SEC Media Days have fussin’, feudin’
ATLANTA — For college football fans, the best part of waking up in the summer isn’t coffee in their cup, to swipe from a durable commercial, but what’s on tap for nearly the entirety of this week: the chatfueled SEC Media Days.
New LSU coach Brian Kelly cranks up things Monday, and veteran Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher closes down the oft-jumping joint Thursday. In between, there will be plenty of declarations of improved programs ultimately failing to prove true in the fall.
But that’s OK. Midsummer is a time for eternal optimism in college football, even for Vanderbilt. Thus, here are a handful of items to keep an ear out for this week from the Omni Atlanta:
Jimbo versus Nick
Alabama coach Nick Saban takes the stage Tuesday, and Fisher doesn’t until two days later, so the two coaches who’ve won eight national titles between them (we’re having fun, right?) won’t cross paths this week.
Each is sure to be asked, however, about their running feud stemming from Saban’s claiming A&M “bought” its top-rated 2022 recruiting class to Fisher’s responding that perhaps Saban should have been slapped by his dad as a child (among other eye-popping charges).
Saban, who’s won seven of those titles, has played it cool from the start, and Fisher has cooled down along the way, at least publicly. Media days will bubble the battle back to the surface, however, at least for a few interviews. The Aggies play at Alabama on Oct. 8, when the grumpy old men will settle (not really) their differences on the grass.
Realignment babble
UCLA and Southern Cal are exiting the Pac-12 and bound for the Big Ten in 2024. What’s that mean for the (future) 16team SEC? Commissioner Greg Sankey will address as much starting Monday. Texas and Oklahoma are scheduled to join the SEC no later than 2025 and probably by 2024, and the SEC might then stay pat at 16 for a while.
Or not. A year ago, the league appeared quite comfortable at 14.
About that …
Last July in the middle of media days, the Chronicle broke the story of Texas and OU angling to join the nation’s most prominent league. The scoop stemmed from a 10-year anniversary story of then-A&M president R. Bowen Loftin declaring the Big 12 in a state of “uncertainty” on July 21, 2011.
The conference-shifting stories (Loftin’s declaration and UT-OU to the SEC) wound up breaking 10 years apart to the day. A&M was preparing to take the stage at last year’s SEC Media Days when the UT-OU story was posted to the Chronicle website, prompting some media members to believe it was some orchestrated event by A&M to try to keep old rival Texas out of the league. The wayward reporters gave A&M way too much credit on that front.
Name, image, other thing
The awkwardly termed name, image and likeness (NIL) will continue to be a big part of the discussion at media days — as NIL was last year — with a year of experience under the belt for the 14 programs. That’s good for some, not as good for others.
Fisher and Saban can agree on one thing in 2022: a call for uniformity concerning NIL standards and state and federal laws. As usual, we’ll do our best to try to explain the latest on the knotty topic of name, image and that other thing — in 1,000 words or fewer.
The funny ones
Former Florida and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who came up with the awfully appropriate “Talking Season” for this hot time of year, used to routinely steal the show at SEC Media Days.
“Every time some sportswriter asks me how much longer I’m going to coach, I need to ask him, ‘How much longer are you going to write?’ ” a bemused Spurrier said in 2012.
He retired three years later. Last year, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz rose to the occasion, offering of a potential rekindling of a league rivalry with Oklahoma: “I kind of like the rivalry we’ve got with Arkansas. I don’t remember the last time they beat us, so I kind of like that one.”
The Razorbacks beat the Tigers 34-17 last year in Fayetteville, Ark., by the way.
Mississippi State coach and former Texas Tech funnyman Mike Leach is always a tune-in, of course, and Saban is routinely a hoot. (Kidding on that last part.) Meanwhile, Arkansas’ Sam Pittman is like a five-star underclassman, offering plenty of potential at the podium early in his Razorbacks revival.