BATON ROUGE — LSU and Georgia will be the featured attraction on SEC-TV this week as the show will preview this weekend’s SEC Championship Football Game at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday on Fox Sports Southwest (cable ch. 37 in Baton Rouge).
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive joins host Dave Neal in FSN’s Atlanta studio to discuss the 12th SEC Championship Game, which has become the standard by which all conference football title games are judged. Saturday’s No. 3 LSU vs. No. 5 Georgia matchup is the second on Slive’s watch as he became the conference’s seventh commissioner.
Also on Thursday’s show, reporter Jenn Hildreth profiles LSU sophomore wide receiver/returner Skyler Green, who leads the nation in punt returns (21.2 average) for the sixth straight week. The 5-9, 189-pound Green is perhaps the forgotten man in a receiving corps spiced by the likes of Michael Clayton and Devery Henderson. Green has enjoyed his moments in the sun this year, however, highlighted by his last-minute, 34-yard touchdown catch to seal the Tigers’ 17-10 win over Georgia in Death Valley. On the season, he has 1,089 receiving, rushing and return yards (14.9 yards every time he touches the ball).
Hildreth also spotlights Georgia’s junior Jeremy Thomas, who ably continues the lineage of walk-on fullbacks in Athens. Thomas transferred from the Air Force Academy in ’01, and worked himself into the Bulldog lineup six times last season, including Georgia’s SEC Championship Game win over Arkansas. He has six starts this year and has rushed 20 times for 60 yards and a pair of scores, while catching 11 passes for 148 yards. Thomas is also one of four Bulldogs with a 4.0 grade point average.
The “Advance Auto Parts Players of the Week” in the SEC are highlighted on Thursday’s SEC-TV. LSU quarterback Matt Mauck and Georgia kicker Billy Bennett were instrumental in their teams’ respective wins over Arkansas and Georgia Tech last weekend.