Don said I had to write a post about South Carolina and the impending loss game against the Gamecocks, so… here we go.

South Carolina sucks.

Steve Spurrier sucks.

What kind of team is named after what I just ate for dinner?

But we’ll still probably lose.

That is all.

Well, the Titans that is.  It’s always a little bit of a struggle when the Titans play the Colts…do I root for Peyton?  Or do I root for Tennessee?  I usually settle on Tennessee, but if Peyton wins, I don’t feel all that bad.  It’s sort of win/win, except, you know, someone loses.

Back at the homefront, there’s more drama than last week’s episode of Desperate Housewives (shut up you, we know you watch it) regarding the coaching situation at UT. People just can’t quit speculating – will Fulmer get fired?  When will he get fired?  Is Mike Hamilton stupid for not already having fired him?  Should we fire Mike Hamilton for not having already fired Fulmer and hire someone not afraid to fire coaches?  Should we pre-emptively fire that guy?

I think it’s time we stop worrying about it.  Let’s lay off Fulmer a bit – he’s got an incredibly high win percentage and has given us some damn fine seasons.  Is it time for him to move on?  Probably, but we should be supportive at the same time.  He’s sort of like that girlfriend we’ve all had (except Jon, cuz he’s gay) that you’re tired of, but there’s just too much history to cut loose.  Can we stay friends?  Maybe have a little romp here and there?

You know, I’m really not sure where I was trying to go with that simile.  Perhaps we should just let it go.

And maybe UT can try and hire Jeff Fisher?  He’d be a great OC under Fulmer.

Welcome to the world famous Fulmer’s Belly CBSSports.com Blog Poll Top 25 thingamajigger.

We worked long and hard on this here poll, as there were a few interesting happenings this past weekend (although nothing really in the sense of “upsets”), so with only a little more ado:

The blogpoll for Week 9

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Texas	–
2	Alabama	–
3	Penn State	–
4	Texas Tech	5
5	Georgia	5
6	Florida	2
7	Southern Cal	2
8	Oklahoma	2
9	Utah	2
10	Oklahoma State	2
11	Boise State	1
12	TCU	3
13	Tulsa	6
14	Brigham Young	4
15	Florida State	9
16	Ball State	5
17	Minnesota	9
18	Ohio State	11
19	Missouri	1
20	LSU	7
21	West Virginia	5
22	North Carolina	4
23	Louisville	3
24	Central Michigan	2
25	Fresno State	1

Dropped Out: Pittsburgh (#14), South Florida (#16), Kansas (#17), Georgia Tech (#22), Boston College (#23), Northwestern (#25).

A Few Notes: Obviously the Top 3 teams in Texas, Alabama, and Penn State remain unchanged as no team did anything really detrimental to their own standing (it’s not Bama’s fault that they had to play such a terribtastic Tennessee team while the other two played ranked teams).

Texas Tech gets a bump due to their complete destruction of a not bad Kansas team.  Georgia looked impressive against a ranked LSU team, and Florida completely destroyed the poor Cats from Kentucky, so they get to be ranked ahead of a couple of undefeated teams.

As the poll just kind of happened to work out, there are no 2-Loss teams ranked ahead of any 1-Loss team.  The best of the 2-Loss teams comes in the form of Ohio State followed by Missouri, LSU and West Virginia.  North Carolina played their way back into the mix, and we threw Fresno State in the party for having won their last two contests.

As always, if you have questions or comments, we will probably ignore them and keep the poll as is, but we’ll at least promise to read them, so leave them in the comments.

Welp, that game was just a swift kick to the groin, wasn’t it?  I mean, honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.  I mean, I’ve done both after being kicked in the groin before, but it really depended on the severity of the kick.  This one was a tear-maker.  But all in all, the aftermath was the same.

Hip Hop Loops.  Yeah.

One thing I’ve taken from the game is that Eric Berry is a dirty dirty liar.  He said he was ready to face Alabama, but he obviously didn’t mean it because Alabama beat him.  “Beat him” you ask?  Yes.  Because obviously the other people on the field aren’t doing anything helpful or productive at all, and it’s up to Eric Berry and Eric Berry alone to bring the team to victory.

Honestly, if I were Eric Berry, I wouldn’t know whether to be happy or not about the situation.  On one hand, he’s really the only star on the team, and since the offense sucks, there’s nothing else to talk about positively than the defense, and the brigest star on defense is of course Mr. Berry.  On the other hand, because he’s on a team that’s so terrible, the team only gets limited exposure on the likes of ESPN and other sporting outlets.

Apparently part of the recruiting pitch for Eric Berry was that he would be allowed to play on offense.  Now, I’m no expert, but when your offense scores 3 points going into the 4th quarter, it might be time for something a bit different, because what you’re doing obviously ain’t working worth a crap.  Let’s just let the kid play two ways (because he still is a kid and excitable and doesn’t get all winded from typing like some of us older folks.  In fact, just let him play every position at the same time.  He can do it.  I’ve seen it.

Everyone’s talking about the great matchups this weekend.  Ohio State visits Penn State, Oklahoma St. vs. Texas, UGA vs. LSU, and Eastern Michigan at Ball state to name a few.  Sadly enough, the UT/Bama game is really on no one’s radar around the sporting world despite it’s rich tradition. It’s not surprising, seeing as though Tennessee has played like the scout team of the League of Women Voters.

When I started to write this post, I went to go look up the Vegas line and see how badly we were expected to lose.  Interestingly, Tennessee is only a 6.5 point underdog.  But that’s dependent on which Tennessee team, and more importantly, which Bama team, decides to show up to play.  If everyone’s favorite craptastic Tennessee team shows up, it could be a long evening.  It wouldn’t even matter if the Bama team bus got lost on their way to the stadium and have to play with members of the Million Dollar Band instead, because no one can match Tennessee stride for stride in sucking prowess this year.

Most importantly, the Tennessee defense has to come to play like it’s the last game of the season.  With Eric Berry, Robert Ayers, and Ellix Wilson leading a very talented crew, expect the defense to yet again keep the team in the game.  It’ll be crucial to create turnovers and get the offense more chances with the ball because whether they like it or not, they’re the team’s best chance for scoring points.

Also, maybe we should consider lining up closer than 10 yards off of opposing receivers.  It’s nice to protect against big plays, but it sucks getting eaten by a lot of small ones.  It’s like being beaten down by a class of 5th graders.  Individually, they don’t seem that tough, but when there’s 50 of them, the little fists start to hurt.

Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid

Next, Nick Stephens needs to continue to be smart with the ball.  He’s been lucky to have not thrown an interception yet, but his luck has to eventually run out, especially if by “luck,” we mean “not being given the opportunity to throw the ball in almost any situation.”  If he continues to make smart throws and makes plays when he has to, then he’ll keep us in the game.

Surviving the first half is key as Saban’s squad is notorious for falilng apart in the last 2 quarters.  Keeping it close for the first 30 minutes will increase the probability we can come out ahead in the end.

Overall, this boils down to a must win situation for Fulmer.  Winning the game won’t assure him his job come January, but it’ll give him an argument to keep it.  At this point, he needs all of those he can get.

Hi.  I’m Fulmersbelly.com guest columnist John McCain.  I’ve been spending most of my time campaigning for president, but I wanted to offer the Tennessee team a few pointers on their upcoming game.  As many of you know, I’m facing a juggernaut of my own in just under two weeks, and since I have some experience in the matter and because I need to prove to people that I am “in touch”, I’m giving you the road plan to defeating (O)Bama.

Eeeee…Got any gum?

1.  First off, what were you thinking?  You need to pick a number 2 with some meaningful amount of experience.  Head coach at Richmond?  What’s the matter, did Plan A of cloning Cutcliffe not pan out?  What happens if something happens to the big guy?  You’ll have a small fish trying to play ball in a big pond.

2.  Give up on offense altogether.  1st and 10?  Punt.  Let (O)bama trust the ball to Ken Stabler.  Eventually, his pass will be intercepted by Eric Berry and returned for a touchdown.  Then, just wash, rinse…hold on…Ken Stabler’s no longer with the Tide?  Retired from the NFL?  Who’s the QB now?  Who?  John Parker Wilson?  Kinda sounds like the name of a pedophile, doesn’t it?  “John Parker Wilson, 20, arrested for exposing himself to a group of 9 year old boys in the cafeteria of Oak Park Elementary today.”

3.  Liberally throw around words like “Al Qaeda”.  Think about it.  “Al Qaeda”.  “Al – abama”.  They’re practically the same place.  Huh?  Al Qaeda isn’t a place?  Is it that guy we’re fighting in Iran?

4.  Use half truths or put things out of context to demoralize the other team.  See the final sentence in bullet 2 above?  Spread that around, and let’s see how well a guy facing charges of pedophilia does on the gridiron.  I guarantee you, no one’s going to go near his (foot)balls.

Stick to that gameplan, and you’ll have a fighting chance.

What the hell. It’s been a few weeks (read: months) since we’ve participated in the roundtable, so we’ll stop back by for the Bama edition, hosted by the gents over at Third Saturday in Blogtober.

So, on to the questions and our ridulously awesome answers.

1. Both teams at some point or another have been described as an Evil Empire. If your team is the Death Star, what is it’s planet-destroying weapon?

Well, to be honest, if we were the Death Star, I think our planet destroying weapon would be that huge laser thing that the guys with the strange helmets operated. Why’d they need that half-cone jutting out from their face? Did it somehow make them more efficient lever pullers? Or do they use it as some kind of scoop in the event both hands are taken and they need to scoop something? I like Star Wars as much as the next guy, and I might even consider myself a fan, but I have no clue what purpose that helmet has.

Also planet destroying? Fulmer’s gas after eating a Krystal Sackful.

Wait, this is a simile? Um…Eric Berry?

2. What is it’s two meter wide exhaust port?

It would be a roughly circular hole, perhaps 6 feet in diameter, which could vent waste gases into space.

Oh. Right. Simile.

The offense. Special teams. Coaching. Motivation. You name it.

3. Everyone is looking forward to Eric Berry vs. Julio Jones. What is the next matchup you’ll be keying on in this game?

Julio Jones is good, but he’s no phenom. There’s always a Julio Jones every so often (Calvin Johnson, Desean Jackson, and many others) but an Eric Berry comes along once a generation. Let’s not get too excited about this matchup. Julio Jones will do his job and make a few catches, Eric Berry will do his and carry the team.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to Fulmer and Saban squaring off. We have one man, uncomfortably fat and getting winded on the short jog from the entrance to the sideline. Then there’s Fulmer, a god among men. Fulmer will crush him, then eat his soul. Think we’ve been sucking all year? It’s just been a ploy to exact revenge from last season. Never saw it coming, did you?

4. The Tide and Vols will scrap it out under the lights at Neyland. Do you like this arrangement and does the later kickoff time provide an advantage to either team?

Well, since I’m currently in Germany with a +6 hour time difference and Jon is on a trip with a +13 hour difference, we prefer early games. 7:30 kickoffs mean I stay up til 1:30 AM just to see the game start, and go to bed at around 5AM to see it to completion. So please, let’s keep games to 3:30PM kickoffs at the latest.

5. Since the Tide had a bye week and the Vols didn’t bother to play that weekend either (zing!) we’re going to say this is the Third Saturday in October just to justify the name of one of the greatest rivalries in college football. In three thousand words or less, turn over the kettles of white-hot liquid hate upon thine enemy.

Three thousand words? Jeez. My masters thesis wasn’t 3000 words.

But I have no hate to spew at Bama. It’s not usually nice to pick on the little guy.