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Monday Down South: Auburn’s QB collapse is a crisis of Hugh Freeze’s own making
By Matt Hinton
Published:
In this week’s jampacked edition of Monday Down South …
- Jackson Arnold flames out
- LSU faces life without Harold Perkins Jr.
- Players of the week, the Superlatives Standings, and updated power rankings
… and more takeaways, trends, and technicalities from Week 4 in the SEC. But first:
Pay up front or pay for it later
How much is a starting quarterback worth?
Historically, that kind of question was strictly the domain of backrooms and bagmen. In the NIL era, something like an actual market is beginning to emerge. Based on a rough estimate by the New York Times earlier this year, the average FBS quarterbacks is “worth” $820,000 in NIL transactions; for an SEC-caliber starter, that number is notably higher. Per On3.com, 8 SEC quarterbacks have valuations north of $1 million, led by Arch Manning at $3.1 million. (Nationally, only Shedeur Sanders is valued higher, at $5.1 million.) For a plausible Heisman candidate — Quinn Ewers, Jalen Milroe, Jaxson Dart, Carson Beck, Nico Iamaleava — the valuation is in the $2 million range, give or take $100k. For a 5-star prospect in the development phase who isn’t named Manning (your Jackson Arnolds and DJ Lagways), the number is around $1 million. Again, give or take.
These are estimates, not hard-and-fast figures based on actual contracts. Like it or not, though, if you expect to compete in the SEC now or at any point in the near future, that’s the baseline of what your NIL operation should expect to spend on a QB who gives you a chance.
Hugh Freeze, a seasoned veteran of the recruiting wars, understands the new dynamic as well as anyone. So he also understood that, when he admitted earlier this year that the reason Auburn had failed to land a big-ticket transfer to replace its pedestrian incumbent, Payton Thorne (On3 valuation: $360k), was that Freeze “couldn’t bring himself” to make that kind of commitment, he was making a very public bet on his existing options. “I believe in our quarterback room,” he said at the time, emphasizing that he felt Auburn’s limited resources were better spent on upgrading the surrounding cast. “I believe that if you have the right pieces around Payton that we can have success.”
Less than a month into the season, even Freeze can’t bring himself to pretend he’s still a believer, or that his bet has any realistic chance of paying off. “I have no idea sitting here right now,” he told reporters following Saturday’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas, referring to the immediate outlook for the most important position on the field with Oklahoma, Georgia, and Missouri on deck over the next three games. “We’ve got to find a guy that won’t throw it to the other team.”
Alas, the time for that in 2024 has long passed. The guys Freeze believed in back when the portal window was open can’t stop throwing it to the other team. Through 4 games, Thorne has been derided, benched, and buried — only to be improbably exhumed Saturday when his lightly recruited understudy, redshirt freshman Hank Brown (no valuation), was reduced to a puddle upon his first exposure to SEC competition. Two weeks after watching Thorne play his way out of a job in a 4-interception meltdown against Cal, the crowd in Jordan-Hare Stadium watched in disbelief as Brown served up 3 picks in the first half against the Razorbacks, in what was supposed to be 1 of the 2 or 3 most winnable games on the conference schedule. Brown lasted just 2 quarters; Thorne came off the bench at halftime, threw a couple of touchdown passes as well as a 4th INT that caromed off his receiver’s hands, and never touched the ball with a chance to take the lead. If anyone on hand was willing to be persuaded that that represented the beginning of a comeback from the Cal debacle, Freeze wasn’t one of them.
“I know that there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football,” Freeze said, immediately after calling 39 passes for his struggling QBs vs. 22 runs. “The scheme is what most everybody in the country is running, some sort of. But you’ve got to have a good quarterback in whatever system you’re going to choose.”
On that, Freeze and his critics can agree. That’s the reason, after all, that all of them and their mothers assumed Auburn would be aggressive on the transfer market last winter, long after it had become clear in the course of a 6-7 campaign in Freeze’s first season that Thorne was never going to be a threat to reliably complete passes against the top half of the schedule. That’s where teams without the luxury of a good quarterback on the roster go to find one, if they’re willing to pay the going rate. Teams that aren’t can always browse the bargain bin, where Auburn picked up Thorne from Michigan State in the spring of 2023 out of necessity, or swear by the old-fashioned developmental model and hope for the best.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that the portal is going to deliver bang for the buck. (Ask Florida State.) But it is a choice, and for Auburn, which pays Freeze $6.5 million per year to field a competitor and his staff nearly as much, it is very much a choice the Tigers can afford. With each passing week it’s becoming clearer that Freeze, in his decision to prioritize improving everywhere except behind center, chose poorly.
Boomer Bust
Our next stop on the tour of QB Purgatory is Oklahoma, where Brent Venables also made a fateful choice last winter: To let his incumbent starter, Dillon Gabriel, portal out in favor of elevating the gem of the Sooners’ 2023 recruiting class, Jackson Arnold. It says an awful lot about the power of the 5-star hype that followed Arnold to Norman that the choice was not considered especially controversial, or necessarily even that much of a choice. Arnold seemed like a natural successor; he’d bided his time, paid his dues as a freshman, and in Year 2 his time had come.
Given how much Oklahoma has invested in Arnold as the rising face of the program, his failure to make it out of the first half of his first SEC start, an eventual 25-15 loss to Tennessee in Norman, was shocking in an abstract sort of way. But then, given his actual performance in real time, it was hardly a choice at all. It was a no-brainer: By halftime, Arnold had thrown a ghastly interception, lost 2 fumbles, and managed to put just 3 points on the board. The second quarter, in particular, was a nightmare: Oklahoma’s 5 possessions in the frame yielded 2 fumbles, 2 3-and-outs and a safety, all in 3 plays or less. The Sooners ran a grand total of 9 plays in the quarter for minus-22 yards, by the end of which Arnold had given way to true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. and the home crowd had given up any hope of mustering enough offense in the second half to rally from a 19-3 deficit.
Hawkins did lead a couple of late, ultimately meaningless touchdown drives in the fourth covering 68 and 76 yards to make the final score look halfway respectable, but those were purely cosmetic scores in the lipstick-on-a-pig sense. Even including the late drives, OU’s final output (222 yards on 3.3 per play) represented one of its worst outings of the past decade. To put up that kind of line at home, in the program’s SEC debut, was depressing enough. To do it on the same weekend that fellow SEC newcomer Texas solidified its grasp on the No. 1 spot in the polls was worse. And looking ahead at a schedule that still includes Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and LSU is downright alarming. Barring a miracle, the Sooners are in trouble.
Venables said following the game that he plans to “evaluate” the quarterback situation ahead of this weekend’s trip to Auburn, a collision of pure desperation. For what it’s worth, Hawkins outplayed Arnold on Saturday and surely won over some segment of the fan base by going airborne on a late touchdown drive that put Oklahoma within a 2-point conversion of being within an onside kick of making things interesting in the closing minute. (Both the subsequent 2-point conversion and onside kick failed.)
OU Michael Hawkins Jr. SOMERSAULT ☝️ pic.twitter.com/iBXeHbWMMg
— Real Friends & Football (@rff_football) September 22, 2024
Just how much it’s worth in Venables’ estimation is TBD. It would be one thing is Arnold had been playing well prior to Saturday night, in which case it would be easier to chalk up Saturday night to bad breaks for a young QB and wipe the slate clean. But Arnold also looked mediocre in his previous 2 games against Houston and Tulane, and his performance on Saturday wasn’t just bad: It was a debacle, resulting in a 1.3 Total QBR score; that’s the worst single-game number for an SEC quarterback in the QBR database since 2005, coming in just below the abysmal 1.4 score posted a couple weeks back by Kentucky’s Brock Vandagriff in the Wildcats’ Week 2 loss to South Carolina. When you consider the standard set for Oklahoma quarterbacks over the past decade, that’s the kind of night there may be no coming back from.
Harold Perkins: Past his peak?
Grim news on the injury front out of Baton Rouge: LSU linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., one of the most gifted and enigmatic players in America, is out for the year due to a torn ACL suffered in the Tigers’ 34-17 win over UCLA. Whether the end of his season means the end of his college career remains TBD. Because the injury occurred (barely) within the 4-game redshirt window, Perkins will be eligible for a medical redshirt that preserves 2 years of eligibility, if he wants them; he’ll also be eligible for the 2025 Draft, where he’s seemed destined to be a high first-round pick from his early days on campus. That will be his decision to make over the coming months. Either way, the memory of the supremely talented, multi-purpose phenom who burst onto the scene as a freshman continues to recede further into the distance.
The sample size of Perkins at his best ultimately amounts to just a few weeks over the second half of his freshman campaign in 2022, in particular a couple of indelible performances on consecutive Saturdays against Alabama and Arkansas. In the former, he terrorized reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young in a season-defining upset; in the latter, he memorably stole the show against the Razorbacks in a win that clinched the SEC West crown for LSU and cemented Perkins’ reputation as a rising star. Nearly 2 years later, that game is still the indelible image when it comes to waxing rhapsodic about his potential, despite the fact that his production and his sizzle reel have steadily diminished as his role in LSU’s defense has evolved into something more like the conventional linebacker he’s projected to be in the NFL.
https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1591490720866750465/
The Tigers didn’t really seem to know what to do with his unique skill set in 2023, even though he remained clearly the best player on a suddenly bereft unit. While the rest of the defense collapsed around him, Perkins held up his end of the bargain, leading the team in solo tackles, tackles for loss, sacks, QB pressures and forced fumbles en route to a second-team All-SEC nod from league coaches. He was still LSU’s best pass rusher, by far, and arguably their best player on the back end, too, posting a team-high 81.1 PFF coverage grade. (His lone interception on the year was a clutch one, initiating a comeback from a double-digit deficit to beat Missouri.) As advertised, there was nothing they could ask him to do that he couldn’t handle in a pinch.
Still, for all the hype, he was never the kind of difference-maker he’d been in ’22. Where was the pass-rushing juice that set him apart? The absurd range and closing speed in the open field? Perkins dropped into coverage almost twice as often as he rushed the passer; he generated fewer sacks and significantly fewer QB pressures despite playing significantly more snaps overall. Before his injury Saturday, he’d generated just 4 pressures in 4 games this year, and had yet to record a sack. On the decisive drive in the Tigers’ opening-night loss to USC, he was left loitering in short zone coverage while USC’s Miller Moss had all the time he needed to march the Trojans 75 yards for the winning touchdown.
All of which is to say that if the best we ever see of Perkins at this level was a fleeting glimpse of his freakish peak for a few weeks as an 18-year-old, it will go down as a disappointment and a severely missed opportunity. Some comparisons come to mind, among them Marcus Lattimore, the former South Carolina running back who peaked in an instant-classic freshman campaign in 2010 before major knee injuries derailed his career. Of course, Perkins’ career is not necessarily derailed; a torn ACL is serious, especially for an athlete whose primary asset is an explosive first step, but not the end of the world. He could be back at LSU next year, rehabbed and ready to fulfill the prophecies. Regardless, as long as he can pass a physical he will get his shot at the next level whenever he decides to take it. But it will not be the straight shot his gifts once promised, and the moment when he was considered “can’t miss” is beginning to seem like a long time ago.
Drive of the Week
Hogs run to win. Arkansas led Auburn, 17-14, early in the fourth quarter of a game defined by turnovers and erratic quarterback play on both sides. Auburn, desperate for a spark on offense, had just narrowed a 10-point deficit to 3 points on a 4th-down gamble that paid off in a 67-yard touchdown pass on the previous possession. The Razorbacks, their grip on the game slipping, opened the ensuing possession with 3 straight incomplete passes by Taylen Green — the last of which, however, drew a pass interference penalty to extend the drive. The flag fell at the 9:28 mark, after which Green would not put the ball in the air again.
Instead, it suddenly dawned on play-caller Bobby Petrino that he had a backfield featuring Green (listed at 230 pounds), Braylen Russell (253) and Ja’Quinden Jackson (233), and he embraced the grind.
From that point on, Arkansas kept it on the ground on 16 consecutive plays to close the game, including a game-clinching, 10-play, 60-yard march to the end zone that drained 6 minutes off the clock and extended the lead to 24-14 with too little time left for the Tigers to respond. “We just basically talked about it before we went out there like, ‘Hey, we have to score on this drive’ and we did it,” said Jackson, who scored the door-slamming TD from a yard out. “It was a huge drive. We brought it up in the locker room. We dropped 75 yards [when] we needed it the most.”
Superlatives
The week’s best individual performances.
1. Arkansas DB TJ Metcalf. A true sophomore making his first career start in SEC play, Metcalf was everywhere against Auburn, playing a role in 4 of the Razorbacks’ 5 takeaways while posting a clean sheet in coverage. On top of picking off 2 passes — the result of an overthrow and a deflection off the intended receiver’s hands, respectively — Metcalf also had a hand (literally) in a 3rd pick, a tipped pass that was collected by teammate Doneiko Slaughter; a little later, he was responsible for a huge swing play when he stripped Auburn RB Damari Alston in the open field to prevent an apparent touchdown shortly before the half.
— sup (@TalkingHooops) September 21, 2024
The Tigers didn’t complete a pass at Metcalf’s expense, per PFF, going 0-for-3 in his direction; his 88.3 coverage grade was the best among all SEC defenders in Week 4 with at least 20 coverage snaps. Remember the name, because he’s going to be around for a while.
2. LSU edge Bradyn Swinson. LSU’s pass rush underachieved in 2023, and identifying someone other than Harold Perkins Jr. capable of turning up the heat was a top priority in ’24. Swinson, a late-blooming transfer from Oregon, is rising to the occasion. Coming off a breakout game at South Carolina in Week 3, he was a full-blown terror against UCLA, generating 6 QB pressures, 2 sacks and a forced fumble in a 34-17 win in Baton Rouge.
https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1837598029769064850/
That’s 2 consecutive games with multiple sacks and a forced fumble (both recovered by LSU), matching his output in both categories for all of last season. With Perkins on the shelf, the Tigers are banking on more of the same from Swinson on a weekly basis.
3. LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier. UCLA’s struggling secondary was ripe for the picking and Nussmeier took advantage, finishing 32-for-44 for 352 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Bruins in his best game yet as a starter. He wasn’t picked, wasn’t sacked and uncorked a couple of beauties that are going straight on the draft reel.
https://twitter.com/LSUfootball/status/1837591644461273224/
His best work came after halftime, on a couple of long, time-consuming touchdown drives covering 96 and 92 yards, respectively, as LSU pulled away in a game that was tied 17-17 at the half. Nussmeier accounted for 140 of those yards on 10-for-15 passing, capped by his 3rd TD pass (a short dump-off that freshman RB Caden Durham took the distance) to seal the deal. Playing against type, the Tigers dominated time of possession in the second half, converting 7-of-9 3rd downs, holding the ball for nearly 20 minutes, and limiting UCLA’s offense to just 22 snaps.
4. Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart and WR Tre Harris. Can we get these guys some real competition, please? The Rebels laid absolute waste to the nonconference slate, closing out the target practice portion of the schedule Saturday with a 52-13 massacre of Georgia Southern. Despite the margin, Dart went nearly wire to wire, finishing with a typically fat stat line (22-for-31, 382 yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT) before calling it on a night on Ole Miss’ final possession. As usual, the lion’s share of that output came courtesy of his prolific connection with Harris, whose 11 catches went for a career-high 225 yards and 2 touchdowns, the first of which covered a career-long 70 yards.
https://twitter.com/OleMissFB/status/1837661406545523155/
It’s been that kind of month. The Rebels outscored their 4 nonconference opponents by a combined 220-22, the widest scoring margin in the country.
5. Florida QB Graham Mertz. This space has been tough on Mertz, calling on multiple occasions for him to be benched outright in favor of blue-chip freshman DJ Lagway. (At least I can say I wasn’t alone on that one.) So credit where it’s due: Mertz was in full command at Mississippi State, finishing 19-for-21 for 201 yards and throwing 3 TDs to 3 different receivers in a badly needed, 45-28 win in Starkville that snapped a 7-game losing streak vs. FBS opponents dating to last year. His 218.0 passer rating and 95.1 QBR both represented his best numbers as a Gator.
Granted, that probably says a lot more about the state of state of Mississippi State’s defense than it does about Mertz, who’s not exactly a candidate to turn over a new leaf in his 46th career start. Lagway, rotating in every third series, was 7-for-7 passing for 76 yards off the bench and oversaw a couple of extended touchdown drives covering 91 and 93 yards, respectively; the Bulldogs are quite bad. We’ll see how long the dynamic holds up against a brutal schedule on the other side of an open date in Week 5. In the meantime, the Gators are due for an extended reprieve from the angst.
Fat Guy of the Week
LSU OL Will Campbell. Coming off a subpar Week 3 performance (by his standards) against South Carolina, Campbell was his usual rock-solid self on the blindside against UCLA, shutting out opposing pass rushers on 47 pass-blocking snaps, per PFF. Altogether, he posted the weekend’s top grades among SEC lineman as both a pass blocker (90.1) and a run blocker (83.5), just one more step on his way to going out as LSU’s most decorated offensive lineman since the turn of the century.
Honorable Mention: Texas RB Jaydon Blue, who ran for a career-high 124 yards with 3 touchdowns and added another TD as a receiver in a 51-3 romp over UL-Monroe. … Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr., who had an interception and a sack on a dominant night for the Texas defense. … Tennessee DL Joshua Josephs, who forced 2 fumbles along with a TFL and 3 QB pressures in the Vols’ defensively-driven win at Oklahoma. … Tennessee DB Jermod McCoy, who picked off a pass against OU, broke up another and didn’t allow a reception on 4 targets. … Arkansas DB Doneiko Slaughter, who had a team-high 7 tackles and an interception against Auburn. … Auburn DB Champ Anthony, who broke up all 3 passes targeted in his direction against the Razorbacks. … Kentucky WR Dane Key, who had 7 catches for a career-high 145 yards and fully hurdled a dude in a 41-6 win over Ohio. … Missouri WR Luther Burden III, who accounted for 116 all-purpose yards and 2 touchdowns in a double-overtime win over Vanderbilt, including the game-tying TD in the first overtime. … Missouri RB Nate Noel, who ran for 199 yards on 8.3 per carry. … Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, who accounted for 252 total yards and threw 2 TD passes in a losing effort. … Texas A&M edge rushers Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner, who combined for 6 QB pressures and 2 sacks in the Aggies’ win over Bowling Green. … And Ole Miss LB Chris Paul Jr., who record 10 tackles, 7 QB pressures and 2 sacks in the Rebels’ blowout win over Georgia Southern.
– – –
The scoring system for players honored in Superlatives awards 8 points for the week’s top player, 6 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, 4 for 4th, 3 for 5th, 2 for Fat Guy of the Week, and 1 for honorable mention, because how honorable is it really if it doesn’t come with any points? The standings are updated weekly with the top 10 players for the season to date.
Catch of the Year of the Week
WHAT A BEAUTY pic.twitter.com/rQPht6GcUa
— Arkansas Razorback Football (@RazorbackFB) September 21, 2024
Obscure Stat of the Week
Kickers Blake Craig (Missouri) and Brock Taylor (Vanderbilt) combined to miss 5 field-goal attempts in Mizzou’s double-overtime win over the ‘Dores, with 4 of the errant kicks coming in the 4th quarter and overtime. Craig, who finished 3-for-6 on the day, is the only FBS kicker to miss 3 field goals in a game this season, and the first SEC kicker with 3 misses since October 2021, when Vandy’s Joseph Bulovas went 0-for-3 in a 42-0 loss at Florida.
On the other side of the ledger, though, both kickers also came up big from long-range, with Taylor nailing a 57-yarder just before halftime and Craig connecting on a 54-yarder in the 3rd quarter. Craig also came through from 37 yards out in the 2nd overtime, which turned out to be the game-winner when Taylor subsequently hooked a 31-yard attempt to tie. With that, Mizzou improved to 6-0 in 1-score games over the past 2 seasons.
SEC Power Rankings
Updating the food chain.
1. Texas (4-0). All anybody cared about in the Longhorns’ blowout win over UL-Monroe was Arch Manning’s first career start, but the night belonged to the UT defense. While Manning ran hot and cold, the D was a rock, holding the Warhawks and starting QB General Booty to 2.2 yards per play, 7 first downs and a single possession that crossed the 50-yard line. ULM’s longest gain of the night covered 23 yards, setting up its only points via field goal; otherwise, it didn’t run a play that gained more than 8.
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(LW: 1⬌)
2. Georgia (3-0). It’s Bama-Georgia week! UGA has made just 4 previous trips to Tuscaloosa since the conference’s 1992 expansion, most recently in the 2020 pandemic campaign. Prior to that you have to go all the way back to 2007, in a game that marked a) Nick Saban’s first loss as Bama’s head coach, and b) Georgia’s last regular-season win over the Tide to this day.
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(LW: 2⬌)
3. Alabama (3-0). Per 247Sports’ Composite Rating, there are 143 active players on FBS rosters who began their careers as 5-star recruits; 31 of them play for Alabama or Georgia, or 21.7% of the total. Excluding the SEC, that’s more than any other conference, including the Big Ten, which has 29 former 5-stars across the entire league.
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(LW: 3⬌)
4. Tennessee (4-0). Vols played it safe with Nico Iamaleava in his first true road start, wisely. He was just 3-for-10 on attempts of 10+ air yards, and his 2 fumbles in the first half could have changed the course of the game if the defense hadn’t bailed him out on both counts. But on those glimpses when it all comes together it’s easy to see why he generates so much excitement. The finished product is going to be special; the question is how much longer we have to wait.
– – –
(LW: 5⬆)
5. Ole Miss (4-0). Rebels ain’t played nobody but have looked like you’d expect a contender to look against a string of sub-nobodies. Real competition begins this week against Kentucky.
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(LW: 4⬇)
6. Missouri (4-0). For a top-10 team, Mizzou remains pretty nondescript — unbeaten headed into an open date, as expected, but only by a whisker after a close shave against Vandy. The schedule ramps up on the other side of an open date with a Week 6 trip to Texas A&M, the first real test of whether the Tigers belong in the Playoff race for the long haul.
– – –
(LW: 6⬌)
7. LSU (3-1). The defense was dicey enough with Harold Perkins Jr. at full speed. Now the Tigers have 2 weeks to figure out what it looks like without him against Ole Miss.
– – –
(LW: 8⬆)
8. Texas A&M (3-1). The Aggies moved the ball more effectively against Bowling Green than the 26-20 final score indicated, but they had a long way to go: 9 of their 10 full offensive possessions began at or inside their own 25-yard line. On the other end, they also struggled to finish drives, settling for 4 field goals inside the BGSU 25 — 3 of them on drives that took at least 9 plays and 4-plus minutes off the clock.
– – –
(LW: 9⬆)
9. Oklahoma (3-1). Hey, at least Brent Venables has achieved his mission of improving the defense. But the result is no less one-dimensional than it was under Lincoln Riley and a whole lot less fun to watch.
– – –
(LW: 7⬇)
10. South Carolina (3-1). Not to read too much into a 50-7 trashing of Akron, which is, you know, Akron, but reserve QB Robby Ashford looked great in his first significant action as a Gamecock, accounting for 377 total yards and 3 touchdowns in place of an injured LaNorris Sellers. Sellers still has size, youth and a much bigger arm on his side, not to mention an open date to fully heal from a sprained ankle. As veteran insurance policies go, though, Ashford’s presence is a timely reminder of why it pays to have one.
– – –
(LW: 10⬌)
11. Arkansas (3-1). Hogs won a tough road game they badly needed to keep their heads above water, so QB Taylen Green is spared the hair shirt this week despite going 12-for-27 with 2 interceptions in the process. Green looks and moves like prime Colin Kaepernick, and plays like he’s relearning the game from scratch every time out.
– – –
(LW: 11⬌)
12. Kentucky (2-2). The Wildcats went 3 weeks and 9 consecutive quarters between touchdowns, finally snapping the streak Saturday in the second quarter of a 41-6 win over Ohio. But then, considering the UK defense outscored Ohio’s offense all by itself courtesy of a pick-6 by Maxwell Hairston, the offense’s contributions were largely academic. The next step: Actually putting it in the end zone in a game when the defense can use the help.
– – –
(LW: 13⬆)
13. Vanderbilt (2-2). All 3 of Vandy’s games to date vs. FBS opponents have been decided essentially on the last play, either in the dying seconds of regulation or in overtime. I have no idea what that means for their fate in SEC play, except that as long as Diego Pavia is involved, it’s going to be a lot more interesting than usual.
– – –
(LW: 14⬆)
14. Florida (2-2). Tackling in the Gators’ win at Mississippi State was atrocious on both sides: Per PFF, the defenses combined for 42 missed tackles and 331 rushing yards allowed after contact. Florida WR Aidan Mizell alone was credited with an incredible 10 missed tackles forced on 5 receptions, and that was only the ones that counted.
– – –
(LW: 15⬆)
15. Auburn (2-2). Does Auburn regret firing Gus Malzahn yet? After 8 straight winning seasons on Gus’ watch, the Tigers are well on their way to their 4th consecutive losing record since giving him the boot.
– – –
(LW: 12⬇)
16. Mississippi State (1-3). Whatever slim chance the Bulldogs had of stealing a conference W this season got a little slimmer Saturday night with news that starting QB Blake Shapen is done for the year with a shoulder injury. His understudy, true freshman Michael Van Buren Jr., is a relatively highly regarded prospect capable of banking some points in the “building for the future” column, but the outlook in the win column remains grim.
– – –
(LW: 16⬌)
Moment of Zen of the Week
https://twitter.com/RazorbackFB/status/1837662068956103038/
• • •
Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.
