Rusty's Blog

Say what you will about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.
- Jim Halpert on The Office

When Tennessee shitcanned its second winningest football coach in school history near the end of last season — a man who gave almost 40 years of his life to his university — it signaled not just a change in personnel, but a radical change in philosophy.

UT was one of the last holdouts of an era when coaches were grown at home, and stayed at home. The new era is one of mercenaries, ushered in by the hated Gators and Crimson Tide, but one that was inevitable with rising expectations.

It should never be a surprise when a mercenary does an about face and turns his sword toward the last bag of money when the next bag of money comes along. And while it is never a surprise, it still can be shocking when it actually happens, as it was last night.

So I don’t blame UT athletic director Mike Hamilton for hiring He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken. He was just trying to give UT fans what they were asking for and did the best he could with the available information and pool of coaching talent. If you’re not careful, your school will give you what you ask for too.

Here are the final results. Many apologies for the misfire a couple of days ago. As I plan to do when anything else goes wrong this year, I blame He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken.

Also, thanks for playing. It’s been a lot of fun.

Tiebreaker

The final tiebreaker, which ended up not being necessary, was “How many points will all 10 SEC bowl-bound teams score in their games combined?” The answer if you’re curious was 262.

This footage is from my grandparents’ 1961 trip starting in Jekyll Island and ending in Jacksonville, Florida where they watched Georgia Tech and Penn State play in the Gator Bowl on December 30, 1961. Penn State won 30-15.

To give you an idea of how long ago 1961 is in football years:

• Joe Paterno was still an assistant coach for Penn State. It would be another five years before he was named head coach.
• Georgia Tech was coached by Bobby Dodd, and was still a member of the SEC. It would be another three years before Tech defected from the SEC due to Dodd’s dispute with Alabama coach Bear Bryant.

I’ve broken a single 400-foot reel of 8mm film into three parts due to YouTube’s 10-minute limit on uploads:

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Part 1 (6:53)

The trip down. This might be boring to you, but it was interesting to me. Lots of footage of roadside signs, old cars, and what a lot of locales between Jeckyll Island and Jacksonville (Camden, Georgia is the one I could recognize by name, but there were others) looked like at the time.

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Part 2 (9:15)

Warm-ups, pre-game show and 1st half. See if you can recognize the coach stalking the goal line in warm-ups. I don’t think it’s Bobby Dodd, but I could be wrong.

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Part 3 (7:48)

Halftime show, 2nd half, fans’ exit. I love the floats, they’re like something out of a movie. Then seeing the Ramblin’ Wreck exactly as it is now ties the whole thing experience together for me as something real. Tell me if you think that’s a young Joe Paterno walking with the Penn State mascot before the game starts back up. I think it might be, but I can’t tell.

Nobody wins! See the tiebreaker section for an explanation.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many passing yards will Nebraska’s defense give up against Texas?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards passing will Cincinnati’s starting quarterback accumulate against Illinois?” Tony Pike threw for 399. Neither Ben nor writerchad bothered to guess a tiebreaker, so nobody won last week.

Bonus question: How many goddamn times will the announcers mention Tim Tebow’s name during the SEC championship game broadcast unrelated to a play that just happened on the field?

An entire bar tab to whoever actually counts. A bar tab and a meal to go with it if you make a video montage containing every unrelated-to-play-on-the-field utterance of “Tebow” from the broadcast. This is open to anybody, not just those playing picks.

Griftdrift appears to be pulling away, but writerchad will tell you that one bad week can open the door for other players to make a comeback. There’s only three weeks left, so finish strong.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many yards passing will Cincinnati’s starting quarterback accumulate against Illinois?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many fans will attend the Maryland-Florida State game?” The answer, according to the FSU Official Athletic Site, was 66,042. That makes griftdrift this week’s winner, as his guess was 3,959 off the total and mine was 4,008 off.

If we have a situation in the future where two players’ margin is the same, but one guessed over and one guessed under, the winner will be the player whose guess was lower than the actual total. Adjust your guessing strategies accordingly.

I’m glad it’s competitive at the top in this contest, unlike in the SEC, where there’s Florida, Alabama and a bunch of teams that like to tease you with a few decent games only to collapse under the weight of their own meager expectations.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many fans will attend the Maryland-Florida State game?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards of offense will Vanderbilt and Kentucky combine for in their Clash of the Titans?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 608. Jason was closest with his guess of 595.

C’mon, y’all aren’t really going to let Carl take this contest three years in a row, are you?

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many yards of offense will Vanderbilt and Kentucky combine for in their Clash of the Titans?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many total sacks will all defenses in the Coaches’ Top 25 poll register against opposing offenses combined?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 56. Sara’s answered exactly 56.

I was hoping the blackout trend had played itself out after Alabama mopped the floor with Georgia last year. No such luck, as both Georgia and Tennessee came out with some black apparel this past Saturday.

In Tennessee’s case, at least there’s a historic precedent that will let me rationalize the black jerseys as throwbacks rather than as the sacrilegious trendhopping gimmick they probably are: the Vols wore black jerseys in 1921 before switching to orange in 1922. Fortunately it worked out last Saturday, but being a little superstitious, I was against the idea when I first heard it might happen.

In Georgia’s case, it comes off in hindsight as a desperate last gasp from a coaching staff that’s out of ideas for how to motivate their players to recover a lost season. Of course, it’s always a good play call when it works, and a bad one when it doesn’t.

Oh, and Lane Kiffin is undefeated against Steve Spurrier. Heh. The gas pumping jokes still aren’t old to me, so keep them coming.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many total sacks will all defenses in the Coaches’ Top 25 poll register against opposing offenses combined?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many rushing yards will Georgia gain against Florida?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 121. writerchad’s answer of 123 was closest.

I had dinner reservations in Epcot Center this past Saturday I’d made before I knew what time the UT-Bama game would be, and missed the last few minutes. Naturally, my Vols came within a blocked field goal of beating the number one team in the country on its home field while I was gone. So it’s probably my fault they lost.

I dropped Garrett, kwakkwak and rugby from the standings since Garrett quit last week and the other two haven’t submitted anything since week 1.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many rushing yards will Georgia gain against Florida?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many passing touchdowns will all PAC 10 defenses allow combined?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 13. Carl’s answer of 12 was closest.

A couple of programming notes this week:

• Patrick says Google Forms ate his picks last week. Since someone else reported the same thing a few weeks ago, and since he did leave a tiebreaker, I’m inclined to believe him. The picks he resubmitted after the fact made him the winner of last week with 10 points.
• I’ll be on vacation Monday through Saturday and will be trying to avoid the computer as much as possible. Thus, I may not see your comment, email or Twitter message for quite a while, if at all, before Sunday night. So you may want to email me your no-covers as a back-up in case Google Forms eats your picks like it’s done to a couple of people.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many passing touchdowns will all PAC 10 defenses allow combined?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards of offense will Oklahoma put up in the Red River Shootout?” The answer was 311. Among Sara, Seth and Writerchad, Seth’s guess of 374 yards was closest, making him the week 7 winner!

In case you’re wondering if winning a particular week is meaningless, it does count toward the final tiebreaker at the end of the season.