The start of college football media days signals the beginning of a very busy season. After media days, we soon have the start of fall practice for high school and college teams. And in about a month, we’ll have our first games.
But in that month leading up to what we’ve all waited for, there will be plenty of time to think, talk and write about football. To hear fans talk, their team (and it really doesn’t matter which team it is) is going to be awesome. And at this time of year, that’s as good a guess as any. Right now nobody really knows what’s going to happen. So everything is speculation until the first game.
With SEC Media Days starting today, fans of Auburn and Alabama will have a chance to hear what coaches and players from both teams believe will happen this season. Alabama will open media days this year after being relegated to the second day for the past few years. Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram along with teammates Dont’a Hightower and Greg McElroy will meet with the media today. Mississippi State, Florida and Kentucky round out the teams taking the podium on the first day.
Auburn will be the first team on the final day of Media Days. The Tigers’ head coach Gene Chizik will speak at 8:30 a.m. on Friday. Joining the coach will be Josh Bynes, Aairon Savage and Lee Ziemba.
There will be three new coaches at media days this year. Kentucky’s Joker Phillips took over after Rich Brooks retired. Derek Dooley was chosen to lead Tennessee after Lane Kiffin defected to Southern California. The most recent addition was Robbie Caldwell, who was announced as the interim head coach at Vanderbilt last week after Bobby Johnson said he was retiring.
While there will be the actual football-related questions, expect to hear a lot about NCAA violations and off-the-field issues with players and, in some cases, athletic directors. Conference expansion is also likely to be a hot topic after the maneuvers made by the Big 12, Big Ten and the Pac-10 this summer.
Just a couple of weeks after media days, the high school players and coaches will take center stage in our minds as fall practice will begin. Some of the teams in East Central Alabama may have different looks with lots of new players while others return a lot of starters from 2009. And it’s a long time until November, but you can bet talk about the playoffs will be starting about the same time teams take the first snap. A lot can happen between now and November, but if we didn’t speculate on sports, we wouldn’t have much else to do.
Contact Heather Baggett at hbaggett@dailyhome.com.
