ESPN College Football

Originally Published: September 6, 2006

Just For Argument's Sake ...

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By Ivan Maisel
ESPN.com
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From nagging questions to soapbox moments to Heisman hype, here's a look at the hottest topics in college football.

1. FSU-Miami I: Are the offenses that bad? Or are the defenses that good?
It is the chicken versus laid-an-egg question of the week. The worst in a ream of bad statistics in the Seminoles' 13-10 victory: Miami had two rushing yards to Florida State's one. AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez Bobby Bowden and Larry Coker weren't laughing about combining for three rushing yards on Monday. Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden pretended to object to that stat. "We would have won that battle if we hadn't taken that knee on that last play," Bowden said Tuesday afternoon. "We would have doubled them." Bowden's math is correct. If Drew Weatherford hadn't taken a knee for a loss of three yards, Florida State would have gained four rushing yards to Miami's two. More to the point, beyond even the meager yards -- Florida State's 176 yards to Miami's 134 -- is that the Hurricanes made more mistakes than did the Seminoles. In six second-half possessions, Miami gained only 12 yards, and coach Larry Coker explained why in his press conference Tuesday. "The calls and those sorts of things were fine," said Coker, who has lost two consecutive games for the third time in his six seasons at Miami. "But you have a dropped snap on a shotgun snap, a bad snap by the center, you have a fumbled exchange with a quarterback and a running back, and you have a dropped pass. You can make all the [halftime] adjustments you want, but you've got to execute those things. I think offensively, with some young players, we are thinking too much. Let's go play. Let's go play and be aggressive and don't think too much about the next play. We've got to play in the moment." Those mistakes are the price paid for playing in a new offensive scheme for the first time against a team as quick as any the Hurricanes will see all season. Coker reminded everyone that, as painful as the loss might have been, it is still only one loss.
2. FSU-Miami II: Has Labor Day night sucked all the fun out of the rivalry?
Once upon a time, the rivalry between the Seminoles and Hurricanes became the showcase for college football. The teams reached mid-October with one or both of them in the top five or higher. The games surged, momentum shifting from one sideline to the other, until the winner emerged in the final minutes. Richard C. Lewis/WireImage.com Defenses have dominated since FSU-Miami moved to Labor Day. Then, in 2004, someone had the bright idea of playing the games on Labor Day night. Florida State coach Bobby Bowden and Miami coach Larry Coker love the national exposure. The loser loved the idea of having all season to make up the ground conceded in the ACC and national championship races. There's been only one problem: The games have stunk. No, that's not entirely accurate. They have been close. But the quality of play has suffered. Two years ago, the game wasn't even played on Labor Day night, but, thanks to the arrival of Hurricane Frances, four nights later. Miami prevailed, 16-10, in overtime. Last year, the Seminoles won, 10-7, despite gaining only 170 yards of total offense mostly behind quarterback Drew Weatherford. Florida State sacked Miami quarterback Kyle Wright nine times. Finally, on Monday night, the teams combined for 17 first downs and 310 yards, including a grand total of three yards rushing, as Florida State held on again, 13-10. The offensive problems of both teams have been well-chronicled. But offenses do mature as the season goes on. For instance, last season, Miami won at Virginia Tech 27-7. Florida State upset the Hokies 27-22 in the ACC Championship Game. On Monday night, the Hurricanes introduced their new two-tight-end offense, and the running game appeared to sorely miss a fullback. Florida State had only four offensive starters who started against Miami a year ago. It sounds as if I'm suggesting that the Miami and Florida State should move off the first weekend so that they can each schedule a tune-up the way that many of their I-A brethren do. That's not my motivation. But it's plain to see that the experiment of moving this rivalry to Labor Day night has left the rivalry a shell of what it used to be. One thing is certain. The two teams won't play on Labor Day 2007. Miami has a contract for a game at Oklahoma on the following Saturday. If the Hurricanes kept the Florida State game on Labor Day night, they would arrive home from Tallahassee in the wee hours Tuesday, and three days later have to travel to Norman. The Miami-Florida State game has moved to Oct. 6. Florida State athletic director Dave Hart told several reporters Monday night that the Seminoles want to keep the Labor Day slot, which belongs to the ACC in its contract with ESPN and ABC. The likely opponent is Boston College or Clemson.
3. What was Lew Perkins thinking?
Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins announced the other day that the university had torn up head coach Mark Mangino's contract, which expired after the 2008 season, to give him a new five-year deal that will pay Mangino $7.5 million. Mark Mangino, who has gone 19-29 in four seasons, will make $1.5 million per year. Mangino, who has yet to have a winning season in the Big 12 North -- which ain't exactly the NFC East -- got a 150 percent raise over the $600,000 annual salary in the contract that Perkins tore up. "We had a good coach," Perkins said. "We're moving in the right direction." AP Photo/Dick Whipple Kansas gave Mark Mangino a nice raise. Perkins is not riding in his first rodeo. He is regarded as one of best athletic directors in the country. He ran the ship at UConn as Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma built it into men's and women's basketball powers, and he had the foresight and the backbone to take the Huskies I-A in football. But $1.5 million? "That put Mark fifth [in salary] in the Big 12," Perkins said. "He went from last to fifth. He's tied for fifth with the guy at Nebraska (Bill Callahan). We were comfortable with that. We thought that was fair. The expectations are bigger and stronger now." It is true that Mangino has raised the bar higher than where he found it. You could have stepped over it before he arrived. "He has been here four years," Perkins said. "We've gone to two bowls. We won our bowl last year [42-13, over Houston, in the Fort Worth Bowl] … We just wanted to send a message that football is important at this university. The things that they haven't had here are continuity and stability." Perkins wanted to send a message that Mangino is his guy. That's noteworthy, if only because Mangino took the job the year before Perkins arrived in Lawrence. The popular wisdom is that an athletic director is quicker to fire a coach he didn't hire. Perkins called that wisdom "overrated." OK, OK. But $1.5 million? Perkins came up as a basketball coach. In 1979, his last year before he moved into athletic administration, Perkins coached the South Carolina-Aiken men's basketball team. He thinks he made about $19,000. Now, Perkins is paying his football coach about 79 times his last coaching salary. "I'm like everybody else," Perkins said. "It's what the market value brings. Do I agree with it? Probably not. It's nuts. But if we are going to compete in the league we're in and run a program at this level, you have to take a deep breath and do what you have to do or you're going to lose him. You lose a guy that you didn't pay an extra $200,000 or $300,000, then it's $1-million-plus to change coaches." Perkins is right. Pay the coaches on the old staff, pay salaries to lure new coaches, pay moving expenses, pay for the changes the new coach wants … "He was making $600,000," Perkins said. "A lot of I-AA coaches are making that. We wanted to show him he was important to us. We're not going to have the lowest-paid coach in the conference. If we're going to compete and help our coaches to compete, we have to give them everything we can."

Soapbox Moment

There's no sugarcoating it. The new clock rules are the worst change to happen to college football in the 20 years that I have covered it. Worse than the BCS formula, worse than Oregon's Fighting Hi-Liter uniforms, worse than banning the fumblerooskie. Jon Way-US PRESSWIRE Florida's Urban Meyer doesn't like the new clock rules. College football fans have been defrauded. Tickets cost the same or are higher than a year ago, and yet the games offer considerably less football. It's the ol' grocery trick. A manufacturer shaves a couple of ounces off its package size without ratcheting down the price. "We're not raising our prices!" the ads read. Yes, but you're lowering the amount of the product. How is that good? Take the Florida State-Miami game on Monday night. At the beginning of the third quarter, Florida State ran seven plays and punted. Miami ran three plays and punted. Two possessions. One first down. Only 8:01 remained in the third quarter. With 2:19 to play in the game, Miami, trailing 13-10, punted the ball out of bounds at its 45-yard-line. Smart play, right? It didn't matter. The Hurricanes, trailing 13-10, still had to use one of their timeouts to stop the clock until Florida State snapped it. The two teams combined for 110 offensive plays. So did Oklahoma and UAB on Saturday, the fewest number of snaps in a Sooners game in the last 50 years. That's also 17 fewer than the average for the rest of the I-A games on the first weekend and a whopping 31.4 plays fewer than the average in 2005. Think about that. The Hurricanes and the Seminoles played nearly an entire quarter of football less than the average game a year ago. "We don't want it to be 55 plays per team. That was not the intention," said Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, a member of the NCAA Football Rules Committee, which made the change after last season. "The intention was to cut the length of the game down." Tuberville said the committee wanted to make the games shorter for the welfare of the players, who are playing one extra game per season. Style of play has some effect on the number of plays. Notre Dame and Georgia Tech scored only one more point than did Florida State and Miami, yet the Fighting Irish and the Yellow Jackets combined for 130 plays. The Georgia Tech defense forced Notre Dame to attack wide, and the Irish went out of bounds regularly. Coaches are upset, which is interesting, because coaches make up most of the membership of the NCAA Football Rules Committee. That's the group that adopted the change last winter after a few bowl games ran longer than "The Brothers Karamazov." "We had 10 possessions," Florida coach Urban Meyer said Monday in his press conference of the Gators' 34-7 victory over Southern Mississippi. "That is not enough. You work awful hard and 10 possessions are just not enough. Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss had nine. … Last year we averaged 14 possessions a game and we are down to 10 now." Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione said, "If you want to know how I like the rule changes, I don't. I just did not think we needed to do that. After one game, I'd still say that. Maybe I'll change as we go through the season. I'm willing to give it time to see. I don't like it." Tuberville wants to see teams play five or six games before he makes any definitive comments about the rule. I don't. The committee had good intentions, but made a poor decision. The rule needs to be changed.

Whatever Happened To …

… the punter/placekicker. In this specialized age, when coaches complain that they can't make do with fewer than 85 scholarships in a game in which only 11 can play at a time, South Carolina sophomore Ryan Succop is a rarity. He handled all three kicking jobs for the Gamecocks in their season-opening 15-0 victory at Mississippi State last Thursday. Succop, a native of Hickory, N.C., averaged 48.7 yards on six punts, with a net average of 47.9. He made field goals of 39, 35 and 47 yards, and two of his five kickoffs earned touchbacks. He also reacted to a breakdown in his punt protection by taking off for a 16-yard gain, niftily shifting the ball from his right arm to his left. Succop finished that drive by kicking the second of his three field goals. And his leg didn't fall off Friday morning. "I know I've coached a lot of games and I've never had a kicker-punter have a game like that," coach Steve Spurrier said after the game, according to The Mobile Register. "He had an All-America punting-kicking-running night." Succop has the good fortune to play for Spurrier, who believes in multitasking. While Spurrier was winning the Heisman Trophy for Florida in 1966, he also was the Gators' punter. Spurrier averaged 40.3 yards per punt in three seasons. He remains beloved among Gators for his winning 40-yard field goal -- yes, field goal -- with 2:12 to play to beat Auburn, 30-27, in that 1966 season. Last season, Josh Brown punted and kicked for the Gamecocks. His leg didn't fall off, either. Succop watched and learned how Brown handled his practice day. The puzzle for any kicker who handles punting and placekicking, much less kickoffs, is how to practice all three without wearing himself out, physically or mentally. The reason that more kickers don't handle more than one chore is that they are, in fact, notably different. "Kicking off doesn't take too many proper techniques," Succop said. "You just go out and try to kick the ball as hard as you can. With punting and placekicking, [each has] a different motion. Your leg swings a little different. Punting, you're trying to swing straight up through the ball. Kicking, you're coming straight through the ball, but it's a different swing. Punting, you got to work on your drop. There's a little more technical stuff." The other keys are to focus on drills that don't involve kicking, and to reserve a daily seat in the post-practice ice bath, which is just like a Jacuzzi, that is, give or take the jets and about 65 degrees of temperature. "You only have to hit 20 to 25 field goals and 20 to 25 punts a day," Succop said. "A mistake I made in high school is I kicked too many. I might taper off a little bit during the season." Succop meant practice kicks. Odds are, his production will taper off, too. If he continues to score 60 percent of South Carolina's points per game, his leg might fall off after all.

Introducing

In one sense, UCLA redshirt sophomore Ben Olson needs no introduction. Great things have been expected of him since he enrolled at BYU in 2002. After one year there and a two-year LDS mission, Olson returned near his Thousand Oaks, Calif., home to UCLA and spent last season as understudy to Drew Olson (no relation). Jeff Gross/Getty Images Ben Olson threw for 328 yards and three TDs against Utah. However, it's one thing to have potential. It's entirely another to start to realize it, and so quickly. By completing 25 of 33 passes for 318 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, Olson not only led the Bruins to a 31-10 victory over a talented Utah team, he won Pacific-10 Conference Offensive Player of the Week. He also, by virtue of his background and age, introduced himself to the national stage. There is less concern that Olson will hit a wall, less concern that new defenses and hostile crowds will unnerve him. When you're already 23 years old and you've had doors shut in your face in western Canada for two years, screaming fans don't exactly make you jittery. With games against Rice, at Washington and Stanford up next, Olson has a schedule that ramps up slowly toward October showdowns at Oregon and Notre Dame. Given his fast start, it is tempting to think of the Oct. 21 game at Notre Dame Stadium as a matchup of two of the best passers in the nation. That's when it's time to step back and remember that Olson has one start. But there's something about Olson that's different. UCLA's issues after last season centered more on defense. But it's reassuring for Bruin fans to find out -- and find out so quickly -- that the transition from Drew Olson to Ben Olson is seamless.

Just A Thought

The BCS has a consistent record of driving out of its way to find a pothole, but give it credit. We take for granted the fact that No. 1 vs. No. 2 will meet every year (unless it's 2000, 2001, or 2003 -- but let's not go there again). Tom Cammett/WireImage.com Ted Ginn Jr. and the Buckeyes invade Austin on Saturday. That's why it stunned me to discover that Ohio State-Texas game Saturday night is the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 game in the regular season in 10 years. The last one was No. 2 Florida State's 24-21 upset of No. 1 Florida in Tallahassee in 1996. That's when I realized that it would be wise to stop and give the BCS credit. Yeah, I said it. The formula might be an abomination, and playoff proponents wish the BCS would wander off into the woods and die, but the BCS does a lot better job of giving us No. 1 vs. No. 2 than do the schedule-makers. This game would have been big without the rankings. It proved to be riveting last season at Ohio Stadium. The fact that the Buckeyes are No. 1 and the Longhorns are No. 2 is just the cherry. But if the game comes down to one player making one play to win it, that moment will stick to his résumé for the rest of his life. Ask any Iowa fan who kicked the field goal that gave the No. 1 Hawkeyes a 12-10 victory over No. 2 Michigan in 1985, he will tell you, "Rob Houghtlin" in the same tone of voice as if you asked him the name of the first president; i.e., "Duh."

How To Get Your Face On GameDay

Editor's note: Every week, Ivan Maisel will explain how to perform a task integral to college football. It might happen on the field. It might happen on the sideline. It might have to do with tradition, or preparation, or the band, or the managers. But you'll go inside the sport as you never have before. Here goes: ESPN College GameDay long ago ceased to be merely a Saturday morning preview of the day's biggest game and stories. On the air, the show has become the national watering hole where fans begin their favorite day of the week. On the ground, however, College GameDay has become a traveling celebration of the sport. Every week, College GameDay descends on a different campus, where the students welcome it with open arms and open bottles. ESPN.com The crowd arrives early for GameDay. (To be truthful, you don't see a lot of open beer in the crowd, but judging by the collective behavior, somebody opened up one or two on the way to the set. There's a reason that netting is hung between the crowd and the stage). Host Chris Fowler and his running mates, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso, have achieved rock-star status. The show can resemble an outdoor concert, right up to the fans mashed up against the barricades separating them from the stage. They bring their painted signs, their varnished bodies and their unvarnished enthusiasm in order to see and be seen. Make no mistake -- being seen is half the fun. Dedication is the quickest and severest test of being in position for the cameras. Camping out at the GameDay set, or arriving in the wee, chilled hours of the morning, can get you at the front of the crowd. "The fan has to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right sign," GameDay producer Lee Fitting said. "The smart kids really have it figured out. They know how to position themselves behind the 'single' shots [a single shot is when the camera is focused on one person] of Chris, Lee and Kirk. When we take the shot, the kids are directly behind them or right over their shoulder." Anyone holding a sign about Corso has an edge, Fitting said, as long as the sign is fit for family consumption. Corso, who has been an analyst since GameDay's inception in 1989, is the show's comic relief. His willingness to don the mascot head of the team that he thinks will win the big game on campus that day has become one of the show's fixtures. If you can't get one of those prime pieces of TV real estate, or Corso doesn't do it for you, then you would do well to start your research. Fitting suggested that anyone looking for his or her five seconds of fame should think about the story lines around the game, and around the teams, and fashion a sign around those themes. "Last year at the UCLA-USC game," Fitting said, "we were getting ready to come out of commercial break. We were going to go into a Ken Norton Jr. 'All-Access' feature. Fowler's lead was going to be how Norton Jr. played at UCLA, and now coaches at USC. Well, with about 30 seconds left in the commercial break, we notice a kid who is holding a sign that is split down the middle. On one half is Norton at UCLA. The other half had a pic of Norton at USC. We took a shot of this sign directly out of commercial and into the feature." Anyone could have thought of Norton and his bifurcated background. Sometimes, however, you just need to be lucky. "Last year at Jacksonville," Fitting said, referring to the Florida-Georgia game, "we ran a feature on a Florida walk-on who competed in the National Spelling Bee as a youth. The whole feature dealt with the kid trying to spell different words. During the feature, we noticed a fan holding up a sign that read, 'How do you spell T-E-R-E-S-H-I-N-S-K-I?'" With Georgia starting quarterback D.J. Shockley injured, the Bulldogs started backup Joe Tereshinski III. "Obviously," Fitting said, "right out of the piece, we take the shot of the kid holding that sign." As for personal appearance, body paint will get you noticed, but it has become common enough that it is no guarantee. Think uncommon. You can resort to a mix of creativity and humiliation. "Wearing a diaper will get on," Fitting said. "We had a fan who did that last year." If nothing else, you can adopt Washington State for a day. Look around. There will be a group partying beneath a WSU flag somewhere in range of the camera. "The story goes," Fitting said, "that there's an alum who lives somewhere out West who started the tradition of sending a WSU flag to alums in the area where GameDay was going each week. That is a Cougar flag waving in the back of our shot. We make sure it gets on every week."

Heisman Hype

1.Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma, RB: I noticed the legs and the feet, but who knew about the hands? That 69-yard touchdown reception surpassed his career receiving yards (62). 2. Steve Slaton, West Virginia, RB: This 200-yard-game thing is beginning to become a habit. 3. Calvin Johnson, Georgia Tech, WR: He was the best player on the field Saturday night. Kudos to the Notre Dame defense, which limited him to two catches and 16 receiving yards in the second half. 4. Brady Quinn, Notre Dame, QB: Even coach Charlie Weis said he could have played better, yet when all was said and done, he completed 23 of 38 for 246 and made several key runs. Wait until he has a "good" game. 5. Troy Smith, Ohio State, QB: He replaces teammate Ted Ginn, Jr. on this list. Ginn has to depend on others to get him the ball. Smith can shine, and usually did Saturday, on every play.

The Power 16

1. Ohio State: That victory over Northern Illinois will look better and better as the season goes on. 2. Texas: Freshman quarterback Colt McCoy produced as well as any Orangeblood could have hoped. Get ready for the Buckeye invasion. 3. USC: The Trojans made this Nervous Nellie relax. At Arkansas, they looked like the USC that we have seen for the last three seasons. 4. West Virginia: Made Marshall, an emotional cross-state rival, look like just another Week 1 opponent who came in for a check. 5. Auburn: I really like how they ground down a good Washington State team. Kenny Irons is knocking on the door of my Heisman Hype list. 6. Florida State: Call the offense all the names you want. The Seminoles don't care. Because next year's game against Miami won't be played until Oct. 6, Florida State gets an extra month of bragging rights. 7. Notre Dame: Domer haters rejoiced in the difficult time that the Irish had at Atlanta. But I think as the season goes on, that victory at Georgia Tech will look better and better. 8. Tennessee: Forgive me Fulmer, for I have sinned … 9. Clemson: The loss of linebacker Anthony Waters for the season will be costly. The Tigers could use his maturity this week, when they must focus on winning at Boston College even though Florida State looms ahead the following Saturday. 10. Iowa: A nice win against I-AA Montana, but the Hawkeyes have got to pass the Cyclone test on Sept. 16 before anyone will believe in them. 11. Florida: The running game remains a question mark, but senior quarterback Chris Leak impressed me. Maybe he'll fit into this offense after all. 12. LSU: The Tigers love the fact that Auburn is getting so much love before LSU visits Jordan-Hare Stadium on Sept. 16. 13. Georgia: You have to wonder if coach Mark Richt played possum last week by letting out the hint that he might redshirt freshman quarterback Matt Stafford. Even starter Joe Tereshinski III said he hopes the tumult over the quarterback job calms down soon. 14. Oregon: A very impressive performance on both sides of the ball in the season opener against Stanford. The Cardinal might not scare anyone, but a conference victory right out of the box is huge. And this one looked convincing. 15. Nebraska: Quarterback Zac Taylor looked very good in the opener. As he goes, so go the Huskers. 16. Louisville: The pall cast by the season-ending injury to tailback Michael Bush obscured the dominance that the Cardinals showed in the 59-28 victory over Kentucky. Bush will be missed. A lot.

Three Games Worth TiVo-ing

No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Texas Saturday, 8 ET, ABC This would be a great matchup just for the bands. A Buckeye sousaphonist will dot the I. Big Bertha, the Longhorn drum bigger than Rhode Island, will carve ruts in the playing field. This would be a great matchup just for the traditions. Legendary coaches. Heisman Trophy winners. National champions. Both schools have them, and more than one of each. But we have the good fortune of having all of that and more. The No. 1 Buckeyes go to Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium with great skill players on offense and a chip on their shoulder after last season's 25-22 loss to the Longhorns at the Horseshoe. With quarterback Troy Smith splitting time with Justin Zwick, the offense bogged down in the red zone (five field goals), and Vince Young and the Longhorns took advantage. The cleat is on the other foot now. Smith goes to Texas as a fifth-year quarterback steeped in poise and talent. Texas coach Mack Brown called him the same quarterback as Young, only shorter. Forgive him the coachspeak -- the kernel in that statement is that Smith is as dangerous running as throwing. The Texas defense will be tested, which is why the loss of suspended cornerback Tarell Brown will hurt. But to see how good Smith is, compare the many things he can do with the limited menu available to Texas redshirt freshman Colt McCoy. The difference in this game is simple: Smith's mission is to win the game. McCoy's mission, as with any young quarterback, is to not lose it. Texas has plenty of offensive talent. Limas Sweed has become a gamebreaker at wide receiver. Jamaal Charles and Selvin Young are as good a one-two running back combination as there is. But the subtle difference in quarterback, in a game of two evenly matched teams, that tips the scale toward the visitor winning this one again. No. 19 Penn State at No. 4 Notre Dame Saturday, 3:30 ET, NBC Brady Quinn will be ready. After a performance in which coach Charlie Weis said Sunday, "There's a lot of plays in that game last night he'd like to have back," Quinn will come out Saturday determined to play better. "There were a lot of positive plays in the game," Weis said Sunday. "No one is a bigger critic of Brady than Brady. He'll come in today, he'll be so far in the tank, I'll have to spend a whole day getting him out of the tank. I'll be dragging him out of there because his expectations for his play are so high." Paul Posluszny will be ready. The Butkus Award winner, planted at the center of Penn State's new 3-4 defense, has watched Notre Dame video for eight months. The issue before us is how ready the rest of the Nittany Lion defense, with only three other returning starters, will be. The Irish offense sputtered in the 14-10 victory at Georgia Tech on Saturday night. But a weeklong dose of high-decibel, razor-edged constructive criticism from Weis and his staff should be enough. There is a lot of talent on the Irish offense, and the ensuing weeks are likely to prove that the Yellow Jacket defense is one of the best in the country. For Penn State to win this game, junior Anthony Morelli will have to play with maturity beyond the pale for the typical quarterback with exactly one start to his name. Coaches and analysts have been saying Morelli has all the tools necessary to play quarterback since he played at Penn Hills High in Pittsburgh. But the one thing that Morelli doesn't have is experience. You earn it by going into hostile stadiums and producing -- or not -- under pressure. The Notre Dame defense showed some life last Saturday. It's a lot to ask of Morelli, an inexperienced offensive line and an inexperienced defense to win at Notre Dame. No. 12 Georgia at South Carolina Saturday, 7:45 ET, ESPN After losing his second game as a head coach to the Gamecocks, Bulldogs coach Mark Richt has won four in a row in an SEC East rivalry that has anchored itself on the second Saturday of the season. But don't let the record fool you. Three of those four victories came by a total of 12 points, including last year's 17-15 victory. "Every year we play them tight," Georgia linebacker Danny Verdun-Wheeler said this week. "No matter who is up and who is down, we always play tight." Richt's teams have had a knack for stopping South Carolina. In five games, the Gamecocks have scored 60 points. The Bulldog defense, though it is young, is fast and is hard-hitting once again. The leader, senior defensive end Quentin Moses, won SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week for his play against I-AA Western Kentucky last week. South Carolina's offensive struggles in its 15-0 victory at Mississippi State are due in part to the Bulldogs' defense, which is better than anyone realized. But the Gamecocks are also young. Coach Steve Spurrier will maximize the talent that he has. Witness the halfback pass for a touchdown thrown by former quarterback Syvelle Newton last week. But South Carolina doesn't have the talent that Georgia has. Perhaps the raucous atmosphere in Williams-Brice Stadium will compensate enough for the Gamecocks to stop their losing streak to Georgia (the atmosphere at this game is worthy of TiVo in and of itself). But it would be an upset with a capital U.