The first games won’t be played for another six weeks, but the college football season gets underway this week.
About lunch time Tuesday, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive will welcome more than 1,000 credentialed media for the annual SEC Football Media Days event here at the Wynfrey Galleria Hotel and Conference Center in Hoover, Ala. And like a track & field starter’s gun signals the beginning of a race, three solid days of intense football discussion will commence as media members get their first crack at the league’s 14 head coaches, 42 players and a handful of league administrators.
As ever, there are big games, big names and big issues on the docket. Following are some subjects you’ll likely see discussed:
1. New Coaches: There are four new coaches in the SEC this year: Arkansas' Bret Bielema, Auburn's Gus Malzahn, Kentucky's Mark Stoops and Tennessee's Butch Jones. Only Malzahn, who was an offensive coordinator at Auburn and Arkansas, has any experience in the league.
Bielema comes from Wisconsin and the Big Ten to succeed John L. Smith – and, ultimately, Bobby Petrino.
Malzahn succeeds Gene Chizik just three years after the Tigers’ national championship; Stoops, a former defensive coordinator at FSU, is being asked to stem the tide of Louisville; and Jones comes from Cincinnati to try to do something Derek Dooley couldn’t do – return the Vols to prominence.
Of course, SEC coaches are always one bad season away from being the next casualty. Missouri’s Gary Pinkel and Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen are said to be the coaches with the warmest chairs heading into the season.
2. Scheduling – It was determined at the SEC Meetings in Destin in May that eight-game conference schedules and the 6-1-1 format would continue in 2014 and likely 2015. But next year's schedules have yet to be unveiled and there continues to be fervent discussion about expanding to a nine-game slate by 2016.
But first things first and, just a year out, the 2014 league schedule still has not been finalized. The SEC is finding it difficult to devise an equitable eight-game schedule for two seven-team divisions. Each schedule must include six inter-division games, one permanent cross-division game and one rotating cross-division game.
Some teams want to maintain their current cross-division rivals (Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia), while others would like to see theirs come to an end (Florida-LSU). Meanwhile, the strength-of-schedule component must be considered for the College Football Playoff, which begins next season.
3. Bad behavior: The murder investigation of New England Patriots – and former Florida Gator – tight end Aaron Hernandez has brought football players' off-field behavior under scrutiny everywhere. And it hasn't been a great year in that regard in the SEC.
Georgia has disciplined three players due to off-season brushes with the law. But the Bulldogs’ issues are trivial compared to some others in the league.
Vanderbilt nervously awaits the outcome of an investigation into an alleged sex scandal involving at least four football players. LSU running back Jeremy Hill is indefinitely suspended pending the outcome of an August probation hearing due to a battery charge from this past spring (Hill was already on probation having relations with a minor his senior year in high school.) Two Texas A&M defensive backs await adjudication on charges of assault and criminal mischief. And just this past weekend it was reported that reigning Heisman Trophy holder Johnny “Football” Manziel was sent packing by Archie Manning from the Manning Passing Camp in Louisiana because he was partying too hard and not showing up for practice and meetings.
Meanwhile, reports that Hernandez and LSU’s Tyrann Mathieu failed multiple drug tests in college but continued to play has put the issue of drug-testing at the forefront again. Expect plenty of discussion on these subjects.
4. Alabama 'three-peat:' Lost in the excitement of Alabama winning its third national championship in four years this past season is the fact that 2013 was expected to be the year the Crimson Tide would be really good. Miami was the last team to claim three national titles in a row (1987-89) and no team has done it in the BCS era. So all eyes will on the Tide to see if they can pull it off this season.
Alabama lost five starters from both the offense and defense from last year’s 13-1 squad, including three offensive linemen. But word is the Crimson Tide’s recruiting successes of the past couple of years have them simply reloading in those spots. And they have quarterback A.J. McCarron, wide receiver Amari Cooper, tailback T.J. Yeldon and linebacker C.J. Mosley back on the fold, so a strong nucleus is already there.
If the Tide can’t do it, who could extend SEC’s national championship streak to eight?
5. New rules: Starting this season, an above-the-shoulders hit on what is deemed to be a defenseless player will be called "targeting" and will result in the offending players' ejection. A flag wasn't thrown in the SEC Championship game last December, but Quinton Dial's hit on Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray would have qualified as such an infraction. Also, it was decided that a minimum of three seconds must be on the game clock in order to spike the ball to stop the clock. Georgia can only hope it gets a chance to test that one this year.
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