Three-point stance: Miamis win; more Bret
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Is Georgia that good or is South Carolina that bad? It's a little of both. Greyson Lambert (above) is not Tom Brady, but he sure looked like it against a horrible Gamecocks defense and UGA was more than happy to roll up half a hundred on Steve Spurrier as the two teams head in opposite directions both on and off the field. Remember, this was the same Lambert who couldn't win the starting job at Virginia -- that's right Virginia -- and was 11 of 21 against an awful Vanderbilt team.
So you have to credit the Gamecocks defense for his career-best performance but you also have to credit Mark Richt, who continues to recruit at a stellar level in my opinion and will break through and win the SEC one of these years. The talent level on the Georgia team is off the hook at many positions, the SEC East is full of teams either trying to rise up (Tennessee, Kentucky), rebuild (Florida), stay relevant (Missouri) or are just simply bad (Vanderbilt and now South Carolina), so if Richt doesn't win the division this year, there could be more hot seat talk.
But while UGA expects 10- and 11-win seasons, those days are long gone for the Gamecocks, who finished 7-6 last year after three straight 11-win seasons and are off to a 0-2 start in their own division with zero sign of life. And recruiting is quickly headed that way as well after a 2015 year that saw a ton of de-commitments and a current No. 12 rating in their own conference. Spurrier had hinted at being around for only a few more years before and it's hard to imagine a losing season will do anything to change that.
3. Bret, just stop already!
The hits keep coming for Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema and, while I'm really not supposed to, I can't stop thinking, "Karma is a mean lady." The latest to target the Hawgs coach, who could find himself on the hot seat at the end of this season with a brutal SEC West schedule and back-to-back home losses out of conference, is Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury. Kingsbury, who is doing a great job with the Red Raiders offense, was ticked off at comments Bielema made during a summer convention in front of Texas high school coaches where he mocked the spread offense, the bread and butter of Texas Tech and others in the Big 12.
Kingsbury, the son of a high school football coach in Texas, said "[Bielema] just got his ass kicked twice in a row and probably next week by [Texas] A&M as well. That did feel good."
It's getting hard to keep track of the insane things coming out of Bielema's mouth over the last few years and I'll admit I forgot about his ridiculous public stance against the hurry-up offense and how it leads to injuries, but luckily Kingsbury reminded me. Hey coach, just because you don't like the way some people do things doesn't mean it's not right for someone else. Keep that in mind when it comes to on-field play and off-the-field recruiting.
And his response this week shows he hasn't learned. "If that was an ass kicking, I'd love to see what last year was," Bielema said in response to Kingsbury's comments. "I'm happy he got to vent." How about "no comment" or "I am only focused on A&M."? The more we are reminded of how Bielema has foot-in-mouth disease, the more the Arkansas powers-that-be and boosters will get tired of his act and the losing that goes with it. And the general dislike for the man amongst other coaches because of his constant yammering will lead to some juicy negative recruiting against Arkansas, a program that I think deserves better. This season has the potential to be a 4-8 year and that's not good for anyone, especially in the SEC, even if they make for entertaining and sometimes outrageously ignorant sound bites. Sometimes people can't get out of their own way and we are watching him dig his own grave week after week.
Mike Farrell
National Recruiting Director
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