A Football Omelet

When you follow three teams in two leagues, you normally expect that at least one of them will have a good year. And, on a given weekend, you expect that at least one of them will win.

On this first weekend of October, though, all I can do is make an omelet. Why? Because all three of my teams laid an egg.

Louisville came out with a new quarterback on Friday night, and for a while it looked like a bruised sternum was going to turn The Ville's season around. The regular quarterback, Justin Burke, was sidelined with the injury, and in his place we saw Adam Froman, a juco All-American making his first start. Froman played well, for the most part, and Louisville was up at the half 10-7. But Pitt dominated the second half, and U of L's offensive line couldn't keep the Panthers off of Froman. Result? One of the ugliest egg-layings we've seen in a while.

The loss adds fuel to the fire under Kragthorpe's hot seat. And frankly, it should -- it was an ugly loss. The only reason Louisville scored its one touchdown was Pitt got penalty-happy and gave them enough yardage to get close. If the Cards lose next week to Southern Miss, it will be very hard to keep Kragthorpe for next year, because you KNOW Louisville is going to lose to some of the other Big East teams on its schedule, especially Cinci and Rutgers. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see them lose another one to Syracuse, and fall to last in the league. And that just won't cut it here.

Kentucky wasn't really expected to stay close to Bama, but they did for a half. Well, make that almost a half. On second thought, make that about 28 minutes of the "new" Cats, and 2 minutes of the "old" Cats -- and that was the game.

If Kentucky had gone to the locker room only down one TD, I think they might have kept the second half even and had a chance. Frankly, I don't think Bama is nearly as good as everyone says, and Kentucky showed they could stay with them. But when you give up a touchdown just before half, and then cough up the ball and give up ANOTHER touchdown with 30 seconds left ... well, you usually don't recover, emotionally.

I think Kentucky is a much better football team, actually, than they showed last week and this, and I think they will regroup and beat South Carolina. In fact, I think they'll win at least five more and go to a fourth straight bowl game. So, I'm not as upset with the Cats as I am with the cards. It was still an egg, though.

Tennessee's defense was good enough to win the game against the Auburn War Eagles -- Plainsmen -- Tigers -- Whatever They Call Themselves This Week. However, the offense looked like some of the lower-quality Tenn Tech offenses I suffered through in college. (And THAT'S pretty bad.)

The reason? Hate to put it out there ... but it's Crompton. He wasn't making the passes throughout most of the game. He threw behind his receivers over and over again, and when he did lead them properly it was often into double coverage or with too much zip. Hardesty is a great back, but you can't win in the SEC with running alone. If we had had a quarterback capable of making the plays, we would have won the game. The defense played well enough to win, and much of the offense did as well. But Crompton isn't getting it done.

I appreciate Lane Kiffin sticking with his quarterback and not jerking him over a single mistake, or even a single bad game. Kiffin's still in his first year, so he can stay with Crompton for the rest of the year and the only repercussion will be the losses. If Crompton wasn't a senior, though, Kiffin would hear a lot more noise about keeping him. I think most fans have already written this season off as a learning one for everyone involved, so they'll cut Kiffin and even Crompton some slack.

Auburn is a very good team, and that offense just wears out the defense. Nevertheless, this was a game that UT could have won, and the overall play of the offense deserves the egg appelation, so I'm sticking with the rating: This was a big orange-colored egg.

So -- anyone up for omelet?