SEC kicks off football media blitz
Alabama poised to dominate conference again as ACC rises
HOOVER, ALA. The side of the hotel in the suburban mall has been prepared with the giant league logo so they can make sure you know #itjustmeansmore. Just don’t expect too much of what’s said in these next few days or weeks, as college football’s preseason publicity blitz begins, to mean much.
The Southeastern Conference’s media days — that’s plural, as in four days — annually kicks things off with a spectacle that’s covered almost wall-to-wall by TV partner ESPN’s various networks. By nature, media days are almost all positive offseasons and sunny outlooks, and, given the SEC’s place on the calendar — intentionally first, before the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten crank up — it’s a savvy saturation of conversation in the sport.
But what we might not hear this week in Hoover is much about how the SEC has fallen off in recent years — unless it’s posit- ed as how soon the league will return to supremacy. The working hypothesis will be that it will occur this season, but that’s not certain. Alabama and Nick Saban continue to loom over everything.
Saban has built the Crimson Tide into one of college football’s all-time dynasties. Alabama finished one second shy of winning its fifth national championship in eight years when Deshaun Watson and Clemson prevailed, but four in eight is still historic — and there’s no drop-off in sight.
But Alabama’s dominance of college football starts inside the
SEC. The Tide’s success only partially masks the decline of the rest of the league.
Last season, when every other team had at least four losses, it was painfully obvious. The SEC finished 6-9 against Power Five opponents. If not for a contractual tie with the Sugar Bowl, Alabama would have been the only team in a New Year’s Six bowl.
It’s a blip, we’ll hear this week. And that’s probably correct. The SEC has won eight of the last 11 national titles. But Alabama has four of those. At this point the Saban effect is undeniable.
Not so long ago, the league seemed to have two or three elite teams every season. But that’s no longer the case. Alabama has won 17 consecutive SEC games, by an average of 21 points. (In 2016, the average margin was 24.9 points.)
Quick, name the legitimate SEC contenders to upend Alabama this season. We’ll wait.
But in what Steve Spurrier likes to call the “talkin’ season,” there will be plenty more to chew on — starting with the former ol’ ball coach himself, who’ll do some talkin’ from Hoover on an ESPN platform.
We’ll hear about coaches on the hot seat, some imagined, others very real. As one example, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin, whose athletics director sat down with TV-radio host Paul Finebaum and said Sumlin needed to win this season, sending the temperature from simmer to full boil. That’s another byproduct of the Saban Effect, and it’s why Les Miles won’t be around to entertain with sound bites that are loquacious and deliciously erratic.
For fun, we’ll get LSU coach Ed Orgeron with that thick Cajun accent. He’s not Miles — no one is — but he’s entertaining. Meanwhile, Arkansas’ Bret Bielema and wife Jen welcomed their firstborn over the weekend. Briella Nichole Bielema weighed in Saturday at 7.8 pounds. Expect great nuggets on fatherhood.
On a less bright note, Mississippi’s Hugh Freeze will likely undergo a grilling about the Rebels’ NCAA issues — and his future — for the second year in a row. Most coaches probably don’t enjoy media days, but Freeze could be excused if he absolutely hates it.
When Saban arrives Wednesday, he’ll deflect plenty of questions about the impending game with Florida State, a matchup in Atlanta that might be the most anticipated season kickoff, well, ever. The winner gets catapulted to favorite status in the ever-present conversation about the race for the College Football Playoff. The loser might simply, as Miles would say, “finish second” in Week 1; it’s not far-fetched to consider a rematch in the same stadium to end the season. It’s not just the SEC, either. Later this week at ACC media days, we’ll hear a lot about the overall strength and depth of a conference long known as a basketball league. Everything gets magnified by a national title — thanks, Clemson! — but last season, the ACC was flat better than the SEC and every other conference. Because you want numbers: The ACC went 9-3 in bowls, including 4-1 against the SEC; counting the regular season, the ACC was 10-4 against the SEC.
It was capped by Clemson’s victory vs. Alabama for the national title, which was the league’s second in four seasons (they’ve played for three in that span).
“I don’t know that it gets much better than this from a competitive standpoint,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said.
But it might. And that becomes the next question: Can the ACC maintain its strength level?
Florida State is loaded. But Clemson must replace Watson, who was the most dynamic playmaker in college football. But coach Dabo Swinney has built an elite program that returns plenty of talent and should stay a contender. The key will be how good the teams are in what appears to be the ACC’s next tier: Miami (Fla.), Virginia Tech, North Carolina State and Louisville (though not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily only those teams). Can one break through?
“It’s going to be staying there that’s hard, because we’re not sneaking up on anybody,” North Carolina coach Larry Fedora said of the ACC’s newfound football status.
There’s plenty to come over the next few weeks, as other conferences take their spots at the podium. A few of the story lines: THE BIG TEN When last seen, Ohio State was trudging off the field in Glendale, Ariz., after a 31-0 thumping by Clemson. What created offseason concern wasn’t so much the blowout as the shutout, which felt like the culmination of a season in which Urban Meyer’s attack misfired, especially in the passing game with J.T. Barrett.
Enter Kevin Wilson. The exIndiana coach has a reputation as an offensive wizard, dating to when he led Oklahoma’s recordsetting offenses a decade ago.
As usual, Ohio State bristles with talent and expectations. If Wilson can retool the passing game that struggled in critical games — if Barrett can return to playing as he did in 2014, when he was Big Ten offensive player of the year — the Buckeyes look primed for a run at the Playoff.
Elsewhere in the Big Ten, Jim Harbaugh dominated the offseason again. Michigan’s spring trip to Rome, which included everything from Harbaugh presenting the pope with a winged helmet and shoes to a little bit of football practice, was the coach’s quintessential zaniness at its finest.
But as Harbaugh has placed the Wolverines front and center in the spotlight, the on-field results in his first two seasons have lagged, if only a bit. Michigan was close last season but lost three of its last four games. Now, the Wolverines must replace 17 starters. And at some point soon they need to beat Ohio State. (We know, Michigan thinks it did beat Ohio State last year.) THE BIG 12 After the Big 12 missed the College Football Playoff for the second time in three seasons, there was more angst ( but then, this appears to be the league’s only steady state). To its credit, the league did not consider expansion or other wacky remedies — it had decided to add a conference title game, which returns this season and is a guaranteed rematch after a nine-game round-robin conference schedule. Instead, the Big 12 will just try to win its way back into the postseason and from there, hopefully, into something approaching stability.
This requires powers Oklahoma and Texas to be good, bringing us to a new and fascinating chapter in the Red River rivalry.
uWith Bob Stoops’ surprise retirement in June, the Sooners promoted 33-year-old offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley. He’s the youngest head coach in Football Bowl Subdivision, and though he has earned a formidable reputation as a future head coaching star, he’s a rookie. With senior quarterback Baker Mayfield and a deep, talented offensive line, Oklahoma is projected by many as the Big 12 favorite and a potential Playoff participant. But some of the expectations might be on hold as we wait to see how Riley handles the promotion.
Riley was fantastic as an offensive coordinator. How will he handle the jump to head coach at one of college football’s all-time winningest programs (with the attendant expectations)?
uMeanwhile, Texas’ Tom Herman isn’t a rookie head coach — he spent the last two years seasoning at Houston — but he’s new to Texas. The former Ohio State offensive coordinator is known as a quarterback whisperer, which is music to the ears of Texas fans.
His arrival has Longhorns fans hopeful a renaissance might be on its way. Texas, which beat LSU in the chase to land Herman, gave him a contract paying $5.25 million in 2017. With Stoops gone, it’s easily the highest in the Big 12 (and it ranks No. 5 nationally, according to USA TODAY Sports research). But if Herman returns Texas to the top of the heap, it’ll be more than worth it.
Still, the second Saturday in October will mark the first time since 1997 neither Stoops nor Mack Brown was on the sidelines in the Cotton Bowl. The two young coaches will carry the banners for two of college football’s most storied programs — and along with it, perhaps, the hopes of the Big 12. THE PAC-12 By now we should be leery of pronouncing Southern California as a legitimate contender for a national title. But this time, just maybe? After losing three of their first four last season, the Trojans won nine in a row.
By the time they had outlasted Penn State in a riveting Rose Bowl, they looked, well, like USC. But now, they’ll start the season with huge expectations.
In sophomore quarterback Sam Darnold, who threw for 453 yards with five touchdowns vs. Penn State, USC might have the early Heisman Trophy favorite. Add the usual collection of talent, and coach Clay Helton might have the Trojans ready to roll.
But as with everything at college football’s media days — Spurrier’s “talkin’ season” — we’ll wait and see. FOLLOW REPORTER GEORGE SCHROEDER