re: Is it just me or UGA, UF, SC don't scare me at all this year?

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I think collectively, these games are more winnable than they have been in 5 seasons. None of the three are extremely scary. With that said, I think we upset one of them and I don't think it'll be UGA. I also think somehow we beat OM to get to 4 conference wins.

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UGA seems the least likely because they're stinging from a loss, they'll be at home, and we may not have Von back. The oline having this bye week is good but they're also gonna gel as more games are played. I'd feel better if we knew for sure we'd have Pearson and if Josh Smith hadn't been injured at OU.

That said, more and more I think OU's strategy was to go at a young team hard and as fast as possible to try and stun us. They knew as well as anyone we had a lot of froshies and a remixed line and they did it on both sides of the ball. The offense did it in their first two drives and sure enough that's pretty much where our team gave up points - TKjr was pulled because he was totally lost (didn't have time to think). But our D settled in and their O couldn't maintain that speed.

In contrast, OU's D maintained it better. Particularly, Striker. But by the second half of the game two big things had happened. Our young guys who weren't used to game speed let alone the warp speed OU was coming at our line with started to adjust to it. They stopped having to think and consequently whiffing and started reacting. Helm came up with a big block on Jalen's run that opened the pathway for him and Helm had been in bad shape all night. But the whole line started to grow. The second thing is that OU's D had started to gas themselves with the exception of Striker while our guys weren't showing any fatigue at all and remember OU plays in the offense heavy B12 and likely prepared a game plan to go at us fast. Our guys endured while there's didn't - that's a hopeful sign.

However, the best part for us is that those guys on our line started to grow a little bit (adjust to the speed) AND we won't see an SEC Dline that tries that or can pull it off again. Clowney's gone.

After seeing how they performed at OU, I think our D can keep us in any game and that our team overall plays with so much fight and intensity that we can make things happen. And if our oline can keep growing up, we'll have an even better chance.

No game on that list is a guaranteed win but nothing's a guaranteed loss either and it feels good to say that.