COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

2012 SEC Western Division Predictions: Predictions and Analysis of Arkansas, Mississippi State and Ole Miss’ 2012 Seasons

SEC
Western Division
LSU – 12 – 0
Alabama – 11 – 1
Texas A&M – 9 – 3
Mississippi State – 8 – 4
Auburn – 8 – 4
Arkansas – 6 – 6
Ole Miss – 3 – 9

 

Arkansas

Head Coach:  John L. Smith
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall: 6 – 6
SEC: 2 – 6

Arkansas Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  2 Cupcakes (Jacksonville State and La. Monroe)

Commentary:  Paul “Bear” Bryant was quoted as saying once a TRUTH about the game of football…

“If you were to ask me if football is a coach’s game, I’d have to say it is. And always was.”

….and that means no matter what the talent level on the Arkansas football team is….and it is HIGH….there is a BIG difference between a Hogs team led by Bobby Petrino and a Hogs team led by John L. Smith.

Arkansas is in our opinion playing one of the toughest schedules in college football in 2012…

Jacksonville State
at La. Monroe
Alabama
Rutgers
at Texas A&M
at Auburn
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Tulsa
at South Carolina
at Mississippi State
LSU

…even though the Razorbacks are playing 2 Cupcakes, but when a game at South Carolina (with Spurrier REALLY wanted to beat the Hogs this season) is added to the already tough SEC Western Division it could add up to a Complete Disaster in Fayetteville in 2012 and all because of…..well….let’s not talk about that in a family blog.

We expect Arkansas to open the season 4 – 1 with wins over Jacksonville State, La. Monroe and Rutgers and only a loss to Alabama at home which makes the Week 5 game at Texas A&M and the Week 6 game at Auburn the two BIGGEST games of the season for the Hogs because a loss in those two and the Arkansas football season could fall to pieces….BUT….wins at Texas A&M and at Auburn will prove that the Hogs are contenders and that Bobby Petrino or not the ’12 Razorbacks are going to be playing for a championship.

If Arkansas does finish the 2012 season at 6 – 6 as we here at Coaches Hot Seat are predicting then we would recommend that Bobby Petrino stay as far as Damn possible from Fayetteville for the rest of his natural life because in our opinion there is enough talent on this Razorbacks team to win every game on their schedule and anything less than 9 wins forget about 6 would be a Complete Disaster and who do you think the Arkansas fans would blame for that Complete Disaster?

YES, you got it, the Arkansas fans will rightly blame….Bobby “A young blond riding around on the back of my Arkansas themed Harley Davidson without me wearing a helmet should be just fine and won’t attract any attention at all…NOT!” Petrino!

Memo to Bobby Petrino:  At your next head coaching gig we would recommend you ditch the Harley and stick to cars with tinted windows!

 

Mississippi State

Head Coach: Dan Mullen
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall: 8 – 4
SEC: 4 – 4

Mississippi State Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  3 Cupcakes (Jackson State, South Alabama and Middle Tennessee)

Commentary:  An interesting question here at Coaches Hot Seat is WHAT IF Dan Mullen had stayed at Florida during Urban Meyer’s on-again and off-again tribulations and eventual “retirement” from the Gators and IF Florida AD Jeremy Foley would have turned to Dan Mullen to take over the Florida football program instead of hiring Will Muschamp after the 2010 season.

Dan Mullen took over at Mississippi State in 2009 so he would have only been at Florida for two more seasons before Urban Meyer “retired” and if we had to guess and it is only a guess if Dan Mullen had stayed as the offensive coordinator with the Gators we believe he would have gotten the Florida job after Meyer left and no matter what anyone tells you including Dan Mullen the difference in every way imaginable between the Mississippi State and Florida football programs is HUGE.

With that being said Mullen has done a nice job at Mississippi State…

2009 – 5 – 7
2010 – 9 – 4
2011 – 7 – 6

….coaching in the toughest division in the toughest conference in Major College Football and now Mullen must take the next step and we see that happening in 2012.

Our predicted 8 – 4 regular season record and 4 – 4 record in the SEC for the Bulldogs includes wins over Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas at home and a win in the Egg Bowl over Ole Miss to end the season which if it turns out that way it will be another Helluva coaching job by Dan Mullen and no doubt will lead to some big schools both in the SEC and elsewhere calling Dan’s agent to see if he is interested in taking the next step up in his coaching career.

 

Ole Miss

Head Coach: Hugh Freeze
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall: 3 – 9
SEC: 0 – 8

Mississippi Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  1 Cupcake (Central Arkansas)

Commentary:  In the last 7 seasons for Mississippi football under Houston Nutt and Ed Orgeron the Rebels are…

Overall: 34 – 51
SEC: 13 – 43

…and considering that Ole Miss played an average of 2.5 Cupcake Opponents each year over the past 7 seasons over half of the Rebels wins were automatic although Nutt and the Rebels did lose to Cupcake Jacksonville State to start the 2010 season which was the beginning of the end for Houston Nutt in Oxford.

Hugh Freeze takes over the Mississippi football program which is now probably at its lowest state since before Billy Brewer took over in Oxford in 1983 and that means if Freeze is going to get things turned around it is going to be a Helluva long hard slog in a SEC Western Division that will make that turnaround next to Damn impossible…..but not undoable for the right coach.

The THING that Hugh Freeze and the Ole Miss coaches must focus on is making sure their football team is 100% motivated to play EVERY GAME because the out-of-conference teams that the Rebels will have more talent than….Central Arkansas, UTEP and Tulane in 2012….are MUST WIN GAMES because SEC Conference wins are going to be few and far between in the next couple of years and Freeze will need every single win he can get up on the board in order to weather the storm that will come with posting sub .500 records at Ole Miss….even if the football program is down in talent as it is right now.

Best case scenario for Ole Miss in 2012: If Ole Miss can go 3 – 1 out-of-conference and get even ONE SEC Conference win in 2012 that will be a small victory for Huge Freeze and the Rebels and if that SEC win is over Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl to end the season….all the better….and pop the champagne corks in The Grove!

2012 Coaches Hot Seat Team and Coach Predictions, Coaches Hot Seat

Coaches Hot Seat Number of CUPCAKE Opponents Teams Are Facing In 2012, Coaches Hot Seat

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, August 1, 2012 – Michael Jordan

“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.”

And

“As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Here, it’s ‘come, stop, come, stop.’ There’s a lot of downtime. That’s the toughest part of the day.”

And

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

And

“I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.”

And

“I never thought a role model should be negative.”

And

“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.”

And

“I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.”

And

“I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.”

And

“I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.”

And

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

And

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

And

“I’ve never been afraid to fail.”

And

“If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.”

And

“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

And

“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”

And

“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Tuesday, July 31, 2012 – Milton Friedman

Happy 100th Birthday Milton Friedman!

“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

And

“And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you’ll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?”

And

“Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.”

And

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”

And

“Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.”

And

“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”

And

“Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.”

And

“History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.”

And

“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”

And

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

And

“Inflation is taxation without legislation.”

And

“Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.”

And

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

And

“Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”

And

“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

And

“One man’s opportunism is another man’s statesmanship.”

And

“Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.”

And

“So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.”

And

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

And

“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”

And

“The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.”

And

“The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that’s why it’s so essential to preserving individual freedom.”

And

“The power to do good is also the power to do harm.”

And

“The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.”

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2012 SEC Eastern Division Predictions: Predictions and Analysis of Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt’s 2012 Seasons

SEC Conference
East
South Carolina – 10 – 2
Georgia – 9 – 3
Vanderbilt – 7 – 5
Tennessee – 7 – 5
Florida – 7 – 5
Missouri – 7 – 5
Kentucky – 4 – 8

Kentucky

Head Coach:  Joker Phillips
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall:  4 – 8
SEC:  1 – 7

Kentucky Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  2 Cupcakes  (Kent State and Samford)

Commentary:  The difference between the “perception” of Success and Failure for University of Kentucky football is very small because Kentucky is one of those football programs that should be playing in a bowl game every year….BUT….with Kentucky being in the SEC Conference it is not real easy for the Wildcats to have a winning conference record and that makes their out-of-conference games of paramount importance to Kentucky having a “successful” season and that is again the case for Joker Phillips in his football team in 2012

In some ways former Kentucky head coach Rich Brooks pulled off a small miracle in his last four seasons at Kentucky by putting up records of…

2006: 8 – 5
2007: 8 – 5
2008: 7 – 6
2009: 7 – 6

Overall:  30 – 22

….and in Joker Phillip’s first two years as head coach of the Wildcats he has put up records of…

2010:  6 – 7
2011:  5 – 7

Overall:  11 – 14

….and if Phillips wants to stay on the “Non-Hot Seat” side of the win/loss record then Kentucky will just have to play better and more fundamentally sound football which at its simplest is:

Must limit turnovers

Must have solid QB play

Must be solid with their special teams

Must give up few or no big plays from the line of scrimmage on defense

Joker Phillips and his Wildcats have a big challenge in 2012 with an opening game at Louisville, Western Kentucky (which is a tough football team), a game at Florida, South Carolina in Lexington, a game at Arkansas, Georgia at home, a game at Missouri, Vandy at home and Tennessee in Knoxville to end the season and if Phillips can get to 6 – 6 this season he will have done a Damn good coaching job.

 

Missouri

Head Coach:  Gary Pinkel
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall:  7 – 5
SEC:  3 – 5

Missouri Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  1 Cupcake (SE Louisiana)

Commentary:  Gary Pinkel has had a nice run at Missouri over the 6 seasons in the Big 12…

2006:  8 – 5
2007:  12 – 2
2008:  10 – 4
2009:  8 – 5
2010:  10 – 3
2011:  8 – 5

Overall:  53 – 24
Big 12:  31 – 16

…BUT the Big 12 is not the SEC and in our opinion the biggest obstacles that Missouri will have to overcome to be as successful in the SEC as they were in the Big 12 is the two things that makes the SEC such a juggernaut in college football right now:

The SEC’s Speed Advantage

The SEC’s More Physical and Tougher Style of Play

It’s not that the SEC’s Speed Advantage and Physical/Tough Style of Play is vastly different from the Big 12…BUT…it is enough to make a difference on the scoreboard and with Missouri having to play Georgia, at South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Kentucky, at Florida, at Tennessee and at Texas A&M (which has played like a SEC team for years) then that “small” SEC Conference difference may stop Missouri from posting a .500 or better record in conference play.

The goal for BOTH Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012 in their first year of SEC play is to survive and to prove they belong in the conference and very early on Missouri will get that chance to prove itself in a Saturday night game on September 8 against Georgia in Columbia, Missouri. If Missouri beats Georgia in that game the Tigers will be off to a great start in the SEC….BUT…if Missouri loses to Georgia at home then the 2012 season could be a long and painful one.

 

Vanderbilt

Head Coach: James Franklin
Predicted 2012 Record
Overall:  7 – 5
SEC:  4 – 4

Vanderbilt Number of Cupcake Opponents in 2012:  2 Cupcakes (Presbyterian and Massachusetts)

Commentary:  For the Stanford folks here at Coaches Hot Seat we have seen what is going on right now at Vanderbilt movie before and that movie we have seen before is how eerily similar that the James Franklin era at Vanderbilt is to what Jim Harbaugh talked about and did with Stanford football just a few years ago. The TRUTH is that there really is NO Damn good excuse for the Stanfords, Vanderbilts, Northwesterns, Dukes, etc. of the world to NOT be good at football because there are plenty of good football players in America to field very good football teams at America’s top academic universities AND if a great player or two is added to those high-academic schools teams….think Andrew Luck at Stanford…then “WA-LA” you have a Damn good football team and that is what Stanford, Northwestern and maybe even what James Franklin now has cooking at Vanderbilt.

As we heard former Auburn head coach Pat Dye say one time and we paraphrase since it has been a long time ago…

“Nah, an opposing team having some kind of new-fangled offense or defense doesn’t worry me. What worries me is the team that will pop you in the mouth and get up in your players throats.”

Translation to English: A physical football team rather than some scheme cooked up by a coach will have the biggest impact in a football game between two roughly even teams and in our opinion turning around a morbid football program which Stanford and Vanderbilt have been in recent years UNTIL Jim Harbaugh arrived at The Farm with a physical style of play and which James Franklin has now arrived at Vandy with is committing to a physical style of play that starts in the football team’s commitment to training and working out in the offseason. A few years ago the following video of Stanford football players working out before Jim Harbaugh arrived on The Farm would have been a joke since most of the 30 and 40 somethings at Coaches Hot Seat could have whipped the Stanford football team with our bare hands. That is no longer the case….

Oh, the Stanford football team can now whip your ass on the football field AND still in the classroom:

With all of the above being said Vanderbilt is playing in the SEC not the Pac-12 and thus a Vandy schedule in 2012 that includes…

South Carolina, at Georgia, at Missouri, Florida, Auburn, at Kentucky, at Ole Miss and Tennessee

….would be a tough road to hoe for the Chicago Bears which means Vandy fans will have to be satisfied with progress and in 2012 we again see Vanderbilt football under James Franklin making progress and taking another step with one more win than they had last season which would put Vandy ahead of Jim Harbaugh’s overhaul and transformation of Stanford football which looked like this…

2007: 4 – 8
2008: 5 – 7
2009: 8 – 5
2010: 12 – 1

Can Vanderbilt ever go 12 -1 under James Franklin playing in the SEC?

If Vandy ever does go 12 – 1 under James Franklin playing in the SEC then James Franklin will be have to be considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football because we rather doubt Bryant or Lombardi could in their heydays coached the Commodores to a 12 – 1 record while playing in the SEC!

2012 Coaches Hot Seat Team and Coach Predictions, Coaches Hot Seat

Coaches Hot Seat Number of CUPCAKE Opponents Teams Are Facing In 2012, Coaches Hot Seat

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Monday, July 30, 2012 – William James

“A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.”

And

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

And

“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”

And

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

And

“Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”

And

“An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.”

And

“Belief creates the actual fact.”

And

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”

And

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”

And

“Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.”

And

“Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.”

And

“Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.”

And

“Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.”

And

“Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.”

And

“Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.”

And

“Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”

And

“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”

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