SEC Season Begins Saturday

The first SEC games of the season take place this Saturday with State traveling to the Loveliest Little Village, South Carolina and Georgia hooking up in Athens, and Vanderbilt trying to continue their winning streak at Arkansas.

Auburn will try to figure out what went wrong last weekend against the Jackets and then attempt take out their frustration on the Bullpups. The last time AU lost a season opener (USC in 2003) they followed up the next weekend with a big upset loss to GT. Will history repeat itself?

A lot has been written about Spurrier's return to the SEC, but the real story this weekend is whether or not Georgia is as good as they looked against Boise State. Anyone else think UGA's offense looked vaguely similar to FSU's, you know, back when Charlie Ward was running the show? Spurrier said Shockley is a Heisman candidate this year. Mind games? We'll find out Saturday.

Southern Miss and Alabama play their annual game in Tuscaloosa this weekend. The Tide needs to get their offense moving after an unimpressive outing last week. And USM needs to show if their defense can be as competitive as in the past without their long time DC Tyrone Nix, who is now the co-defensive coordinator for the Gamecocks.

Vandy got a nice win last week at Wake. But traveling to Arkansas is another story.

LSU finally gets to play a game, albeit on the road, when it travels to Arizona State this weekend. The game was originally scheduled to be played at Tiger Stadium, but Katrina ensured that wouldn't happen. LSU has faced a lot of distractions this past week while assisting hurricane victims in Baton Rouge. Hopefully, the Tigers will play well. They deserve it.

A couple likely routs round out the SEC weekend with La Tech in the Swamp and Idaho State traveling to Kentucky. Yawn.