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"The guy who wrote the excellent novels Arkansas (2008) and Citrus County (out this past July) teaches down at Ole Miss these days, and he\u2019ll be filing dispatches on all things SEC football throughout the season. Below, read his take on preview of Week 2. And check out his first couple posts while you\u2019re at it.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nAs we wade into the conference schedule, let me remind you all of what you already know but sometimes forget as the barrel fills with empties: There\u2019s a way to trashtalk, and a way not to. If you were reared a gentleman and that rearing took, just follow your training. If you were born sweet-natured, follow your instincts. If you were raised willy-nilly and were not blessed with innate inclinations toward temperance and wisdom, I offer two simple boundaries:\n\n *Mind your manners while talking to a lady. And that means even if they say something to you first and even if what they\u2019ve said is far from ladylike.\n\n *No racial or religious slurs.\n\nFurther, calling a fat guy fat or a short guy short or a hairlip a hairlip is in bounds, but strictly in retaliation. We hope to be more inventive than to call chubby chubby, but wit isn\u2019t always waiting when we call upon it. Even further, if you are a road powerhouse playing a weak squad, don\u2019t rub it in. Bad form. That means you, LSU fans making the hike to Nashville. You have a much better team and always will so be nice to those nerds. Every conference should have one school that can be proud of its academics, and Vandy is kind enough to play that role for us. The Big Ten has Northwestern, the PAC 10 Stanford, the ACC Duke, and the Big 12 has, well, I guess there\u2019s plenty of room to invite Rice to the conference now. Make that priority two on the agenda, after jamming in an extra off-week so you\u2019re not all elbow deep in brisket and Shiner Bock while earnest conferences are holding their championship games. (Just get up from the grown-up table Big 12, if you would, and let the Big Ten have your seat.)\n\nSo even if Vandy plays you tough, Bayou Bengals, which they very well may because you\u2019re coming off a much-hyped, much-prepared-for, game-of-the-day against N. Carolina, even if you have to come back and win in the fourth quarter, fight your desire to be obnoxious.\n\nMore after the jump\n\nWhile I\u2019m thinking about Vanderbilt, ever notice how they have that other-side-of-the-coin home field advantage? Normally, home field is a boon because you\u2019ve got a huge stadium full of rabid fans on your side. In Nashville, and I truly believe this, they enjoy an advantage due to a remarkably sparse, quiet crowd and an undersized sporting park. These powerhouse programs, they\u2019re used to having 90,000 folks screaming, thirty TV trucks lined up outside, the population of the town doubling on a game weekend, previews on ESPN all week, and then all of a sudden they\u2019re standing in this dinky, windblown stadium full of bare, shimmering bleachers in a city where a good number of the people don\u2019t care about the game at all. Half the students are studying and the other half are thinking about studying. Until the coaches are screaming in their faces at the end of the third quarter, I don\u2019t think players from Florida or Alabama or LSU truly, in their bones, believe that the game counts in the standings just like any other game. They think it\u2019s a friendly or something, like in soccer.\n\nTwo formidable guests from faraway lands this weekend. Hard to imagine Penn State stays with Bama into the fourth quarter, but I\u2019ll be rooting for Paterno as long as he\u2019s coaching the Nittany Lions\u2014a role model, in this day and age. A bit north, Tennessee will try to find a way to keep things from getting out of hand against Oregon. I don\u2019t see any point in Dooley being conservative, though, and playing for a close loss. That was Kiffen\u2019s act, and I\u2019d imagine Vol fans are hoping now for the opposite of everything Kiffen stood for. Dooley and company have had all summer to watch tape on the Ducks. One hundred thousand plus ready to cheer, at least until things start going bad. Who knows? There\u2019s really no telling how bad Tennessee is. Maybe not as bad as we think. I often pull for whichever team\u2019s fans more deserve a win, and that\u2019s Tennessee\u2019s. Their AD hucked himself, but that\u2019s not the fans\u2019 fault. What else do they have besides this football team, Dollywood? I\u2019ve lived in Oregon. In Oregon they have hiking and pinot-tasting and mild, encouraging weather and hip industry and a breathtaking ocean and souring mountains. Besides your outlying aficionados, the fan base out there is reasonable and distracted. For them, there\u2019s more to life. I know, I know, the stadium can be loud, and let me extend my full compliments to the structural engineers for their noise-corralling design and to Oregonians for their pulmonary health, but trust me. These folks go out and have a civilized stroll and an espresso the morning of the game. They\u2019re wearing their yellow and green but they\u2019re talking about law school and what kind of dog they want to buy next. And the game is in like two hours. They say things like, &amp;quot;Looks like it\u2019ll be a nice day for a game.&amp;quot; They have fun, but they\u2019re reasonable, if you know what I mean. College football is just another aspect of a full life for them.\n\nFlorida/South Florida\n\n I can\u2019t tell if anyone outside of Gator Nation is interested in this. I can\u2019t tell if I\u2019m interested in it beyond finding out what the offense might look like without thirteen bad snaps and with Jordan Reed, Andre Dubose, Frankie Hammond, Xavier Nixon, and probably others I\u2019m not thinking of. We made excuses for Addazio all last year, and we can do it for a little while longer, but not much longer. Bottom line, this isn\u2019t the kind of game teams like Florida like to play. Simply no upside. You win and you\u2019ve beaten S. Florida. Whooptie-crap. You lose, which is plausible if you watched Florida\u2019s offense*** last week, and you\u2019ve lost to S. Florida. People will say this game means something for recruiting, but that\u2019s not true.\n\n***To call what the Gators did on the downs when the ball was in their possession \u2019offense\u2019 is a loose interpretation of the word. The only way to end up with under 30 yards in three quarters against an inferior opponent is to have EVERYBODY play badly. You have to have the line sleepwalking and the quarterback staring down receivers even when they\u2019re running none-yard routes and you have to have tiny backs getting arm-tackled and receivers not making plays on the ball or edge blocking and fullbacks tripping over their feet and blocking air and the kicker having an off day and stiff-as-a-board play-calling and, yes, it doesn\u2019t hurt to snap the ball poorly a dozen times. That required all hands on deck, that performance. \n\nOkay now. Throw back a shot and have your ladyfriend slap you full force. Georgia verses South Carolina. This, mamajammas, is our first conference tilt. One of these teams gets stomped down into the losers\u2019 bracket in the East. One of these coaches gets eyed askance by the old white guys in the luxury box and by their less patient sons. As with all tilts, predicting this game would be childish. It could go down to the wire or either team could blow the other out. To me, the pressure on Carolina is heavier, because they\u2019re the home team and because they have no history to fall back on. But who cares. Pressure, shmresher. The important thing is these young men, talented at and trained for collision, will be colliding to their utmost. First hostile crowd for Aaron Murray. Spurrier hates Georgia. He hates them. Tilt. Teelt!\n\nI will be pulling for both teams, South Carolina because I always root for the Ball Coach and always will, and UGA because I\u2019m the type who likes my rivals mighty. Same reason I\u2019ll be pulling for FSU out at Oklahoma. Rivalry games unavoidably have a certain degree of juice, but they\u2019re so much better when no one can sneak up. Through most of the last decade the Florida/Georgia series was as it should be, both teams getting their share, and those losses HURT\u2014they hurt the way they\u2019re supposed to hurt\u2014whereas the \u201997 game, during which the Gators finally succumbed to boredom after administering many consecutive drubbings and got run all over by Robert Edwards (remember him?), was merely very, very annoying. It\u2019s worse somehow; it eats at you. We were walking out of the stadium and the Bulldog fans were the ones consoling us. An old guy with big white dentures and a faded red shirt said to me, &amp;quot;Oh, well. You guys have to give us one every once in a while.&amp;quot; This lopsidedness is a warranted worry, after the blowouts of the past two years, but by the looks of Aaron Murray Georgia fans have a bunch to feel good about.\n\nEXTRA-SEC INTERLUDE\n\n I\u2019m becoming a Big Ten respecter and I\u2019m not ashamed to say it. All y\u2019all ever had to do was add one more dangerous team and institute a championship game, and you\u2019re doing that, so I feel compelled to mention you, which I\u2019ve now done herewith. I don\u2019t really know the word \u2019herewith\u2019 and didn\u2019t need to use it there. Padgett Powell uses it sometimes, so I try to.\n\nThe AD\u2019s at Ohio State and Miami deserve a thank you. There\u2019s no outcome that could make this game boring. Even if one team blows the other out, the fact that either of these teams could get blown out at this juncture would be, as Jose Canseco often says about books he\u2019s trying to sell, diabolically interesting.  \n\nFINALLY\n\n Ole Miss fans, spend a lot of money in New Orleans, and not just at the restaurants and bars where they don\u2019t need much help anymore. Find a place that doesn\u2019t look swamped, and drop some Oord wealth. The point of a home-and-home with Tulane is to have fun, but direct your fun usefully, if possible.\n\nAlso, back in town here, do yourselves a favor and go to that Portuguese bakery on Lamar a ways north of The Square and order what they call \u2019Grandma\u2019s Bread.\u2019\n\nPSS\u2014Another Ole Miss note. It looks like prematurely defected QB Jevan Snead will not be brushing his bangs aside on the bench of my own Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at least that\u2019s the latest. Here\u2019s the thing: Haven\u2019t we grown bored with the bullying of this guy? I\u2019m instituting a new fashion, which is rooting for Snead. If he didn\u2019t have character before, he\u2019s getting some now. He\u2019s still got the physical tools and he\u2019s real young, so keep working, Jevan, and you\u2019ll catch on somewhere, and you\u2019ll see how sweet it is to take something, rather than the thing being given, to have something be up for grabs and you\u2019re the one who ends up with it. If not in Tampa Bay, elsewhere. Take a bit of advice from Uncle John. Talent is free, but there\u2019s nothing like knowing you outworked them, like knowing you kept getting up early while they slept in, even when you had a hangover or it was raining, and now there\u2019s nothing they can do about it but whine. Signed, Your Only Fan.\n\n \u2014John Brandon"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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