Free Form Friday: Survival of the Fittest

Maestro, the music. And make it a triple:

This is Free Form Friday, the pigskin-poor purgatory where we wait patiently until the glory of college football season washes over us once more. Amen.

Really all you can hope for is to survive the offseason. And to that end this week's Free Form Friday topic is pretty straight forward: If you had to be trapped in a tropical wilderness with an SEC football coach, who would it be.

There are pluses and minuses all over the board on this one. Les Miles seems to be wily enough. And he'll eat basically anything, which is a plus in a survival situation (ever eaten grasshoppers? You can actually thread them on fishing line and toast them over a fire. No, I'm not kidding).

But Les also seems like the kind of guy who could make the sort of bad decisions you just can't afford to make in the wilderness. Like wrestling a caiman for the hell of it. The jungle is unpredictable enough. Miles would likely add an unnecessary degree of surprise to the situation.

Staying calm and having a plan are the two most important things in a survival situation. In light of this Nick Saban's icy demeanor and process-based lifestyle make him seem like a winner. Only one problem: his diminutive stature isn't going to help you portage a canoe across the Panamanian peninsula. I don't know about you but I don't want to have to worry about a homunculus who could be carried off by monkeys never to be seen again. Just can't have that on my conscience, man.

Will Muschamp is a pretty brawny guy. He's also not afraid of a little blood. But if his orienteering skills are anything like his career trajectory he's leading you up a mountain, then down a cliff and through a nest of vipers as sure as you're born.

We don't know a lot about Kirby Smart's outdoor skills, but based solely upon the fact that he grew up in Bainbridge I like his odds. No one I've ever met from Bainbridge wasn't capable of skinning a buck or running a trotline.

Vanderbilt's Derek Mason seems like a guy who could take care of himself. But then he also seemed like the guy to keep things going at Vanderbilt so I'm assuming he wouldn't make it through the first night.

Kevin Sumlin would probably be left behind by all of his traveling companions.

Butch Jones seems like he would be the guy bragging about being a former Navy SEAL or having lived for 3 years in the Australian bush subsisting off lizards and taipans. But once push came to shove you'd probably figure out pretty quickly that he's less than useless in a survival situation. Like, take three hours to start a fire, then fall into it useless.

Gus Malzahn would almost certainly get in a big hurry and step on something deadly. And like Hugh Freeze, I imagine he'd learn quickly that you can't buy your way out of a primeval forest.

So as you can see, this is a complex question. Feel free to discuss it, or whatever else strikes your collective fancy. Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!