USA TODAY International Edition
QB questions, coaches focus of SEC shindig
The kickoff of media days for the Football Bowl Subdivision marks the tipping point for the start of the regular season. It’s all downhill from here.
The Southeastern Conference meets in Atlanta on Monday for a fourday extravaganza of glitz, glamour and bad questions. Here are five story lines standing front and center for the SEC.
1. Alabama’s quarterbacks
Neither will be in attendance, but they’ll loom over the proceedings. There is no bigger story in the SEC than the Crimson Tide’s quarterback competition between sophomore Tua Tagovailoa and junior Jalen Hurts. Who wins? The safe bet is on Tagovailoa, but Hurts could remain a vital weapon in a secondary role for the Tide and neoffensive coordinator Mike Locksley.
2. Meet the new coaches
There are five new head coaches in the conference, or six if you count Matt Luke’s promotion from interim to fulltime hire at Mississippi. Some enter 2018 with significant expectations: Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State, for one, and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. But even as they take over historically elite programs, Florida’s Dan Mullen and Tennessee’s Jeremy Pruitt will have at least one year to get things in order before the stakes are raised in 2019.
3. The Tide’s biggest threat
Another Alabama story line, since Nick Saban’s team is the biggest draw in college football. It’s at this time every year that two decisions are made: One, that Alabama is the SEC’s best team, and two, that one rival could step up and steal the Tide’s thunder. Auburn is a contender: The Tigers won the SEC West Division in 2017. Junior quarterback Jarrett Stidham is a Heisman Trophy contender. Mississippi State could make things interesting in the West, though winning the division might be beyond its grasp. LSU needs to develop its quarterback. In the end, Alabama’s biggest threat shouldn’t change: Georgia nearly won the title in 2017 and could finish the deal this fall.
4. Jake Fromm
It’s not about Fromm’s very minor hand injury, which shouldn’t limit the sophomore whatsoever heading into September. While Fromm won’t be in Atlanta, look for Kirby Smart to be pelted with questions regarding the returning starter’s offseason growth and how the staff plans on using incoming five-star freshman Justin Fields. Can Smart and Georgia offensive coordinator Jim Chaney find a way to use both options? Media days will present a chance to get Smart’s take on how Fields has progressed since arriving on campus this winter. By all accounts, he’s lived up to his recruiting hype. This would be a good question to ask: Does Smart see any scenario in which Fields could supplant Fromm during the regular season?
5. Checking the hot seat
Even with so many new hires in 2018, the likelihood that an SEC program changes coaches during this coming offseason remains extremely high. A few coaches are extremely safe: Saban, Smart and each of the new head coaches, for example. A few others don’t share that sense of job security. Take Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason, who led the Commodores to a bowl game in 2016 but finished one spot out of the East Division cellar a year ago. Missouri’s Barry Odom needs wins against legitimate competition. Mark Stoops has Kentucky on an upward trajectory, but the Wildcats are hungry to get past the seven-win hump.