This week I’m going to be doing some capsules on the coaches from SEC Media Days. Not a ton of stuff as I will be writing on each team, players, coaches, schedule, and prospects for the teams’ respective 2021 seasons in upcoming columns on each SEC team in the upcoming weeks. I’ll go a lot more in-depth in those pieces, so expect those starting Monday of next week. I wrote in-depth pieces on Alabama and Auburn in May, so if you want to go back to my May columns on the Crimson Tide and Tigers, you can find them there. I will obviously be writing more about S and Bryan in these Media Day pieces, but will write brief summaries of the other coaches and their comments with more extensive coverage coming up in these next 5-6 weeks leading up to kickoff of the 2021 season.

The SEC Media Days is a spectacle. Five hundred sportswriters throughout the Southeast with all 14 coaches building their teams up for the 2021 season. Yesterday Dan Mullen talked about his Gators, O waxed about his LSU Tigers, and new South Carolina Coach Shane Beamer, who came from Oklahoma where he was assistant head coach and tight ends coach and a key recruiter for LIncoln Riley, gave an optimistic speech on his South Carolina program. He’s a highly optimistic type. He’s going to get quite a welcome in the SEC. Beamer is longtime Virginia Tech legendary coach Frank Beamer’s son.

One last note. My man, Bama’ Golf’s nephew, Tom Lovelady, known as “T Love” to family and friends, has qualified for the 3M Open in Minneapolis this week on the PGA Tour. Great stuff for T Love and Bama Golf and his wife, Mary, whose sister is Tom’s mother, and for the whole family. We’ll be pulling for T Love here in B’ham. Bama told me last night he believes in him, Tom has the talent, and can do well on tour. I agree. Will have a preview of the 3M and the Amundi Evian Championship, the third major on the LPGA Tour tomorrow after S and the coaches from tomorrow capsules. The Evian is being played in Evian-les Bains France. Evian-les Bains is in the central part of France, about 6 hours southeast of Paris. Pretty cool course and a good field though Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang will not be playing as they prepare for the Olympics in Japan in 2 weeks. Those Olympics look a little tenuous right now as COVID is rampant in Japan and athletes are dropping out due to positive tests. Hoping Japan can pull it off.

Here are Dan Mullen, Ed Orgeron and Shane Beamer.

Dan Mullen, Florida

Emory Jones takes over at quarterback for Dan Mullen this year as he tries to replace the large shoes of Kyle Trask, who led the Gators to an 8-2 mark last season and took the Crimson Tide to the wire in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta. Then, their great tight end Kyle Pitts and others opted out of the Cotton Bowl and Trask had no help as the Gators got blasted by an Oklahoma team that was on fire and is primed for a huge 2021 with quarterback Spencer Rattler and a slew of talent returning. Mullen will turn to Jones this season. Jones is a stellar dual threat. He has super wheels, and is a prolific passer as well. He’s thrown for 7 touchdowns against only 1 int in his career. He gives them excellent talent under center. Mullen likes his playmakers and the o line looks big and physical. He’ll have a good offense. His defense was suspect last season, but so were a lot of defenses as the COViD layoff without any spring practice and all the disruptions during the fall had the defenses way behind the offenses. But he has good talent on that side of the ball and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham wants to not to have to blitz so much and send 4 or 5 and not leave his cornerbacks on an island guarding the talented receivers in the SEC. Mullen sees his defense having the personnel to do that this season. After games against Florida Atlantic and South Florida at home Sept. 4th and Sept. 11th, Florida will host the Crimson Tide in a huge 2:30 PM CT tilt on CBS, Saturday, Sept. 18th. Wow, what a blockbustuh. Games at LSU, Saturday, 10-16, versus Georgia at Cocktail Central in Jacksonville, 10-30, will be tremendous tests to see if the Gators can win the East and reach the SEC Championship Game. When I first heard about the 12 team playoff, I was a little skeptical, but the more I thought about it the more I loved it. Great teams like Florida, Georgia and LSU could make the playoff if it were expanded to 12 teams if they didn’t qualify by winning the SEC Championship Game. Texas A&M is, of course, another. So is Auburn if Harsin can get that program going again and playing the way Auburn is capable of playing with the talent they can attract down there. It just makes it a lot more exciting for college football. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is one of the principal architects of the 12 teams and anything Commissioner Sankey sets out to do, I support. The guy is one of the sharpest pencils in the box in college football. If there is a 12 team playoff, it won’t happen until at least 2023. The 4 team playoff is going to be in place for the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Here’s hoping they make this 12 team playoff a reality.

Florida will have a younger team this season, but Mullen has recruited well, so the expectations are high as usual under Mullen. He had an interesting comment on the Alabama game saying he wishes the league didn’t have permanent cross division rivals, and could play other teams from the west more often. He’d like to see Florida play an Alabama more than once every 10 years. I like that idea. Florida’s permanent cross divisional opponent is LSU. I’d like to see Sankey look into that idea by Coach Mullen. The Gators will have a good squad this year, but the question is can they win their big games. Alabama is a colossal challenge. Georgia is loaded and LSU is loaded with talent if O can get them playing good football again. The Cocktail gig is always one that usually decides the East. One last thing, Mullen can really ride a wakeboard. There is a video of him on one in a lake where he’s doing 360’s, it’s amazing. The guy’s an athlete.

O, LSU

I love hearing O. He’s the kind of a guy you’d like to go out and play a round of golf, go fishing with or go get a beer with after work. He’s an engaging, entertaining guy. He recruits so well in Baaton Rouge. His 2021 class was ranked 4th in the country, Alabama was No.1 and has the highest rated recruiting class of all time with its 2021 haul. But O did well in 2021 and this 2022 class is 4th overall and there is a massive amount of talent in Louisiana this year, and O’s in recruiting wars with the other SEC schools for many marquee players in his home state. O said he won’t get’em all, but he plans on getting most of them. His 2 quarterbacks, Myles Brennan and Max Johnson, are battling it out to be the No.1 QB for the opener at UCLA on Saturday, Sept. 4th at 7:30 PM CT on FOX. Brennan played in just 3 games last season before getting hurt and threw for 11 TDs, so he’s a veteran talent. He’s a senior. Johnson, a sophomore, is a 4 star lefty who played a good bit last season and showed plenty of promise. The team went 5-5 last season, and didn’t play in a bowl game because of COVID issues, but had a huge upset of Florida at the Swamp as a double digit underdog and derailed the Gators’ undefeated season and hopes at the time, of playing in the playoff. It was the best game of the regular season, a 37-34 Tiguh victory. Then they finished off the season defeating Ole Miss at Tiguh Stadium, 53-48. They have a lot of talented players returning. He has a lot of new coaches. He has a new offensive coordinator in Jake Peetz, who came over from the Carolina Panthers, where he was the quarterbacks coach, and was recommended to O by former LSU stellar offensive coordinator “Joe Bradi” as O calls him. Brady is now the OC for the Panthers, and O sees Peetz as the next Brady. They’ll run the same offensive schemes as they did under Brady. On defense, O hired Daronte Jones as his defensive coordinator. Jones comes to the Tiguhs from the Minnesota Vikings where he was defensive backs coach under stellar defensive mind, head coach Mike Zimmer. O likes Jones to solidify his secondary and his entire defense in general which struggled last season. O is high on his offensive line with a lot of players returning who opted out last season. The line is led by left tackle Austin Deculus. Deculus is 6’6”, 331, and the line is equally big and physical beside him. O is high on his running backs, Tyrion Davis-Price and John Emory Jr. He thinks Kayshon Boutte is his next stud at wide receiver and there are some other young guys on the perimeter he’s also excited about. On defense, he thinks he has the best 2 cornerbacks in the country in the great Derek Stingley Jr and Eli Ricks. His dline and linebackers are big and talented. He’s got his kicker and his punter back and Stingley will return punts and provide electricity there and take it to the house ability, and Emory Jr and Trey Palmer, another potential stellar receiver, will return kicks.

The UCLA game is quite a start to the season. The Bruins are ready to take a step forward nationally and will really be charged up to take down the Bengal Tigers, so that’ll be major test on Saturday, Sept. 4th at 7:30 PM CT on FOX. At Mississippi State on Saturday, Sept. 25th, Auburn at home, Sat. Oct. 2nd, @Ole Miss, Sat, Oct. 23rd, @ the Crimson Tide, Sat. Nov. 5th and versus Texas A&M at Tiguh Stadium Sat. Nov. 27 will be wars. So O has his work cut out for him, but he has plenty of horses.

Shane Beamer, South Carolina

Beamer mentioned so many people when he started talking even several of the SEC Network commentators, it was a little different from usual. You gotta give the guy credit, he’s highly ambitious. He brought in several transfers this season and has the 19th ranked recruiting class in 2022, so he’s quite a recruiter. Sophomore Luke Doty is listed as his starter at QB. Doty played behind the departed Collin Hill last season, and completed 43 of 71, 61%, for 405 yards, 2 TDs and 3 Ints. So not a lot to go on. Kevin Harris is a 1,000+ yard returning running back. Beamer says he’ll need some other guys behind Harris to help him out, so he can have Harris fresh for the 4th quarter. Beamer will have a veteran offensive line with juniors and seniors. OrTre Smith is a talented receiver and Nick Muse is a stellar tight end. Defense has several transfers on it.

Key games include @ Georgia Saturday, Sept. 18th at 6 PM CT on ESPN, Kentucky at home, Saturday, 9-25, @ A&M, Sat,. 10-23, Florida at home, Saturday, 11-5, Auburn, Saturday, Nov. 20th at home and Clemson at home, Saturday, Nov. 27. This is the second year in row the Gamecocks have played Auburn at home. Some sort of kink in the schedule most likely caused by the unusual 2020 season.

It’ll be a challenge for Beamer in year 1 in the SEC. He’s a pumped up guy though and looks like a good recruiter, so he could make the Gamecocks a relevant force in the SEC in the future. Could be a solid team in the conference this season but only win 4 or 5 games due to the level of talent he’ll be facing.

Today, Kirby Smart, Josh Huepel, UT, Mark Stoops, Kentucky, and Kiff.