a little sister of the poor type team and suddenly you people have delusions of grandeur.

So, are you a coon ass?  Or just a poor mouthing Arkansas "fan"?

[The Galloping Ghost]

Bama: Looked shaky that first half. Didn't really do a whole lot better the second half, but FSU panicked, made mistakes, and Bama capitalized. Not too dissimilar to last year vs USC, though Bama picked it up a bit more in the 2nd half that game and FSU week 1 this year is much better than USC was week 1 last year. Their defense looks just as susceptible to the pass this year as they were last year. Austin could definitely throw for 400 on them again. Hurts does not look improved as a passer either. Bama's OL showed signs of what I talked about in my thread comparing depth charts. Their OL isn't bad by any stretch, but it isn't amazing either. Namely, they have several returning starters who got no post-season love last year or pre-season love this year. They are a mortal offensive line. Ridley was the only receiver/TE to catch a pass. 10% of Hurt's completions were to himself... Their ability to run the ball though is still very good as is their ability to stop the run. This is still a Bama team we are talking about, and they won't be easy to beat. We will have to play mistake free football and bring our A game. However, there are some very noticeable kinks in their armor this year that we have the tools to take advantage of. Just need to not make mistakes and panic like FSU.

Auburn: Anybody watching that game who feels worse about being able to beat this team than they did before the season must not have actually watched that game. Against similar competition, we performed much better than they did and for all of our mistakes, looked smoother as a team. Auburn has some good RB's, but Stidham did not look all that good. Capable of making some nice throws, is mobile but not very fast. However, he has no pocket awareness and can make some really terrible throws as well. Key with Auburn will be stopping their run game. Force Stidham to pass and don't drop the inevitable interceptions.

LSU: Efficient at QB. Deadly at RB. Their defense did what was expected and shut out byu (a team that struggled against Portland State). Not a whole lot to glean from this game.

OM: Struggled to run the ball, but were able to pass just fine against a team worse than we played. They started off much worse than we did, being up 13-10 at the half. OM didn't get a chance to put in their backups and had to play their starters the whole game to win 47-27.  This is not going to be a good team. However, I do think this is our trap game this season. While they appear to be in the dumps this year, we get them at the end of a 4 game SEC stretch, after playing @Bama and before getting a somewhat bye agaisnt CCU the next week.

MSU: Not a whole lot to say about this game. Nobody really did anything crazy for the bulldogs good or bad. They did about as expected, took care of business, and went home. They did get 9 TFL on defense, but their opponent rarely passed, so that skews the stats a bit. It is worth noting that Charleston did have 5 passes defended and Fitzgerald only completed 55% of his passes. Signifying that, like Hurts, he hasn't made any huge strides in his passing.

aTm: Hasn't played yet.

SC: Couldn't run the ball to save their lives. Gave up a ton of yards, but became stingy in the redzone. People expecting some miraculous turnaround from SC are going to be sorely disappointed. Muschamp will have a well coached defense, but their offense won't frighten our defense at all, and if we play half as good on offense as we did vs Bama last year, we should easily come out with a win.

Mizz: Has absolutely zero defense. I bet if we sent in our 11 2nd stringers on defense, at least 8 of them would be starters for Missouri. However, as predicted, their offense is going to be one of the best in the SEC. If our 3-4 can hold them down and Austin doesn't regress, we should win this one at home. However, their offense will be tough to stop.

TCU: Not a whole lot to be gleamed from that game either. TCU likes to score from the air rather than the ground, and that definitely benefits our defense as we are pretty stingy against passing scores in the redzone. They definitely over powered the opponent defensively as well. I'd guess that this game should go about as expected for us. Both teams similar in talent. Both teams returning a similar amount of experience. We came out on top last year at their place so should come out on top at our place this year, but probably a single possession victory, perhaps even overtime again.

My God you're a delusional Homer.

[GoHogs1091]

I saw on a SEC Message board on another site that it is being reported on a BOL insider site that Alabama lost 2 of their LBs for the rest of the season due to an injury (Miller and Lewis).  If true, losing those 2 LBs will not be good for their defense.

It also stated that their LB, Evans, got a groin injury and he will be out 2-3 weeks.  Groin injuries can linger, and if Evans is not completely the same afterwards the rest of the season, that will heavily impact their defense.

Also, another one of their players, Jennings, reportedly was injured and he will miss some time.