Daily Bull 10.23.17: The Home Stretch

“Coach, talk about how it feels to be ranked for two consecutive weeks in late October.”

[Kevin Sumlin thousand-yard glare of withering death ensues]

That was the bye-weekiest bye week to ever bye week. The SEC games were largely ceremonial and taught us little beyond the fact that Butch Jones is part of some grand psychological experiment designed to obliterate the sanity of Tennessee fans, and that yes, things could actually get worse for Ole Miss. Every team in the East with a pulse was off this past weekend too. Our next opponent pounded their cross-division rival, but if Mississippi State beats Kentucky at 3 p.m. on the SEC Network, does anyone actually see it?

The Aggies opened as 2-point favorites, but this game should scare the hell out of any rational person. Any game left this season should, really. (Never turn your back on a cornered Bob Davie.) If the coaches don’t have this team riled up and royally pissed-off to play Mississippi State after what happened last year, there’s something wrong. Get mad. Get mean. This is the losing team that squashed the elusive 2016 playoff dream a solid three weeks before LSU was scheduled to. Now we get them at home, at night on ESPN? Fuck ‘em up. Turn Mond loose and watch him master the RPO over the course of 60 minutes. Knock down Nick Fitzgerald once for each cowbell confiscated at the gates off visiting Bulldog fans. Distill all the team’s frustrations and anger into one focused beam and aim it at the bizarro maroon & white team that started two of the three late-season slides going back to 2014. Destroy their season for once; it’s payback time.

No rest for the weary; we get Auburn at home the week after that. The second-best team in the SEC. The home team has never won in this series. Time to make a little more history.

Then we have New Mexico sandwiched in between all these SEC matchups. This will probably be a leisurely 11 a.m. kick; a cruel ploy by ESPN executives to torment the A&M faithful ensure maximum internet complaining, which is their life force and soul fuel.

After that it’s all on the road: at Oxford, where we managed 3 pathetic-ass points on our last visit. The final nail in the Spavital coffin. Doesn’t seem so bad now, does he?

Then the finale in Baton Rouge. We don’t need to talk about how significant this game is right now.

It’s a hell of a five-game stretch. You can’t really put a hard number on what needs to happen for other things to happen, because honestly, all of them are winnable with the way the Aggies’ defense has been playing. Trying to predict what will happen in the next quarter is futile in college football. Trying to pin down various conditional outcomes a month in advance is an exercise in pure, absurdist wankery. Everyone on this team knows how important winning is, right up to and including Kevin Sumlin. It all starts on Saturday. As Shooter is fond of saying, enjoy the ride. ETR. This could be a fun month.