SEC Media Days Tuesday, July 15. (Photo by Dylan Rubino)
HOOVER, Ala. — The 2014 SEC Media Days continued in Hoover, Ala., as four more teams were represented by their head coaches and student-athletes. Those four teams were South Carolina, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Tennessee.
South Carolina:
The second day started off with legendary head coach Steve Spurrier, who is known for speaking exactly what is on his mind and telling it like it is. That’s what he has been known for since his head coaching days at Florida, so why stop there?
South Carolina has consistently been one of the top 25 teams in the country since the arrival of Spurrier as head coach in 2004. This season, expect South Carolina to be right up there.
“We’re looking forward to the season as always,” Spurrier said. “We’ve been very fortunate over the last few years. We’ve been winning our share of the close games. I think if we’re going to have another big year, we have got to win the close games. Last year we won six out of seven that could have gone either way. When you can do that, that’s how you win 11 games. We’re looking forward to it.”
Spurrier has been questioned over the past week when talking about Alabama head coach Nick Saban and how he felt Saban underachieved with all the great recruiting classes Alabama has had. Spurrier addressed what he meant when a reporter asked him.
“I think they’ve done extremely well. I just made a statement that I think they’ve had five number one recruiting classes out of the last six years, which has to make him the greatest recruiter in the history of college football,” Spurrier said about Saban.
“They’re the favorites. There’s no question about that. As long as they can recruit like that, they’re always going to be the favorites.”
This will be the first full season that quarterback Dylan Thompson will be the starter for the Gamecocks. The redshirt senior sat behind former starter Connor Shaw for four years and is very excited about the opportunity to lead South Carolina.
“I don’t think there will be any pressure as a team leader. Being a leader is fun for me; not just in football, but in life,” Thompson said. “Being a leader is about caring about people, and that’s what I try to do with our team. We have great relationships within our team and our staff.”
Mississippi State:
Head coach Dan Mullen was next to talk to the hundreds of media members and opened up by addressing his team’s recent success.
“By going to four straight bowl games and by winning four out of the last five Egg Bowls within the state, we’ve built a solid foundation for our future,” Mullen said. “Upon that foundation, we’re trying to build a championship program I don’t think you can build that program without that foundation existing.”
The expectations for the Bulldogs seem to be building as they return 30 players that have started games last season, 15 on offense and 15 on defense. Meeting those expectations is a different story.
“I think for us when you look at expectations on the season, with a lot of young guys coming back on our team, our team immediately put a lot of expectations on themselves,” Mullen said.
“We’ve talked to the players about it, embrace all those expectations. Our expectations are to find a way to get to Atlanta and compete for the SEC championship this season.”
Expectations are also high for quarterback Dak Prescott. The dual-threat quarterback takes over the starting job for former starter Tyler Russell and is ready for the expectations.
“I have high expectations for myself,” Prescott said. “I’m going to continue to do what I do, work hard, get better, and try to be the best quarterback that I can.”
Texas A&M:
The best quotes from the day arguably came from head coach Kevin Sumlin, who faced a barrage of questions about his former Heisman-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel, who now plays for the Cleveland Browns.
When asked about the partying antics of Manziel, Sumlin replied, “Is this SEC Media Days? That’s a great question for the Cleveland Browns. Anybody else got something?”
With questions about his current quarterback situation, Sumlin said he didn’t come to media days to tell the media who the quarterback was going to be and that he’ll name a starter a couple of weeks before their opener at South Carolina.
Texas A&M looks to be a deeper team on both sides of the ball this year, with a lot of young players to fill in key spots and help the depth of the roster. When asked about this season being a transitional year, Sumlin didn’t know the exact answer.
“We have our own expectations, I’ll put it that way. We have to because year one, nobody expected anything out of us. Last year, we were expected to beat the Green Bay Packers,” Sumlin said.
“We’ve got enough talent. If we’re playing the best we can play, we’re going to be good enough to play with anybody, and we’ll see what happens at the end.”
Tennessee:
Head coach Butch Jones started his opening statement by saying his program is unlike any program this season.
“We’re a little bit different,” Jones said. “We’re not at the norm in terms of having to replace a third of our football team.”
A motto that Butch Jones and the Tennessee football program talks about is “the power of one.”
“The one is very powerful with this football team because being so young we have to focus on the moment,” Jones said. “We have to win one moment at a time, one play at a time, one practice at the same time, have one unity of purpose, one commitment and one mindset.”
This is Butch Jones’ second year as head coach of the University of Tennessee. Jones joined Tennessee in 2012 after coaching three seasons at the University of Cincinnati, including leading the Bearcats to a 10-3 record in 2011 and a 9-3 record in 2012. The upgrade of talent from coaching at Cincinnati to coaching at Tennessee is a noticeable jump, which Jones said has helped him for this moment.
“It was bout what I expected,” Jones said on switching from coaching Cincinnati to Tennessee. “The big thing is in the SEC, it’s the daily grind of going through a long football season. There are no off-days. Just the overall competitive makeup. It’s an unforgiving league.
“I think you see the vision of the SEC, it’s like we’re one step ahead all the time. We have great coaches and players. The competitive balance and makeup of the league is second to none.”
Missouri, LSU and Arkansas will be represented Wednesday. Wednesday will also feature Steve Shaw, SEC coordinator of football operations, and Justin Connolly, ESPN senior vice president of college networks.
For coverage and live updates of the 2014 SEC Media Days, follow @drubino11 and @thedm_sports on Twitter.
