Twitter Tuesday: New SEC coaches, bowl games, food chains
ASK FARRELL: Why did Derek Stingley make the jump to No. 1 in the Rivals100?
Twitter Tuesday is back again this week, as Southeast recruiting analyst Woody Wommack is answering your questions.
Considering that all of the new coaches are walking into situations that require fixing (hence why they’re open in the first place), I’m not sure anyone can be ranked as a contender in their first year. So instead, I will rank the teams with new coaches, including Ole Miss and Matt Luke, based on the number of games I expect them to win this year.
Dan Mullen left quite a bit of talent behind in Starkville when he left for Florida and the combination of offensive whiz (and former sportswriter) Joe Moorhead combined with returning quarterback Nick Fitzgerald makes the Bulldogs the safest pick to have success in 2018.
2. Texas A&M
Jimbo Fisher’s last season in Tallahassee didn’t exactly go as planned for anyone, with plenty of people saying he had one foot out the door by mid-season. However, Fisher is fully engaged in College Station and has a team that still has quite a bit of talent left from last year’s seven-win team.
3. Florida
Much like their rival FSU, Florida’s coaching situation was a disaster by the time the year ended. Dan Mullen will bring a stabilizing force to Gainesville and I expect the quarterback play to improve quite a bit over 2017. I only see two guaranteed wins on the schedule but fully expect the team to be back in a bowl game.
4. Ole Miss
I think the Rebels could have quite the offensive attack in 2018, led by future first-round pick A.J. Brown at wide receiver. I know they lost a lot of depth with the players who transferred, but I’m a big fan of quarterback Jordan Ta’amu and think they can have a respectable season.
5. Tennessee
The Vols' roster needs a lot of work and while Jeremy Pruitt and his staff did a nice job of finishing off the 2018 recruiting class, the lack of player development under the previous staff will really hurt during the initial year of the rebuild in Knoxville. The Vols have a chance to make it to a bowl game, but everything will have to break right in order for that to happen.
6. Arkansas
I’m intrigued by the new coaching staff in Fayetteville and I expect the team to get much more exciting to watch from game one. But I also think Chad Morris and company will need at least two seasons to flip the roster and get the kind of weapons needed to run his offense. Things get off to a slow start for the Hawgs in the ultra-competitive SEC West.
This definitely wins our question of the week award as Chris brings the heat here. Let’s break it down.
The only problem is, the TV networks, and specifically ESPN, already own most of the bowl games outside of the traditional New Year’s Day bowls. This means that while they don’t bid for matchups, they do essentially know which conferences will be playing games on their air at which times because of the tie-ins with conferences.
Personally, I like the idea of keeping bowl games but eliminating tie-ins. Imagine if the Bahamas Bowl could get a team like Michigan just because Jim Harbaugh wants to take his team to the Bahamas. The same goes for teams on the bowl fringe. If they want to take less money to assure a spot in a bowl game rather than getting left out like UTSA did last year, then why not?
Things will continue to evolve, especially considering it’s almost assumed that the college football playoff will expand at some point. The more teams that are in the playoff, the less relevant other bowl games are, and that includes the major games like the Rose Bowl when they aren’t a playoff semifinal site.
Anything that gives us more compelling matchups and extends the football season longer, I’m all for, even if it means getting rid of the current bowl structure.
On second thought, this is probably the true question of the day and I have a lot of thoughts on the topic.
Now, as someone who grew up 13 miles from a town of 800 people in the Pacific Northwest, I’m not exactly known in high society circles as a master of etiquette. However, I can tell you that I spend a lot of of time on elevators these days and I have a lot of problems.
The No. 1 most pressing issue is the lack of patience for people waiting to get on an elevator. Let me set the scene: you get to the bottom floor, the door opens, and before you or anyone else on the elevator can even think about stepping out, other people are trying to step in.
I understand that we are all self-centered and think that nobody else exists on the planet, but why would I be taking the elevator to the lobby if not to get out? Luckily for you, I have started a grassroots campaign for elevator awareness and now every time someone tries to step in before letting people out of the elevator, they are faced with a public shaming from yours truly.
I can go on further on the topic, but the bottom line is all-around etiquette levels are down to their lowest levels since the Great Depression according to my unscientific research.
As someone who has had his share of run-ins on Twitter, I can tell you that I respect the way the Wendy’s account has a distinct voice and point of view. As far as I can tell, the only time they were blocked was when they had a beef (pardon the pun) with fellow fast food chain Hardee’s. After reviewing the complete exchange, Wendy’s is clearly the winner.
This question was asked by several people this week, including my own co-worker Rob. I found it tough to answer – even though I wouldn’t be opposed to moving into the woods and becoming a full-on mountain man who lives off the land – so I consulted the website playbuzz.com to take the “When will you die?” quiz.
As it turns out, I’m set to live until I’m 97, which means I won’t die until 2079. At that point, I imagine will have long been gone from the public eye, so let’s just assume I move to Greece around 2050, which for all intents and purposes will be a disappearance.