We're off...but not that far off.

So, sitting there on Saturday night watching ball and thinking…

·       I think Clemson would get smashed by Bama.  They’ll break DeShaun.

·       Watching FSU/Clemson is good football.  It looks like SEC football.  They play one of those a year in that league.  We play them nearly every week.

Bama has beaten LSU 5 straight times and 7 of 9.  How come no one is talking about that?  Richt is 3-2 vs. Les and 1-1 in the dome against him.  Bama is beating everyone, but we’ve held our own vs. the Bengals.  

I am angry about what happened in Jax.  I’m angry I took my boys out of school on Friday, paid for a hotel, got them excited about their first cocktail party and they saw that.  I’m angry we hired an OC who doesn’t clearly understand the college game.  I angry we started Faton Bauta.  I’m angry.  I have NEVER thought the Richt regime was over until walking out of Everbank last week.  I told my boys I thought they’d seen the end of an era.  They may have.  The events of the week made it seem even more inevitable.  But the thing about College Football is that you really do HAVE to play the next play, and sometimes you can make up your mind about teams, players, coaches, programs…but they get to play the season.  And tonight I sit in a very gray world instead of black and white.

·       Mighty Memphis and their hot name coach lost by 25 to Navy today.  Is he ready to handle the Triple Option…because the DC he brings with him will have to play it every year in the most important game of the season.

·       Ole Miss dropped to 5-3, losing to a below average Arkansas team.  Freeze made some atrocious calls in the game, and his team made critical mistakes.

·       Dantonio and Mich. St. lost to a terrible Nebraska team, probably knocking them out of any playoff conversation.  It’s still feasible they win that division with a win over Ohio St.

·       TCU and my golden boy Patterson lost by 20 in Stillwater, and they have the best QB in the nation by a mile.

We are an experiment in futility on offense.  I think a good bit of that has to do with an extremely bad hire we made at OC.  I’d be interested to see who had a hand in all the wildcat stuff this week in the meeting rooms.  We’ll never know.  We are also challenged at QB.  This is no secret.  I have no doubt that Bobo would have made Brice, but he might have also led the league in INTs and cost us 2-3 games.  We are also missing Nick Chubb.  And if I’d told you in August that Nick’s last game would be vs. Bama, you’d have said the rest of the season sure wouldn’t be as fun.  We were scared of Knoxville after Bama with Nick, guys.  We are play 28 freshmen in the secondary.

I don’t see a world where Pruitt goes and Schotty stays.  The howling would be too loud.  I also don’t see a scenario where they both go.  Hard to imagine Richt is allowed to start over without us totally starting over.  But, But, But….these last 3 games do matter.  With Ole Miss’s loss, the rest of the season could get interesting in pecking order.  MSU has Bama, Arky and Ole Miss.  Ole Miss has LSU and MSU.  If Florida beats FSU and LSU wins out, they’re both 11-1 and have a very good shot at making the big 6 bowls.  One would probably go peach and one would go sugar.  MSU and Ole Miss could end up with 3-4 losses, maybe both with 4.  That means, and I know you haven’t really thought about this, that there’s a very good chance that if we go 9-3 we’re going to the Citrus Bowl.  Are we going to fire a coach that goes 9-3 and goes to the Citrus Bowl vs. Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St. or Ohio St?  I made the John Cooper analogy, and it’s spot on.  But that seems crazy.  Perhaps we’ve already made up our minds, and that might be healthy.  

But, it’s hard to imagine that these last 3 games don’t matter.  If this team can get to 9-3, that might be a magician’s work.  So, if we play with heart, beat Auburn, Southern and Tech…you’ve got Eason coming in…you’ve got Chubb coming back…maybe we can convince Keith to stay in school and play one more season (looks like he can still play SEC football)…fire schotty…keep Pruitt?  Are we really, really, really ready to blow that up?

And what if we give play-calling to Lilly and hire a QB guru?  What if we hired George Whitfield, Jr.?

And I like Dabo a lot, but when Mark Richt had a decent QB and some tailbacks we beat him by 21…just a season and a half ago.

I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision.  Whatever decision it is, don’t think that McGarity isn’t thinking those exact same things.  We could be as close as we’re going to get under Richt, or we could be mighty close to breaking through.  And there are no guarantees out there. Unless we’re paying $7 million.  Then there might be some guarantees.