Starting 11: Tommy Can't Get His Helmet off Edition

Happy Halloween.

This year y'all killed it with SEC related costumes. If you haven't already seen the best costumes that we put up on OKTC, you need to click here now. Sarah Palin and Glen Rice, Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth, A.J. McCarron's chest tattoo, the LSU Honey Badger, Harvey Updyke and a tree, and Barbara Dooley? These were all genius costumes. Every single one. Most impressive of all was that you're all readers of OKTC. Which confirms something that I've been feeling for a while now, OKTC readers are, by and large, some of the smartest and funniest on the Internet. 

Notwithstanding the occasional, "your gay," I love checking my email and Twitter feed just to see what you guys are passing along. 

I don't say it enough, but an awful lot of this site's success is thanks to y'all. In fact, the numbers reflect it. Sixty percent of our site traffic is shared content. That is, you guys are passing along our links to your friends. Whether that's on Twitter, Facebook, or via email, that's incredibly gratifying. There are an awful lot of sites out there that rely almost exclusively on Google search to drive most of their site traffic. This isn't one of them.    

1. Okay, let's start off with a video that is going to inexplicably entertain you too.

A 7 year old kid can't get his football helmet off.

 Anyone doubt this was Lane Kiffin 25 years ago?

2. James Franklin has Vandy playing at a different level.

Yes, I know, Vandy still missed a 27 yard field goal and gave up a 94 yard fumble recovery for a touchdown. But did you notice something else about this Arkansas game? Vandy outplayed Arkansas on both lines of scrimmage. Don't believe me? Look at this box score. 

Vandy had 80 more total yards and outrushed Arkansas 222 yards to 72 yards. The Dores also delivered crippling shot after crippling shot to Arkansas's Tyler Wilson. Jay Cutler, standing on the sideline, had to be thinking, This looks an awful lot like a Mike Martz offense.

Credit to Tyler Wilson for taking the beating.

The upshot of all of this? Vandy almost beat a top ten team at home for the first time since 1937. And there was no smoke and mirrors involved. It was blue collar football. 

If the Dores don't fumble at the three yard line on second and goal it's 35-20 with 12 minutes to play. I know, I know, Vandy fumbled. This time. That won't happen in every big game of the James Franklin tenure.

The biggest fear for Vandy fans is that Franklin has been too good too soon. He's going to get offers by next season and if Vanderbilt fans don't start showing up to show some support Franklin my leap at those opportunities.

At my Halloween party, a former Vandy athlete, confessed he was afraid the Vols would end up hiring away Franklin. I love that idea. I'd trade Dooley for Franklin in a heartbeat. Vandy fans would be furious at this trade. 

What does that tell you Vol fans? Vandy fans would be upset if Dooley was their coach.   

3. As for Arkansas, the Razorbacks are an SEC pretender.

They have an awful lot more in common with the middle tier of the SEC than they do with Alabama and LSU. I'm taking South Carolina in the road upset this weekend and it wouldn't surprise me if Mississippi State also pulled off the road upset.

And there's no chance that Arkansas is hanging with LSU this year.

Zero.

LSU will run for 300 yards or more against that defense.

4. We had South Carolina-UT on from our Halloween party.

At one point Chad Withrow, one of the mid-day show hosts on Nashville's 104.5 the Zone, and me were standing outside watching the game on an indoor television from my back porch.

We were outside because that's where the keg was. As we stood there shivering on the porch, Justin Worley threw a goal line interception. Withrow turned to me and said: "This is a perfect metaphor for our program. Standing outside in the cold, shivering, while our team throws another goal line interception."

He's right.

Lots of you emailed after this game to apologize for critizing my take on Derek Dooley. In his coaching career Derek Dooley is now 0-16 against top 25 teams and he's 3-21 all time against teams that finished with winning records.

So far Dooley has avoided a disastrous loss. But one is coming.

How far has UT fallen? Vol fans were upset at Prentiss Waggoner getting tackled at the two yard line on his spectacular interception return. Why? Because we all knew our offense couldn't score from there.  

5. Houston's Case Keenum threw 9 touchdown passes in fifty minutes of football last Thursday.

This achievement was completely overshadowed by game six of the World Series, but I actually watched some of this game. Keenum reminds me a bit of Colt Brennan. That is, he's not the strongest armed quarterback out there, but he's got a perfect read on that offense.

Meanwhile, expect to hear Kevin Sumlin's name everywhere this fall. He plays an exciting brand of football, he's been to three bowl games in four years at Houston -- last year's team was 5-7 -- and his team is likely to win at least 12 games this year.

Will UCLA come calling? Arizona? They both should. Sumlin is about to get rich. Really damn rich.

6. Lane Kiffin and USC got screwed at the end of regulation.  

For the record, I'm done with my Kiffin hate. Yes, he cheated his ass off at UT. Yes, he has no charisma and he falsely sold UT fans a bill of goods by saying the Vols were awful when they weren't. (One of the great stats from Kiffin's first year at UT was that the Vols were favored to win nine games his first year. Kiffin won seven. Bare cupboard my ass. It got bare when Kiffin ran off over 30 Fulmer recruits who would be providing depth now.) But I would trade Derek Dooley to USC for him in heartbeat.

I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, but at least it wouldn't be Dooley.

In case you missed this, here's the end of game sequence.

Two comments, first, why should the clock stop when the referee signals it as opposed to when the coach calls the timeout? This makes no sense. Especially with replay. How often do you see a coach standing next to a ref and say he wants a timeout at a specific time. The clock stops at that time, not when the ref signals. Second, Woods was definitely out-of-bounds with one second left. That knee being down justification is ridiculous -- can you really tell incontrovertibly that his knee touches the ground, I can't -- and if he's truly down in bounds it sure looks like Kiffin gets the timeout called. He's down in bounds with two seconds left.  

Now, for Kiffin criticism, why run the middle screen here? Shouldn't you be aware that the clock might run out when the play is designed to take that long? If Woods had really busted that play for a big gain then the clock definitely runs out. As is, the best thing that could have happened here was Woods gaining about ten yards and going down in bounds with a couple of seconds left. That seems like a poor risk/reward situation and not very good clock management.

So Kiffin got screwed on the ending here, but he should have been smarter on his play calling.

7. Paranormal Activity 3 is terrifying.

I went to go see this movie solo late on Sunday night. Bad move. (This was the first solo movie I've seen since G.I. Joe).

When I came home -- my wife and the boys were at my in-law's for the night -- I turned on every light in the house, locked the bedroom door, and put barricades in front of the door.

And I still had nightmares.

The most terrifying scenes in this movie are the most simplistic -- an old school video camera is set up on an oscillating fan and every moment of the camera on the fan is terrifying. Every single moment.

And the ending?

It's terrifying.

8. If Oklahoma State loses to Oklahoma and Stanford loses to Oregon, there is zero doubt that LSU and Alabama will rematch.

On 3HL we had on Todd Fuhrman, who sets the lines at Caesar's, and he confirmed what I think most college football fans already thought -- LSU and Alabama would be favored over every other team in America by nearly a touchdown.

If that's the case, how can anyone argue that LSU and Alabama aren't the best two teams in the country? I'll have more on Grass Bowl I this week, but it's looking more and more like Bama and LSU will rematch.

9. Congrats to Georgia fans on the Cocktail Party win.

I've been there for a ton of those games so I know the Bulldog fan pain.

Anyone else convinced that Urban Meyer bailed on Florida because he saw what life without Tim Tebow was going to be like?

The Gators were 48-7 during Tim Tebow's four years.

They're just 12-9 since he left.

Yep, they've already lost two more games in a season and a half than they lost in four years with Tebow. It's likely the Gators will lose to

10. The "mini-Sabans", Dooley and Will Muschamp, are now a combined 2-9 in the SEC this season.

One of those SEC wins came when Dooley and Muschamp played each other and someone had to win and lose.

Those nine losses are more SEC games than Nick Saban has lost in five years at Alabama. What's more, Saban only has lost 19 SEC games in his ten year SEC career. After the Arkansas game Dooley will have lost 11.

11. Happy Halloween from the Travis boys.

Fox looks a little bit like Princess Leia here, but he's actually just a ghost. Meanwhile, this might be the least terrifying Darth Vader of all time. 

Hope y'all had a great Halloween as well.