There’s some things that coaching can’t buy, for everything else, there’s booze.

What was that? I can say two good things about that game. One, Kyle Shurmur looked better; and two, Zach Cunningham and is probably the most under the radar LB in the SEC. In both cases, there’s big “buts” attached. Not the good kind of “big butts” either, more of the horrifying big buts that make you realize this is why you keep absinthe in the house. To put it simply, it was a disaster.

We were horrible on both sides of the ball. The offense couldn’t even manage more than seven points. Kyle Shurmur’s moderately bettter performance made our passing game looked, well, passable. Unfortunately, literally nothing else worked. I don’t understand why on Earth we moved to a ~50/50 play calling scheme when we have two RBs which have proven they can lead the offense. Chalk it up to yet another befuddling decision in the management of this offense.

Our usually strong defense looked completely and totally lost against Georgia Tech’s triple option. There’s no excuses for either. Special shout out to Torren McGaster though who really is a great DB. Georgia Tech is an extremely well disciplined offense and runs their scheme well, but what we saw last week was a complete and total meltdown.

While I’m not quite to the point of some of y’all on twitter demanding he be fired mid-season, there’s very little chance our football team turns it around and we get a reason to extend Coach Mason’s tenure at Vanderbilt. We’re going to be looking for a new coach, and we’ve even got an early look at who’s name might come up!

In the interest of being even handed, we once again have a thorough analysis from AoG optimist DoreOnThePlains who took a moment away from his 23 hour a day job guarding the Toomer’s Trees to write his weekly lesson.

Not a great week of football last weekend, but we still had some headline makers.

• #10 Louisville 63 - #2 Florida State 20. It’s hard to laugh at FSU’s misery with all the friends I have that are FSU fans, but this game doesn’t make it easy. Louisville gave Florida State the biggest beat down in school history. From the very start of the game, Florida State was totally and completely outclassed. This is what happens when you have a stubborn coach who refuses to adapt his scheme. I’m lookin’ at you, Jimbo. FSU’s defense is also now tied for their worst start in program history.
• #20 LSU 23 - Mississippi State 20. LSU narrowly escaped a pretty impressive comeback attempt by Mississippi State. With only about 6:40 left and down 23-6, Mississippi state engineered a drive that went nearly 70 yards in two and a half minutes. State then executed possibly the best onside kick I’ve ever seen. The ball took a perfect bounce and State immediately responded with two passes for a touchdown. State was now down only one score with ~3:30 left. They forced a three and out and got the ball. Somehow the nearly empty Tiger Stadium woke the LSU defense from its lethargy and they put a stop to this. The biggest news of the game though is that Etling may very well be a good answer to LSU’s QB woes.
• #12 Michigan State 36 - #18 Notre Dame 28. I didn’t watch a snap of this game, but I’ll not pass up a moment to laugh at Notre Dame’s hopes and dreams being dashed on the rocks. Bye bye team that literally had a rule put in just for it in the BCS! Michigan State beat the crap out of them much more than the score implies. Notre Dame mounted another almost-comeback, scoring three unanswered touchdowns. Still, being down 4 scores is pretty ridiculous and nearly impossible to overcome.
• #15 THEM 28 - Ohio 19. THEY are not a good football team. Yet again THEY barely beat a team that someone of their alleged caliber should destroy. Their win against VaTech was giftwrapped by constant turnovers and shortened fields. Mayhaps sunsphere has decided to be particularly evil to his denizens this year.

• Indiana just released one of its football players... who has been charged with child molestation.
• Oregon is literally wearing uniforms to make them look like the Duck this weekend. That owns.
• Rutgers might not be cancelling their tailgating area after all. Earlier this week their AD literally apologized for drinking a beer at said tailgate. Of course, “safety” is being cited as the reason for maybe shutting the area down. New Jersey.

Usually I give my list of games to watch here. I decided to do something different this year and asked your AoG writing staff to each give their own “game to watch” and why.

I think Tom Stephenson may be trolling me, but we’re Vanderbilt fans so it’s hard to tell if we’re being serious about watching bad teams attempt to play football.

My game to watch this week is for sure going to be Rice vs. North Texas, a.k.a. "LOL some guy on StubHub thinks people will pay $100 for a ticket to this."

Jennifer Greening came out of the aether to drop enough salt to de-ice a driveway in Kamchatka winter. She’s right though.

FSU vs USF simply because it's a palindrome and I want to hear how many times ABC announcer mix up the teams, also because I want to watch any possibility of FSU's football program crumbling to ashes.

Otherwise I would go with TENN/FLA because is there anything better than watching two mediocre-yet-over-rated sports teams collide in a rivalry at the expense of a team's first loss? Not that it matters because both teams will fall in the rankings after the game. It's just like watching two slow trucks trying to pass each other on the highway. It's brutal if you're behind the trucks though, like the rest of everyone trying to pass Tennessee or Florida in the rankings. On second thought, maybe we should just get the score updates on that game while watching Penn State vs Michigan. Yeah, lets go with that. PSU vs MICH.

Christian D’Andrea is determined to give us a terrible Northeast football match-up.

Central Connecticut at Bryant, live on ESPN3. WHO WILL GET A HEAD START ON A FIFTH PLACE FINISH IN THE NEC?

In the spirit of my esteemed colleagues, I give you my pick: Army @ Buffalo. Which just may be the best game with a 1800 (CT) start today.

None of us are particularly thrilled about WKU today. Though I’m enjoying reminding people several times a day that they’re actually a good football team. We’re running a two deep in the depth chart, which if we’re ACTUALLY running a split backs, should be really interesting. Nonetheless, you should familiarize yourself with our foes, and we’ve got all you need to know.

Hey at the very least, you’ll be switching to whiskey juuuuust at the point the Ducks take the field. Maybe you’ll see them as giant