SEC football teams set to report to camps
LSU coach Les Miles and Alabama coach Nick Saban talk before the BCS national championship in January.
“We don’t need to worry about our SEC schedule — the teams we’re playing, Florida, LSU, Alabama — yet. We need to worry about us first. We’ve got enough things in our own program right now that we’ve got to get fixed before we start worrying about those football games.” KEVIN SUMLIN, Texas A&M coach
The nearly interminable offseason for followers of Southeastern Conference football is nearly over.
The highs, lows and in-betweens of last season have largely faded. The brief fixes provided by national signing day, spring practice and offseason workouts, speculation and hope have outlived their usefulness.
It’s time to get back to work. The first Saturday of college football is 34 days away, and SEC teams are reconvening on campuses as anticipation builds.
Preseason predictions are being made and all-conference teams are being put together, but none of that, nor what happened last season, matters any more. It’s the work that begins this week that will ultimately determine the fate of the 14 teams.
“It’s really, really difficult in college football to carry momentum from one season to the next,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, whose team last year won the BCS title but neither the SEC overall title or the West Division.
The SEC has won the last six BCS titles and the last three champions have come from the West, as the Crimson Tide also won in 2009 and Auburn won in 2010.
Alabama opens the season against Michigan in the Cowboys Classic in Arlington, Texas, where LSU opened last season against preseason No. 3 Oregon.
“I love opening up against a marquee opponent,” Tide center Barrett Jones said. “It gives you that little bit of extra motivation in the offseason because you know what you’re working toward. When you open up with someone else, you can think you might have a few weeks to work everything in and get it right, but playing a team like Michigan, it gets you through those days of camp when it’s 110 degrees outside when you can remind each other about Michigan and the opener and playing in (Cowboys Stadium).”
LSU’s 40-27 victory over Oregon launched it to the SEC title and a 13-0 record before the Tigers fell to Alabama 21-0 in the BCS title game.
“They recognize the things that they accomplished and what they left on the table,” LSU coach Les Miles said of his team. “The want to play best and finish is certainly something that we’ll all take away from that game. It can’t be discounted what was accomplished, but it must be recognized that certainly we didn’t play our finest game at the end.”
Arkansas, which was ranked as high as No. 3 last season and lost just two games (to Alabama and LSU), is preparing to play for new coach John L. Smith, who was hired to coach the team for this season after Bobby Petrino was abruptly fired.
“One thing that we’re going to continue to reiterate is that this is a program, this is not about somebody leaving, somebody coming in,” Smith said. “This is one program, OK? … We have one goal and we’re not bashful about reiterating that goal. That goal is to win (the BCS title) in Miami.”
Auburn, just two years removed from its BCS title, begins its preparations with two new coordinators as Scot Loeffler takes over the offense and Brian Van Gorder takes over the defense. Tigers coach Gene Chizik praised Loeffler for his history in developing quarterbacks, which will come in handy with Kiehl Frazier and Clint Moseley battling to be the starter after an erratic season last year. Van Gorder is a former Georgia coordinator who is returning to the SEC after a stint with the Atlanta Falcons.
Mississippi State hopes to set a better tone early this season than it did getting out of the gate last season. In 2011 the Bulldogs opened with a nonconference victory against Memphis, then essentially saw themselves eliminated from the SEC West race in September after losing close games to Auburn and LSU to start league play. This season, State’s game against Auburn in Week 2 is its only league game in September. The Bulldogs finish the season with five league games in five weeks against Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas and Ole Miss.
“It’s the Southeastern Conference,” State coach Dan Mullen said. “You’re going to play a tough team every single week. You’ve got to play them all at some point. Whether you play them early, middle. spread out, before a bye, after a bye, you’re going to have to play them.”
Ole Miss first-year coach Hugh Freeze, who came from Arkansas State, said his task is to lead the Rebels “out of the wilderness.” He will try to begin that process by implementing an up-tempo offense that he used effectively at Arkansas State. Freeze begins preseason camp with “co-No. 1 quarterbacks” in Barry Brunetti and Bo Wallace.
Georgia is the reigning East Division champion and was picked to repeat in the media’s preseason poll (last season, South Carolina was picked to win the East and Alabama the West).
“I hope the media’s right this time,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said, “but we haven’t done anything yet. … We know our league is tremendous. We know the Eastern Division is going to be a rough road.”
South Carolina is hoping for steadier play from quarterback Connor Shaw than it got from his predecessor, Stephen Garcia, in recent seasons.
“Our whole (of) style offense is different than in years past,” Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier said. “Connor is a running and passing quarterback. I’ve never quite had one that’s been maybe a little bit better runner than he is passer. Hopefully he’ll be a little bit better passer this year, but he’s still going to keep running the ball because that’s what he does very well.”
Second-year Florida coach Will Muschamp called last season “a very frustrating, disappointing first year.”
“I feel like I’m much more prepared just from the day-to-day operation of the things that come across your desk as a head coach,” Muschamp said, “no different from Year 1 as a coordinator to Year 2.”
Muschamp has a new offensive coordinator, having hired Brent Pease after Charlie Weis left to become head coach at Kansas. The Gators have a preseason battle at quarterback between Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel.
Vanderbilt was perhaps the most surprising team in the league last season, qualifying for the Liberty Bowl with a 6-6 record under first-year coach James Franklin.
“There’s a buzz about Vanderbilt football right now that there hasn’t been for a long time,” Franklin said. “We also know we have a long way to go as a program, but we’re taking steps in the right direction.”
Tennessee coach Derek Dooley and Kentucky coach Joker Phillips could both find themselves lacking job security if their teams don’t show improvement during their third seasons in 2012.
Big 12 expatriates Texas A&M and Missouri are preparing for their first season in the SEC.
“There’s no doubt, when you’re facing a bunch of top-10 football teams, we have a ways to go based on where we were as a program last year and the things to clean up,” Aggies first-year coach Kevin Sumlin said. “We don’t need to worry about our SEC schedule — the teams we’re playing, Florida, LSU, Alabama — yet. We need to worry about us first. We’ve got enough things in our own program right now that we’ve got to get fixed before we start worrying about those football games.”
After opening the season against Southeastern Louisiana, Missouri makes its SEC debut at home against defending East Division champion Georgia on Sept. 8.
“Normally, you never talk about a game other than your first game,” Tigers coach Gary Pinkel said. “We understand historically for the University of Missouri it’s going to be a big game, the first SEC game, the first SEC home game for our university. … Hopefully we can play our best game there, but then there’s a lot more to come that we’ve got to play also.”