SEC Media Days Kickoff in Dallas: Key Highlights and Notes
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00:00In the Southeastern Conference, it just means more media days. Four of them, in fact, in Dallas,
00:07Texas this week to kick off a new year of SEC football. On day number one, it was LSU, South
00:15Carolina, Ole Miss, and Vandy at the podium. Today, on day number two, one of the newcomers
00:21makes their debut at SEC Media Days. That would be Oklahoma, with Texas following on a Wednesday
00:27afternoon. Georgia, Tennessee, and Missouri also at the mic. I'm sure we will hear a lot of Kirby
00:34Smart getting grilled, and rightfully so, for all of the dangerous and reckless driving arrests and
00:40run-ins with the law in Athens, Georgia, out of his Bulldogs team. A lot to get to today at SEC
00:48Media Days on day number two in Dallas, but we start with this. Four media days for the SEC.
00:56Donnie Rightside has to love that. Yeah, exactly, and also, what are we doing on SEC Media Day in
01:02Dallas? Now, I understand that you're adding, you know, the University of Texas there, so you want that
01:06Texas footprint right away, but I did hear a pretty funny thing that all of a sudden said,
01:11hey, I know we're opening up today, but get this, we're going to be in Atlanta next year, back where
01:14the SEC belongs for our media day, and away we go. Which I do, but like, when you talk about the SEC,
01:18the heart of the SEC technically is Atlanta. It's where they play the SEC Championship, easy to get
01:23to for most of the schools, but understand why they're going to Texas, sort of that olive branch
01:27to say, you know what, flagship program in this state is Texas, let's honor them by coming over
01:31to the SEC, and rightfully so, but this is the media market that is basically the closest to
01:36professional sports, where the beat writers come in flocks, as opposed to just a few scatterings
01:41and questions. We love the SEC because typically, the rivalries are already there. The one thing
01:46that is a shame is, we no longer have Nick Saban as a coach at SEC Media Day, as opposed to now
01:52being in the media, where I think he left his credential, and they didn't let him in. Picture
01:57that too, right? Nick Saban shows up to media, they usually just whisk through because he has,
02:01you know, 15 guards with Alabama, you know who he is, nobody's checking his ID, but now he's just
02:06rolling up there in a nice suit trying to get in. Sir, I don't know who you are at this point. I'm
02:09Nick Saban. Who was Nick Saban? I used to coach Alabama. You don't coach him now, you got to go
02:14back to your room and get your credential, come back in. So that was pretty funny from yesterday,
02:17but I guess that's the biggest part. No longer Saban at SEC Media Day, and I did like when he
02:23would have a feud with some of the actual reporters and or other coaches in the SEC. I do miss that.
02:29Nick Saban, a journalist just like Donny Rightside and myself, did not have his credential,
02:36maybe did not know he needed his credential at SEC Media Days for the 18th consecutive year,
02:43but for the first time in the last 17 as a media member and not the head coach of the Alabama
02:48Crimson Tide. Kalen DeBoer, the new head man in Tuscaloosa on the stage tomorrow at SEC Media
02:56Days. Of course, Nick Saban will be a feature of ESPN's College Game Day this year, the second
03:01best college football pregame show in this country, only behind, of course, college football today,
03:07but Nick Saban also doing work this week with the SEC Network. I love Nick, but we got to
03:12tighten it out just a little bit here, Saban, from one media member to the next. Don't say
03:18you question why Texas is getting all of the love in the SEC, expected to contend for a conference
03:25crown when they didn't really do anything even in their previous conference, and then when asked
03:30what your conference championship game prediction is, have Texas playing Georgia. That's not how it
03:37works, Nick. If you go with one, you cannot say the other, but Nick Saban is not alone in believing
03:44that the Longhorns are going to play for an SEC title. Come that opening Saturday in December
03:49in Atlanta, Georgia, Texas has the second best price to win the SEC championship this year
03:55at plus 350, only behind those Bulldogs from Athens. Yeah, it should be, and again, it's a
04:01lot different vantage point here in the SEC, where, Grant, new teams and expansion, we get that,
04:06but also the advent of the playoffs expanding from, you know, the mythical national champion
04:11to the BCS era one and two to four, and now the true expansion that we have now, which is awesome.
04:16So when you enter into the season, sometimes it's not always about it's do or die on a week-to-week
04:21basis. You now have coaches with like that second life and that second opportunity. How many times
04:25in the past was like, hey, LSU is going to travel to Alabama, well, winner of that game is probably
04:29going to win the SEC and goes on to the championship, and the loser who might only have
04:32one loss on the season doesn't get to play for anything at that point. So I do think it's
04:36interesting this year where the SEC takes on that whole, where typically it was like, okay,
04:40you're doing yourself damage, where maybe a team from the ACC or Big Ten is like, man, that's a
04:44cakewalk schedule. They went unbeaten during the national championship round, as opposed to a two
04:48loss SEC team going like, we played so many tough teams on this season, it's unfair that we had to
04:53do this, and you get to advance. Now you get the benefit of the doubt. One loss is even two losses
04:58will be able to get you into a national championship picture. So I like that, and I like
05:01to see the coaches, how they operate on a day-to-day basis, where so many times, like, you lose second
05:06week of the season. Hey kids, I got to keep you motivated. We're not playing for anything the
05:10rest of the year, but let's see if we can win some football games. That's no longer the case,
05:13and I really like that. At the power conference level, of course, no longer divisions in any of
05:19the four that we have remaining. There are six teams around the SEC. Make that seven, in fact,
05:26because I believe Tennessee is at, no, eight and a half for the volunteers. Six teams in the SEC,
05:31with a win total of nine and a half or higher. For the likes of LSU, Alabama, and Missouri,
05:37the under has significant juice, but even a nine and three SEC team will certainly be in the running
05:44come November, when the CFP rankings are first released for one of those seven at-large bids
05:50to the college football playoff. Ole Miss, one of those teams with a nine and a half win total
05:55within the SEC, in the over the slight bit of juice. I bet it yesterday, looking at the running
06:00rebs scheduled this year under Lane Kiffin, I think there is a great path for the Rebels to
06:05maybe contend for an SEC crown, or at least a spot in the college football playoff. Greg Sankey
06:12thinks very highly of himself. He is the SEC commissioner, and he had this to say yesterday,
06:18quote, we know who we are in the Southeastern Conference. We're the one conference at this
06:23level where the name still means something. The Southeastern part of the United States,
06:27let's not bring up Missouri or Oklahoma, where when we expanded, we actually restored historic
06:32rivalries that if we end off that quote, they had destroyed years prior by poaching Texas A&M
06:38from the Big 12 to ruin one of the longest standing rivalries in college football between
06:42the Aggies and the Longhorns. But he is correct in the renewal of that historic rivalry, the
06:47Lone Star State Showdown later this season. But the idea that they have kind of had conference
06:55realignment work in their way when they were the first people to even start this wave of realignment
07:01adding OU in Texas is a little bit lost on me.