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In news that was overshadowed by Urban Meyer’s second resignation (Urban, you attention whore!), it was announced today that Steve Spurrier was voted SEC Coach of the Year by the league’s coaches. The award marks a major vindication for Spurrier. Lots of folks, including yours truly, have increasingly questioned Coach Spurrier over the past three years. However, Spurrier made history this year with the program’s third nine-win season and first-ever berth in the SEC Championship Game. With that, he restaked his claim as one of the game’s premier coaches.

We’ll have occasion to talk more about Spurrier’s legacy in due time. For now, while I think we can all agree that Spurrier deserves major accolades for his accomplishments this season, the question is, did he deserve this award? Auburn fans, undoubtedly, will say the award should go to Gene Chizik. What do you think?

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3. Knile Davis

After entering the season behind Ronnie Wingo, Jr., on the Hogs’ depth chart, Davis has become Arkansas’s featured tailback over the past few weeks, and the initial results are very positive. Davis had a breakout performance with a handful of long runs against Ole Miss, and he’s also played very well in a few other games. He’s probably one of the more powerful backs we’ll face this year, so he’ll provide a unique test of just how good our interior rushing defense actually is. Don’t forget that while Bobby Petrino is known for his passing game, his best teams have all had good rushing attacks, too. His offenses are in some senses very much like Steve Spurrier’s in that regard.

2. Can the Carolina Secondary Create Turnovers?

Lost amidst the general clamor against Carolina’s poor secondary play is the depressing fact that Carolina’s defensive backs have, by my off-the-top-of-my-head tally, accounted for only two interceptions this season. (Carolina broke a long INT drought on Devin Taylor’s pick-six against Tennessee, but Taylor is a DE–the DBs are still mired in a drought of their own.) That’s another black mark against a unit that can’t seem to do much of anything right this season. If the secondary is feeling inspired and would like to make a name for itself this weekend, there will be opportunities for defensive takeaways against Arkansas, which throws on most downs and whose passing game accounts for about 75% of its total offense. The key to Alabama’s come-from-behind win against the Razorbacks’ was a few opportune INTs of rare errant passes by Ryan Mallett; let’s see if we can’t do the same in our effort to pick up a win here.

1. Aerial Fireworks

Greg Childs or not, with the way our secondary is playing, it’s really hard to imagine that Arkansas won’t throw for a lot of yards tomorrow. It’s going to happen, and we’d best be ready for it. I just hope that we can figure out a way to get enough big plays and a key red-zone stop or two to keep the Hogs’ from really running the score up on us.