The Kiffin Smirk, Olive Garden, and the ClayNation Starting 11

Here's the top lesson from Saturday: If you're a major program, never schedule a game you can lose as your season opener. Period. This should be a rule. Why? Because we fans sit around for nine months waiting for the college football season to return, and then, in one sixty minute game, the entire season is ruined. It's just not worth it. You roll out of bed the next morning and effectively the wildest dreams of the offseason, that your team could run the table and contend for a national championship, is over.

Ask Georgia fans what they feel like this morning. Ask Tennessee fans what the last two years prior to this season felt like losing the first game of the season in California. Losing the opening game counts as two losses, it makes you feel like complete crap. And don't even get me started with how good you feel if you win an opening game. You're a liar. You don't feel good, you just feel relieved. Nothing has changed about your season if you win a big opening game. You just get to dream for one week more. On to the ClayNation Starting 11.

1. I was at UT- Western Kentucky this weekend. Lane Kiffin does not smile.

Shortly before kickoff, Lane Kiffin strolled down the shortened Vol walk, smirk in tow. Kiffin has two facial expressions: disdain, as if he's smelled something foul, and the smirk. Sometimes, to be fair, he combines the two into a disdainful smirk. It's really uncanny how someone can be this successful at such a young age without ever smiling.

Yep, 99% of his time on earth, Kiffin smirks. It's his most noticeable physical characteristic.

I started thinking, what does Kiffin look like when his kids open Christmas presents? What about when he poses for family photographs? Then I started thinking even more, which is even more dangerous, couldn't you construct a solid pyramid of coaching success based solely on the absence of the smile?

Think about this, who really smiles in the SEC and has won a national championship? Urban Meyer? Nein. Nick Saban? Nein.

Steve Spurrier used to smile, but then he started making a living as a defensive guru and now he looks like he's trying to pass a kidney stone standing on the sideline.

You know how political candidates have to smile all the time in order to get elected. Being a coach in the SEC is the exact opposite, you have to look like you hate your job and everyone associated with it for people to trust you with their football programs.

2. Joe Cox is Joe Tereshinski with longer arms and less generational connection to the football program.

All season long Georgia fans have argued that Joe Cox was going to be an adequate quarterback. That he wasn't Matthew Stafford flashy, but he'd get the job done. It's almost like the University of Georgia sent out talking points to Bulldog fans; it was uncanny how brainwashed they all were. Mention his name and immediately Georgia fans put on their metaphorical--it was the offseason so they didn't need to break them out yet--red pants and barked about how Cox backed up Chris Leak at Independence High before he took over and led the team to a state championship. Next, Dawg fans pointed to his performance in a come-from-behind victory over Colorado back in 2006. Then they hit the intangibles, how hard he'd worked, his leadership how much the team respected him, if it's possible to praise someone while only using intangible qualities, Georgia fans set a record in the 2009 offseason when it came to Cox.

In so doing they overlooked the fact that you or I look more imposing than Cox does. They conveniently ignored my question about how a guy could spend five years in Georgia's weight program and have smaller arms than me. And now, well, now, those talking points are long forgotten.

Because Georgia is in real trouble. At best they're going to split their next two games, at home against South Carolina and on the road at Arkansas.

At best.

Then what?

This is going to be a season of woe for Georgia football.

Yep, the long knives are out in Athens. Mark Richt better hope those knives are put to better use, adding to and shaping the ample cleavage in the Georgia undergrad population, instead of coming after him and defensive coordinator Willie Martinez.

3. The Big Ten is awful. So is the ACC.

New gambit, is it possible to not mention any teams above the Mason-Dixon line for an entire season in the Monday review column? I think so.

So we're working with a new theory in the ClayNation column: they don't play college football above the Mason-Dixon line.

4. John Chavis' defense did not inspire great faith in the LSU-Washington game. Also, I'm an old man.

I drove back from Knoxville and sat down on the couch to spend the rest of the evening watching multiple games I'd DVR'ed. I kept going strong until near halftime of LSU-Washington, which I caught up with to watch live. Then, at around 11:30, I was overcome with fatigue. So I had to DVR the second half and watch it Sunday morning.

I felt like such a failure.

Much like Chavis's defense in the opener.

LSU played an awful lot of zone defense on third and long and Jake Locker ate them for a late dinner. For a while there it looked like the Huskies, cheered on a by a fan who arrived inexplicably wearing a wrestling singlet, were going to get their first win since 2007. A few times the cameras cut to Les Miles as he talked to John Chavis on the sideline. Fortunately, I'm a great lip-reader. So I know exactly what he said.

Les: "Come on now, Chief, we didn't pay you over a half million dollars so you could get me fired. Skip Bertman just realized he's got a disaster on his hands and you're our savior. But you ain't saving nothing out there."

Chavis: "I can't look into my defensive players' eyes if you're looking at me, Les. That's why I'm on the sideline. Not to talk to you. Just give me some time, I own first and second down, got them stamped, says 'Chief' in bold red letters. You've got fourth down, Les, says 'Ballz' in LSU purple, we're working on third down. We get third down covered, we going to win big here."

Les: "Good. Like to hear it. We've got to get up early tomorrow, tour the Lincoln Monument, Vietnam Veteran's, the Ko-Rea monument. I love Ko-Reans."

Chavis: "That's the other Washington."

5. Olive Garden is, inexplicably, the most popular restaurant in the South.

At some point in the future, I'm going to buy out all the restaurants next door to Olive Garden and open up more Olive Gardens. I don't get this, why is the restaurant so popular down here? No matter what time of the day or night you go to Olive Garden there's a huge wait. It's impossible to eat there. Is lasagna the new barbecue?

The restaurant is what, twenty years old? How are these crowds at a chain restaurant still possible? What's so delectable about the Olive Garden that they generate $4 billion dollars per square foot of restaurant space in the South?

Is it like this anywhere else in the country?

As you can see, I made the mistake of attempting to eat at one over the weekend.

6. Solid starts for Gene Chizik and Dan Mullen; Lane Kiffin doles out touchdowns to favored players.

Most importantly for Chizik, offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn looks like the early leader in the clubhouse when it comes to newly hired coordinators who will help the most in the college ranks. The fact that Auburn's offense put up 556 yards on anyone is a tribute to him. Also, I love that Chizik pumped his fist during the Tiger Walk and this inspired confidence among Auburn faithful. Really? That's all it takes, being fiery while walking to the stadium. I've been pumping my fist since I was 13, and I don't have a lot to show for it.

As for Dan Mullen, Mississippi State fans are going to give him plenty of room to install his new offense. 48 points is the most State has scored since the War of Northern Aggression.

Finally, Lane Kiffin's touchdown selection is weird for two reasons: a. It's inexplicable that the offense is so capable with a first and goal situation that a coach can decide who should score as opposed to which down to attempt the field goal on and b. the coach picks who scores.

At least twice Lane Kiffin put in favored players to score on plays called expressly for them. The first time with freshman phenom Bryce Brown after starting running back Montario Hardesty had done all the work to get UT to the two-yard line. Hardesty was upset about being pulled before the touchdown, and Kiffin rewarded Brown with the first touchdown of his career. Quite the stage manager there.

Then Kiffin dialed up the goal line passes for Jonathan Crompton to get his self-esteem back after last season. Four of Crompton's touchdown passes came from inside the ten yard line.

7. Alabama is going to win the SEC West.

I've seen enough to feel comfortable that both LSU and Ole Miss are going to lose a minimum of three conference games each. Alabama might only lose two. So the Crimson Tide will be back in Atlanta in a little less than three months.

Also, for Virginia Tech fans, take some consolation in the fact that Ryan Williams is going to be a bona fide stud. And that it should be impossible for your team to lose more than two conference games this season.

8. The staring at each other while talking in the press box gambit needs to end.

Why did this ever take off as a motif for calling games? You know what I'm talking about, when the announcers are calling a game and the camera cuts to the booth and both men have to look at each other while they're talking. The idea is: 'Hey, there's no camera here, we're just two guys having a conversation.'

Only that doesn't work.

It's really creepy.

Because the camera is the third person in this conversation and some of the announcers take the staring at their partner bit way too intently. Like whoever the white guy calling the Ole Miss game with Rod Gilmore was. Joe Tessitore? That sounds like a made-up name. Anyway, I felt like Gilmore's head was going to catch fire with the intensity of Tessitore's smoldering gaze.

Joe, baby, you don't need to sell the stare that well. Just look at us, please.

Can we end this everywhere? The announcers aren't having a conversation that we happen to overhear, they're calling the game that we all tuned in to watch, let them address the camera.

9. "I'm Jevan F'in Snead."

I don't want to say Snead has gotten a big head after all the attention this offseason, but his entire performance on Sunday seemed designed to draw attention to himself. Even the interceptions had a swaggering -- look at how far I can throw the damn football -- look about them. He finished 12 of 22 for 175 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, but I don't know how comfortable you can be if you're an Ole Miss fan. At least not until Snead decides he doesn't have to live up to the preseason hype all by himself.

Also, you know how some coaches can sweat, and you think, that's great, look how hard they're working, and then other coaches can sweat and you think, they should never put the camera on them when it's hot outside.

Houston Nutt is definitely in the latter camp.

10. Andre Johnson's Dick Sporting Goods commercial is the worst athlete commercial in the past ten years.

I'm going to do a whole column on this since they played it 14 times during each game, but if you've ever wondered what an athlete commercial would look like if an athlete was incapable of a. speaking outside of a single montone b. moving his body while speaking or c. conveying any expression via his face other than lip movement, this commercial is your Mona Lisa, a priceless work of athlete art.

11. Congrats to South Carolina for surviving September.

They were in real danger of starting the season 1-3. Now they get a shot to ruin both Georgia and Ole Miss's seasons before the month is out. Win either and they're sitting at 3-1 and the season can still be a bright and shining city on the hill of South Carolina football seasons past. By which I mean, South Carolina could still win eight games.
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Clay Travis is the author of three books. His latest, On Rocky Top: A Front Row Seat to The End of an Era chronicles the 2008 Tennessee football season, is on sale now.