Maybe it’s just me but Week 9 was disappointing and the weirdness came out in some really bad ways. Superficial misery is fun for others at least. Time to check in for signs of life from some of our friends.
Auburn Tigers
Things at Auburn seem to be entering a holding pattern with the hiring of a permanent athletics director expected at any minute. (The sites have some VERY interesting information regarding the search.) I really don’t understand why Bryan Harsin has been allowed to stick around as long as he has. Normally I’d say “there’s more than meets the eye,” but this is Auburn where none of these things rarely work out and definitely never smoothly. But the fan base needs a big coaching hire and with other areas of the athletics department shored up, they have to feed the cash cow. I’m not sure how long the phrases “just Auburn being Auburn” and “war eagle anyways” have been a part of Auburn’s message board vocabulary but there are a lot of geniuses who are holding their collective breath as this all begins to unfold because they’ve seen this play one too many times and are all too familiar with the ending.
Penn State Nittany Lions
James Franklin’s first year in Happy Valley was 2014. Since then, his record against the top 5 is pretty, pretty, pretty bad. And he’s getting paid more than $7.5 million annually with those results. It makes no sense. He’s kept Penn State a stable, top 15 level program which is very good but the flirting with jobs to leverage a higher salary from PSU coming off a somewhat disappointing season has gotten out of hand. If he wants to stay by all means let him because things definitely aren’t bad but y’all have given up enough until he actually does something.
Kentucky Wildcats
As if the 44-6 loss to Tennessee wasn’t enough, old wounds have reopened and according to the fans, Coach Cal was right: Kentucky IS a basketball school. The football fans are all rightfully disappointed because this was an important year for the program to establish itself. Now moving forward, they’ll be competing with Florida and South Carolina for the 3-5 spots in the SEC East. That won’t be easy, especially when a large portion of the fan base looks down on its football program. Meanwhile the basketball program held a scrimmage Sunday night and it’s gotten far more coverage than the football loss. The window for Stoops at Kentucky feels like it’s beginning to close.
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That’s a wrap on Week 9. I’ll be back later this week with my list of Top 5 Most Entertaining Games. Until then, y’all be good.
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