SEC Recap, Week 7: Big win for Auburn, big loss for Florida

story by Chris Rushing, College Sports Matchups (CSM is a content partner with The City Wire)
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If you are like me, your head is still spinning from some of the chaos that was on display by Southeastern Conference football teams all day Saturday. Auburn football and Arkansas football combined for 108 points, setting a SEC record for most points scored in a regulation contest.

Mississippi State football did not attempt a single throw after halftime – and won – in Gainesville to hand Urban Meyer and the Gators their first three-game losing skid in years. Kentucky football got that much-needed victory over Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina football team after Spurrier forgot he wasn’t Les Miles.

The highlights were long, the scoreboards added points like these were pinball contests instead of football games and some questionable calls (and no-calls) filled the airwaves both on radio and televisions broadcasts to make it “just another day in the SEC,” as Miles so aptly said following his LSU football team’s narrow victory over Tennessee two weeks ago.

I cannot stress how important this 65-43 win was for Gene Chizik and the Auburn Tigers. After dropping the first two meetings against former AU offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino, the fans of the orange and blue-clad Tigers were getting a bit restless that Arkansas had taken control of this budding rivalry after Auburn won three straight in the series from 2003-05.

Cam Newton has steadily gotten better, and this has raised the overall level of play for Gus Malzahn’s Auburn offense in the process. Malzahn won the lottery when Newton signed on the dotted line to attend Auburn on New Year’s Eve, and I will admit that I was wrong in thinking his impact would be minimal.

Newton has done everything the right way since arriving on campus, and he clearly has the attention of his teammates despite not having lived in town for a full calendar year yet. The weekly awards have been rolling in for the junior signal caller, and this week was no different as Newton was named National Player of the Week by Rivals.com, National Quarterback of the Week by the Davey O’Brien Award as well as SEC Co-Offensive Player of the Week (the third time he has taken home this award in 2010).

Any doubters of Newton’s legitimacy as a Heisman candidate were erased following his first big run of yet another 170-plus rushing yard afternoon as he broke tackles at the line and side-stepped Arkansas linebackers as he raced inside the 10-yard-line. In all, Newton engineered seven touchdown drives, three possessions that resulted in field goals and just two series that ended in punts. He had four touchdowns (3 rushing, 1 passing) of his own, racking up 188 running yards and 140 passing yards in the season-defining win over the Razorbacks.

True, Ryan Mallet had to leave the game in the second quarter after Arkansas took a brief 14-10 lead after sustaining a concussion, but backup Tyler Wilson came out and had the afternoon of his life. Wilson completed 25-of-34 attempts for 332 yards and four scores with his favorite target being Greg Childs (9 catches, 164 yards, 2 TDs).

True, the touchdown “scored” by Mario Fannin was not signaled a touchdown on the field, despite Penn Wagers’ words on the loud speaker after his officiating crew huddled together to discuss what had originally been thought to be a fumble. A change of possession there inside the 5-yard-line instead of an Auburn 17-14 advantage could have changed things, but I doubt it would have altered the final outcome.

True, Broderick Green’s body may have made contact with the ground before he lost the football in the fourth quarter with Arkansas down by two points. There’s no doubt that Auburn hadn’t stopped Wilson and the Hog offense in the second half, so that could have resulted in more points and regaining the lead. However, there was not enough evidence on this call to change what the officials truly signaled on the field and Zac Etheridge did an outstanding job of playing until he heard a whistle as he picked up the pigskin and raced untouched into the endzone to put AU up 51-43.

Not many believed Auburn is better than Arkansas this year heading into this game. The Hogs were believed to be the ones that would give Alabama football its toughest game this year as the Tide marched onto yet another national championship. Auburn was banking its hopes on a junior college transfer with no starting experience in the SEC as well as an offensive coordinator with a gimmick offense that wouldn’t last in this league as evidenced by Auburn’s 2-5 finish in 2009.

Things don’t get easier for the 7-0 Tigers, but this was a big statement to the league and apparently to the country as Auburn crept into the top 5 of the Associated Press and USA Today/Coaches’ polls Sunday.

And it was a win that Chizik needed desperately to help ensure future seasons (and success?) at the helm of the AU program.

• Georgia 43, Vanderbilt 0
This is how bad the SEC East is: Georgia stumbled to an 0-3 showing in its first three league games. After shutting out Vanderbilt Saturday afternoon, the Bulldogs are still one game under .500 in league play.

However, winning out could ensure Mark Richt and Co. a possibility to play for the SEC title on Dec. 4 in Atlanta. Of course, there’s still the need for one massive tie-breaker scenario or another two South Carolina losses, but would any of those scenarios surprise you after seven weeks of subpar play from most of the division’s teams?

• Kentucky 31, No. 10 South Carolina 28
I knew Kentucky was better than 0-4 in the SEC. This is the one and only pick I seemed to be congratulated about from the faithful reader(s) of this weekly column following Anthony Mosley’s game-clinching interception with four seconds remaining on the clock.

Worse yet for South Carolina was the loss of Marcus Lattimore – a byproduct of inexplicably relying on a freshman running back for 20-plus carries every contest in an SEC season. There is no doubt that Lattimore is a true talent and rare specimen completely living up to his out-of-this-world billing but there is such a thing as too much.

Twitter blew up with claims of “the return of the Chicken Curse” following the game, but the truth is that this loss was easily avoidable with just one sustained drive following halftime as well as settling for a game-tying field goal at the end of regulation. Spurrier followed up one of his greatest coaching gems with one of his biggest blunders just seven days apart in a storied career.

Think he’ll make another snide remark at the expense of Tennessee this week?

• No. 9 LSU 32, McNeese State 10
Not much to report on this one as the Bayou Bengals rested up for this week’s huge showdown with fellow undefeated Auburn. LSU football was just 3-of-13 on third down conversions and trailed McNeese State twice in the contest, but this was never really an outcome that was placed into doubt – even by the Mad Hatter’s crazy standards.

One has to wonder why Miles continues to stick with Jordan Jefferson as his starting quarterback despite Jarrett Lee outplaying him throughout the first seven contests. Then again, Miles did claim that Newton would only be his “third quarterback” if Newton had attended LSU instead of Auburn. Just when you think the guy had turned the corner with his praised clock management in Gainesville the week before, he goes out and says something like that in his weekly press conference.

At least he has a talented football team to bail him out.

• Mississippi State 10, No. 22 Florida 7
This win was huge for Dan Mullen and the Mississippi State football program. How big? The Bulldogs moved into the top 25 rankings for the first time since 2001 after improving to 5-2, with a 3-2 mark in SEC contests. MSU is the fifth SEC Western Division school in the polls, giving the West more teams than any other conference occupying those 25 spots. And pundits think that Auburn or LSU could get left out of Glendale by going undefeated?

As I said before, State did not attempt a pass in the second half. The Bulldogs went up 10-0 in the first quarter and held on for the win thanks to more special teams woes from Florida football. Mullen even poured a little salt in his mentor’s wounds by adding that this “was not an upset victory” in his jubilant post-game presser.

Meyer fell to his knees in distraught after Chas Henry missed his 42-yard attempt with four seconds remaining on the clock. Jeff Demps killed a terrific drive with a fumble recovered by MSU on UF’s next-to-last possession, and he wouldn’t return to the lineup in the final Gator attempt to move into scoring position.

Demps did not appear hurt before UF took the field, and if he was injured then my criticism should fall on deaf ears. However, if Meyer held him out to punish the speedster for his costly mistake on the preceding drive, this was a terrible idea as he is the only playmaker left on offense for UF that could change the outcome of the game with one play.

I have said it before this year and it bears repeating: it’s amazing how fast it took schools like Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama and Kentucky to secure more playmakers than Florida on the offensive side of the ball. Especially with the huge success rate UF has sustained throughout Meyer’s first five years in Gainesville.

Most of Meyer’s early critics will claim that they knew all along his offense wouldn’t work in the SEC in the long run. The issue is that the closest thing to Tim Tebow was allowed to leave school two years ago, and John Brantley is not suited for an offense that is well beyond his playmaking means. I have no doubt that Brantley would be a terrific quarterback at just about any other school in the league, but the play calling and lack of a true running back have handcuffed the junior signal caller.

Is the issue Steve Addazio? I’m not ready to say that it is. After all, this is the guy that Meyer was ready to entrust his program while he stepped away for a season. Addazio is a tremendous recruiter and one of the most detailed coaches I have been around. The issue is that he’s being asked to call plays from someone else’s playbook. His playbook would be much better suited for Brantley’s abilities, by the way.

The bigger issue lies in the lack of prototypical wide receivers and running backs that Florida has stockpiled. Meyer cared more about speed than size for the most part, and it’s been difficult to convince top-notch running backs to split so many carries with a man-child at quarterback serving as the short-yardage back.

It’s gotta get better in Gainesville or another staff overhaul will be on the docket this offseason for Meyer. It can get better soon, though, since the Gators still have control of their own division title destinies. This is going to be one of the more interesting off weeks in some time for UF.

• No. 8 Alabama 23, Ole Miss 10
Make no mistake: this game was boring. Very boring.

However, it was not a game that did not avoid drama thanks to a pair of calls that could have helped Ole Miss’ cause at the upset. I’m not saying that the Rebels would have left Bryant-Denny Stadium with a victory, but Houston Nutt has a leg to stand on with his gripe concerning the officiating of the contest between Ole Miss football and Alabama football.

First, the roughing the kicker penalty should not have been a flag. It is true that the defender made contact with the kicker, but he was brought off his feet involuntarily with the Bama blocker throwing him in the direction of the kicker. I could understand missing this call on the field at full speed, but it was pretty evident that the rusher did not leap at the kicker even in real time. That does not warrant a flag.

That puts the game at 3-0 instead of 7-0 and there’s still frustrations abound concerning the Bama offense.

The second questionable call came following Ole Miss’ onside kick attempt. After cutting the deficit to 23-10, the Rebels had momentum – and the football – after jumping on the loose ball faster than the Tide hands team. However, the flag came after the recovery was made. The official stated that Fon Ingram had gotten ahead of the kicker before toe hit pigskin, and the play was nullified.

Don’t worry, Bama fans. I’m not saying that Alabama did not earn this victory. That’s unquestionable – the Tide is much better than the Rebels. And, there wasn’t a shortage of bad calls against Alabama in this game, either. After all, this SEC officiating crew did throw a flag for holding on the UA offensive line. We all know that’s a farce.

Ole Miss travels to Arkansas this weekend while the defending national champions will look to avoid a second-straight close call with struggling Tennessee in Knoxville.