Like it is

Ole Miss collapse caps average week for SEC

Mississippi head coach Hugh Freeze, center, has words with officials during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Florida State, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Mississippi head coach Hugh Freeze, center, has words with officials during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Florida State, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

For a little more than two hours Monday night, the khakis were khakier, The Square squarer and the Grove Grovier.

The Rebels of Ole Miss were thumping the Titans of Tallahassee 28-13 at halftime in the only televised game of the night, and the final college football game of the opening weekend.

The SEC was getting a couple of fingers around that "best college football conference ever" brag that seems to roll off lips as easy as iced tea does over them.

But it takes more than two hours to play 60 minutes of allegedly amateur football.

Hugh Freeze and anyone who said a word at halftime of that game should forget what they said and never speak those words again.

Florida State scored 23 unanswered points in the third quarter -- two of the touchdowns followed turnovers -- and one of the best teams in the ACC went on to win rather easily, 45-34.

And no longer was the SEC looking like the beasts of the Power Five conferences.

The SEC went 3-4 against Power Five schools, led by Alabama's rout of USC, 52-6, which is now known as Lane Kiffin's payback.

Georgia beat North Carolina and Texas A&M downed UCLA. The Aggies were at home and the Bulldogs in their second home of Atlanta.

On the other hand, Missouri lost to West Virginia, LSU fell to Wisconsin, Auburn went down at the hands of Clemson and the Rebels lost to FSU.

Overall, the SEC was 6-6 in nonconference games this weekend -- pretty sure that's 50 percent. Since 2006, the SEC has won a whopping 80 percent of its nonconference games.

Perhaps the other conferences in the Power Five didn't have quite as tough of an opening weekend schedule, but the ACC was 2-1 against the SEC and 10-2 overall; the Big 12 was 7-3; the Big Ten was 12-2; and the Pac-12 was 7-5.

Keeping in mind the old saying that teams make their most progress between their first and second game, it didn't help the SEC that the Arkansas Razorbacks beat Conference USA member Louisiana Tech 21-20 and Tennessee had to recover a fumble in the end zone in overtime to beat Appalachian State of the Sun Belt. The Hogs and Vols were heavily favored.

It got worse as Kentucky lost to Southern Miss from Conference USA and Mississippi State blew a big lead and fell to South Alabama out of the Sun Belt.

In most years, it is Alabama and then some good teams and then some not-so-good teams. After the opening weekend, the Crimson Tide clearly made themselves the pride of the SEC.

Although Auburn played Clemson close, 19-13, that game left people wondering about Gus Malzahn's quarterback rotation.

Also, LSU is very talented but the play calling looked more like a game from the Big Ten.

If Les Miles wants to keep his dream job, he needs to stop interfering with the play calling. Leonard Fournette up the middle is going to accomplish two things: getting the running back hurt when he runs against a stacked box and piling up the losses.

One of the goals in having a strong running attack is to control the clock. LSU had the ball almost 14 minutes less than the Badgers, and after the Tigers took a 14-13 lead it appeared they played not to lose.

Playing not to lose almost always causes a team to lose.

Football is an aggressive game.

This weekend will tell more about the state of the SEC, but not a whole lot as the headline nonconference games are Arkansas at TCU and Tennessee taking on Virginia Tech at an auto race track in Bristol, Tenn.

Mostly, this will be a weekend of rent-a-win for the SEC as it tries to recover from a very average opening weekend.

Sports on 09/07/2016

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