Back in the saddle with minimal sunburn after a fine vacation of doing absolutely nothing. Ready for the season, and ready for this morning's Talking Points:
Sigh. Another receiver goes down, and this time it's No. 1 target Gerald Jones for four to six weeks. Hooper's all over the injury and it's impact on the team . As hooper notes, this means that Tennessee will be relying even more on freshmen than we had anticipated, which in turn means that we're likely to see a lot of the following guys early in 2009 , which thrills my heart, which makes one too many "whiches" for this sentence: DTs Montori Hughes and Marlon Walls , RBs Bryce Brown (assuming he gets eligible . . . please!) and David Oku , WRs Nu'Keese Richardson and Marsalis Teague , DBs Janzen Jackson, Darren Myles, and Mike Edwards , and LB Jerod Askew, among others. John Adams is already in love with Bryce Brown , by the way, but who isn't? And Adams is also wondering when August will end , but who isn't ?
It's huge! Team Speed Kills augments CBS's SEC Preview with its own ultimate, comprehensive, encyclopedic SEC Preview . Florida's the team to beat. Oh, I'm sorry, did I spoil the ending? ;-)
Remember Jesse Scroggins? Yeah, well, we're not giving up on him .
Kicks. With all of the talk about quarterbacks and freshmen and those huge concerns for the Vols, the concerns about the kicking game have sort of gotten lost. But that's improving as well. Daniel Lincoln was three of three at Saturday's scrimmage (from 23, 40, and 47 yards ), and coaches are pleased with Chad Cunningham 's progress, too. We still don't have anyone who can get the ball into the end zone on kickoffs , though (not until next year ), so we'll have to see how coverage is before we get too comfortable.
Goodbye . . . what's that awful smell? Spencer Hall of EDSBS.com says goodbye to his friends and enemies at Sporting News .
Woo! In other fine news, Bruce Pearl says that his team is going to press this year . Somebody give me a woo.
Guilty. Geoff Calkins says John Calipari has no defense for one of Memphis's entire season getting sucked into the black hole with the NCAA logo on it.
This bullet point sponsored by Home Depot. Nice feature on the Sullins' boys, whose antics taught their parents the fine art of drywalling . Public service, you know.
