Randy Smith
I have to say that I told you so. Last week in my SEC picks for week ten, I picked Arkansas to upend the 11th-ranked Florida Gators 34-17. The actual score was 31-10, but the Razorbacks whipped the Gators about as badly as anyone could have thought. Florida's offense accounted for a mere field goal as the Gators' only touchdown came on a pick six. (That's a pass interception returned for a touchdown for those who may be less than adept in football jargon.) I saw it coming.
Even though Florida was 6-1 going into the game and ranked eleventh in the country, I knew that the Gators were a mediocre SEC team at best. I am sticking by my prediction that Florida will
not win the SEC East. I believe they will also lose on
November 19th when they travel to Baton Rouge to face a very good LSU team.
As to who will actually win the East..............you know that basically leaves Tennessee. The same team that was blasted by Alabama 49-10.........the same team that was upset at South Carolina two weeks ago..........the same team that has broken the hearts of their fans so many times in the last two seasons.........the same team that despite the injuries and defections still has the best talent in the SEC East.
When college football teams lose a couple of games they shouldn't have lost, coaches usually say, "We still have a lot to play for." That's actually a very true statement. Tennessee responded well to their loss at South Carolina by trouncing Tennessee Tech from the OVC 55-0. Now we must face the fact that Tennessee Tech is not an SEC caliber football team, but neither was Appalachian State or Ohio University and the Vols barely won those games. It is still very likely that even though the unranked Volunteers are 6-3 overall and 2-3 in the SEC, they could be playing for an SEC Championship on December 3rd in Atlanta. That will happen if Tennessee takes care of their own business and beats Missouri, Kentucky and Vanderbilt to end the season. Those three wins coupled with a Florida loss at LSU puts the Big Orange in the SEC Title game against Alabama or maybe Auburn. You see......there is still a lot to play for.........literally.
As I am discussing games I predicted correctly, I must also mention the Texas A&M loss at Mississippi State, I didn't see that one coming at all! Mississippi State is always good for at least one big surprise each season and it looks as if the Aggies were this year's victim. That loss so devastated A&M they not only have been knocked out of the SEC West race, they have been dumped from the College Football Playoff rankings as well.
As I look over the teams and the records in the two divisions of the SEC, it appears the SEC East is probably as weak as it has ever been. That's not the way it was just ten years ago. When Florida was enjoying the fruits of the Urban Meyer years in Gainesville, Tennessee was pretty good and so were Georgia, and South Carolina. Go back twenty years and perhaps the two best programs in the country were Florida, coached by Steve Spurrier, and Tennessee, coached by Phillip Fulmer - both from the SEC East. The SEC West caught up in a big way when Nick Saban came to Alabama. How dominant is the West over the East in 2016? Just look at last week's Florida-Arkansas match up. Florida was 4-1 while the Hogs were 0-4 in SEC play. The best in the East against a last-place team from the West, and that last place team scored a 31-10 win. That, my friends, is total imbalance.
So, the next three weeks in the Southeastern Conference should be interesting to say the least. If Coach Ed Orgeron at LSU can continue to work his magic in Baton Rouge and if Coach Butch Jones' Volunteers can take care of their own business...........it will likely be a Tennessee-Alabama rematch in the SEC Title game. Just what we all wanted right?
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer.
His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for thirty years.
He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga Television for more than a quarter-century.
In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, (Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith.) They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.