SEC Coaches Performance Report for Week Four
Welcome to the SEC Coaches Stock Market Report, Week Four. We look at SEC coaches and the impact they have on their teams like a Wall Street analyst watches stocks. We are gauging multiple factors to evaluate their performance. But our goal is to let you know who is up, and who is down in the SEC.
Last week, we liked what we saw in Rich Brooks and the match-up his team faced. The experts predicted Arkansas would beat Kentucky by 6.5 points. We predicted that Kentucky would beat Arkansas and it was our SEC Upset of the Week. Brooks has had Kentucky on a roll and Arkansas has had some turmoil. Great conditions for an upset.
This week, SEC winners outpaced losers 7-4. Our two highest performing stocks, those of Les Miles and Urban Meyer, maintained their five-star rating and their spots nears the top of our list. Brooks has Kentucky continuing to beat expectations and Georgia's Mark Richt is re-establishing a base from which to go up.
Two biggest losing stocks were Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban. Their stocks took beatings this weekend as Saban continues to struggle to have his team establish an identity, and Spurrier's lack of confidence in his team lowers our expectations for their performance.
Just so everybody understands the rules of the game; Our analysis is a big picture evaluation which includes a lot of factors. We are not evaluating how well a coach calls a game, unless he completely blows it with the potential of losing the confidence of his team. In our opinion, the SEC has twelve of the best coaches in the nation.
The confidence factor is our confidence in the program going forward; Five ***** being the highest rating. If you want to play at home, send us your rankings. Until then, enjoy. It is a volatile market. The stars indicate how we are feeling about a particular coach and this years team , but what really matters is the rank order of the coaches week to week.
1) Our SEC Coach of the Week for a 2nd week in a row is Rich Brooks of Kentucky. For a 2nd week in a row, Kentucky managed a fourth quarter comeback to beat Arkansas 42-29. Kentucky beat Arkansas on the road in Fayetteville which strengthens their portfolio considerably. We like Andre Woodson a lot, and in this game he broke the NCAA record for consecutive passes without an interception which is now 296. This week, Kentucky hosts 3-1 Florida Atlantic in Commonwealth Stadium. No TV coverage. We like how Brooks has built an offensive juggernaut and possibly positioned Kentucky to make a run for the East title. We will keep them at a 4**** rating since they are on the SEC radar and the surprise factor is over.
2) Who let the Dawgs out? Mark Richt's GA Bulldogs always play well on the road. The Bulldogs were four point underdogs in this game but they perservered. The Bulldogs drove the ball down the field on the first drive like a team on a mission. The crowd was loud and the Bulldogs just kept fighting. Richt demonstrated confidence in his team in overtime when he went for the kill shot on the first play. Touchdown. Game Over. The Bulldogs are back. This week, the Bulldogs will host Ole Miss and there is no TV coverage. We like Georgia and we will keep them at a 4***** confidence rating.
3) Les Miles is sitting on top of the mountain. The Tigers have talent, multiple options and a whole lot of play makers. LSU proved why they are in the Top 3 in the country. The LSU defense shut down Spurrier's running game. The hard hitting safety forced a lot of dropped passes as well. Overall, LSU did what they wanted to with the Gamecocks. Miles could not help himself but to try one trick play on the Ole Ball Coach, and his players executed it to perfection. This week LSU travels to Tulane and ESPN2 picks up the TV coverage. We believe in this LSU team from top to bottom, and they will continue to maintain our highest rating of 5*****.
4) Urban Meyer keeps managing to win games even when the opponent just will not give up. For the fourth week, the Gators managed a 500 yard offensive game. Tebow passed for 261 yards and ran for another 166 yards. We like this Florida team which has a tremendous amount of talent, and Meyer is finding ways to demonstrate his offensive prowess with that talent. But, the defense was exposed in this game by an Ole Miss team that almost pulled an upset. This week Florida hosts Auburn in the Swamp and the game will be carried by ESPN. Auburn was the only team to beat Florida last year so we expect the Gators to be hungry for this game. We were surprised that Ole Miss was able to hang with Florida. However, we believe in this team for now and as long as Tebow is healthy, we will keep Meyer and Florida at a 5***** rating.
5) Ed Orgeron almost pulled the big upset of the week. Ole Miss gave Florida everything they had. Coach Orgeron has a way of getting his teams up for the Top 10 teams. Over the last two years, Ole Miss margin against top 10 teams is five points. Walk-on quarterback Seth Adams threw for 300 yards against the Gators. We believe Ole Miss will give Georgia fits this weekend too. Ole Miss travels to Athens for a Saturday game with no TV coverage. We have seen improvement, but close does not cut it in the boardroom. We are upgrading Orgeron Ole Miss to a 2** rating. Ole Miss has to beat somebody to get moved up higher.
6) Sylvester Croom is riding high with a third consecutive win. Miss State beat Gardner-Webb 31-15 at Scott Field. State had 379 yards of offense, and running back Anthony Dixon is showing promise. For the second week in a row, the defense scored a touchdown on an interception. This week the Bulldogs travel to Columbia to play the Gamecocks. The game will be covered by Lincoln Financial. We believe this game will be closer than the 15 point margin given by the experts. Croom came into the season with his back against the wall and anything could have happened. Thus far, he has positioned his team well and appears to have things headed in the right direction. We are keeping Croom and Miss State at a 3.5 *** confidence rating.
7) Tommy Tuberville showed his team could be resilient with a 55-20 victory over New Mexico State. Tuberville is a competitor, and we will not write off this team. Tuberville is having to rotate two good quarterbacks to get the job done. The Auburn defense created six turnovers which is two more than the total of the three previous games. This week, Auburn travels to the Swamp for the SEC Game of the Week. We think Tuberville may have his team headed in the right direction and will upgrade Tuberville and Auburn to a 3***confidence rating, but we do not believe they will have a chance against Florida.
8) Phillip Fulmer got a breather by playing Arkansas State. Erik Ainge continues to have big passing games, but the defense was ranked 102nd nationally going into this game. We believe having a week off will good for the Vols to re-group. This week, the Vols have a bye week as they prepare for Georgia the following week. We will keep Fulmer and Tennessee at a 3.5*** confidence rating, but if they look bad against GA, expect a big drop.
9) Bobby Johnson had an off week to recover. This week they host Eastern Michigan and the Commodores are heavily favored. We like what Johnson is doing, but as always, he is somewhat limited by the resources at his disposal. We will keep Johnson and Vandy at a 3*** confidence rating.
10) Nick Saban was our rising star. We were bullish on Saban, along with a lot of other experts. We still like the Crimson Tide and believe they will beat Florida State this weekend in a neutral site in Jacksonville, Florida.We do not expect a Saban coached team to lose two weeks in a row. The game will be covered on CBS. We will downgrade Saban and the Tide to a respectable 4**** .
11) Houston Nutt continues to suffer. After losing two weeks in a row, Arkansas faces North Texas in Fayetteville. We saw a lot of turmoil in this team and we picked them as the SEC Upset of the Week even though they were favored by 6.5 points. Arkansas lost another player as running back Michael Smith was arrested this week. The turmoil continues. Arkansas should beat North Texas with no problem. However, we will keep Nutt at a 4**** confidence rating for a couple more weeks, based on his history, until we can see whether they can get it together before the meat of the schedule comes into play.
12) Steve Spurrier pulls up the bottom ranking for the first time. We like Spurrier but this was not his week. When Spurrier stated early in the week that "If the Gamecocks lose".......we knew it would be a tough game. Our rule is that people speak their expectations. And most of the time, expectations become their experience. If the leader does not believe they will win, it is nearly impossible for a team to win. Spurrier teams do better when he is more encouraging and less critical. Losing linebacker Jasper Brinkley for the season will be costly for this team. This week, the Gamecocks hosts Miss State and we believe it will be a good game with the Gamecocks winning. Our confidence rating for the Gamecocks will be downgraded to a respectable 4****.
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