SEC Media Days has officially gotten underway in Nashville, and on Monday, Greg Sankey, as well as representatives from LSU, Texas A&M and Missouri took the stage.
What did you miss on Day 1?
Here's everything you need to know.
Realignment takes center stage:
As he always does, Greg Sankey took the stage to open Monday's festivities, and what really stood out was what he said on realignment.
Sankey didn’t necessarily 100% say no to future realignment within the SEC when he said this:
"Do I think it's done? People will say, well, I get to decide that," Sankey said. "Right now, it appears others are going to decide that before we have to make any decisions. My view is we know who we are. We're comfortable as a league. We're focused on our growth to 16. We've restored rivalries. We're geographically contiguous with the right kind of philosophical alignment, and we can stay at that level of super conference.
"When you go bigger, there are a whole other set of factors that have to be considered, and I'm not sure I've seen those teased out other than in my mind late at night."
It might sound crazy, but Sankey isn't lying.
It feels like the next wave of realignment is going to come either via the Big 12, or possibly the Pac-12 expanding, if they can stay together.
As for the SEC, it doesn't feel like there are that many schools out there that would truly interest them, and none are readily available.
Sure, if the ACC's Grant of Rights explodes and Clemson, UNC, Florida State and others become available, maybe.
But when Sankey says he plans to stay at 16, it's hard not to believe him.
For now.
What’s happening with the A&M offense?
The Texas A&M offense was nothing short of awful last season. They finished the year ranked 101st in scoring at 22.8 points per game.
And it looked like Jimbo Fisher took those complaints to heart, hiring Bobby Petrino heading into the off-season. However, Fisher was asked about the play-calling very blatantly and for some reason he decided to play coy.
"I'm not going to get into that," Fisher said. "Bobby was hired for a reason. Tremendous guy. Tremendous football mind. Hopefully he'll call the game and have suggestions." He also said, "I'm not going to get into what we're doing from a schematic viewpoint.”
Even though Fisher made similar headlines around spring time, this is still a bit of a head-scratcher. Is Petrino really the man in charge? Will Jimbo still want to have final say? Is it all a ploy to confuse the media and opponents?
Let's hope it's the latter. Otherwise, it could be another long season for the Aggies offense.
The spotlight is on LSU this season:
Of the three teams in attendance on Monday, LSU easily got the most love from the media. 81% of its offensive production from last year is coming back, headlined by Jayden Daniels at quarterback who was great last year. Brian Kelly addressed the pressure he has as a coach without a championship at an SEC power like LSU to 247Sports.
“Well, we’ve got to get there first, I mean, we took over the program with 39 scholarships and I thought we did a really good job kind of getting them back, and now we’ve got to be more consistent doing that again. We’ll have the resources and the players necessary (to get there), and when we get our shot, when we get our opportunity, we’ve got to be able to maximize it.”
LSU is poised to make a lot of noise and potentially win the SEC West over Alabama due to all the talent they have coming back and if things go right too.
What's Missouri's ceiling this year?
Eli Drinkwitz had some funny comments to open media days on Monday.
“That was probably the most efficient roster update I have ever provided,” Drinkwitz admitted. “I tried to kill as much time as I possibly could, so I would not answer any question too crazy today and trend on Twitter.”
This of course came after Drinkwitz's comments on NIL a few weeks ago, and the other times he's caught himself with his foot in his mouth in previous years.
He ran down the Tigers’ offense and defense and even touched on special teams too. Missouri has a question at quarterback this season with either Jake Garcia or Brady Cook. Luther Burden III is a highlight reel of a receiver. On defense, Ty’Ron Hopper is also a star at linebacker, and the defense should be decent overall with eight returning starters.
Missouri has a high curve this season. They could win six or seven games or disappoint at four or five games.
After signing a massive (and admittedly, weird) contract extension a season ago, here's betting Mizzou fans and administrators hope its the former, not the latter.
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