If two weeks could be equally opposed to each other in terms of their overall "terribleness" (yeah, I made up a word, screw off), these last two weeks have fit the bill. Auburn was terrible in a Mississippi State '04 way (but at home, and with me in attendance). It shouldn't have happened and there's nothing good to take out of it. The only thing to do is to put it down to a vengeful and thoroughly mean Lord, weep a bit for the impending hellfire, realize that you can't have it on your conscious, and move on.
But this weekend was different. This weekend was one that slipped away, we had the #1 team in the country by the short hairs and we let them go. And despite the utter emptiness of being that comes with a loss, I'm actually okay with that. Hell, I'm more relaxed than Jessica Alba realizing that she never has to work with Dane Cook again.
Gratuitous? You're damn right.
And why is that? Because this team is about to be amazing. And when I say about to be, I mean next year. This year is still a crapshoot, and we've got some tough games coming up. Kentucky in Lexington and USCe in Columbia are both going to be possible to lose, and Georgia is looking like a real team on some weeks.
But man, these kids are good. Joe Haden is going to be a lockdown corner, Major Wright is going to deliver hits that can cause nightmares for weeks, Maurkice Pouncey held his own against a top 5 draft pick with 4 years of experience on him, and those are just some of the guys who have been thrust into the spotlight before it should have been necessary. This team will be the prohibitive favorites to win the MNC next year, and they might just be good enough to live up to that sort of hype. The LSU fans weren't chanting "Fuck Tebow" loud enough to be clearly heard on television because they think he sucks. As the HBC used to say, if they like you, it's probably because they're beating you. What does it say when they're beating you and they still hate you? It says that you're more frightening than anything that's been around since the mid-90's.
The rest of this season will be fun to watch, but fun in a "having sex with your new girlfriend who is willing to experiment and you never know what she's going to suggest next, it might be great or it might be awful, but either way it'll be fun finding out" kind of way. Next year will be fun in a "80's rock star on tour, total domination of anything and everything, a rider that's 87 pages long, and having a running contest to see how many supermodels you can have sex with at once (and the current bar is set at 4)" kind of way.
And it's going to be damn fun. And hopefully won't include the burning sensation.