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The coaching carousel is in full effect, but the pieces of the puzzle will start coming together in a hurry as athletics directors look to move quickly to fill vacancies.
Georgia wasted no time in bringing back one of its own in Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart to succeed Mark Richt, who was dismissed Sunday.
Smart’s decision to head back to his alma mater in Athens will have ripples throughout the SEC. Not only in the ongoing coaching searches at South Carolina and Missouri, but at Alabama as well, where coach Nick Saban must look for a new defensive coordinator.
But here are some of the other burning questions around the SEC in Week 14.
1. Does Florida have a chance against Alabama in the SEC Championship Game? Certainly anything is possible, but Gators coach Jim McElwain is going to have to dig deep into his bag of tricks for his struggling offense to score against the Crimson Tide. The Gators are 17-point underdogs for a reason.
2. Is Kentucky coach Mark Stoops on the hot seat after another disastrous collapse to the season? Any hotter and his pants might catch on fire. There’s a groundswell of thinking in Lexington that Stoops simply isn’t up to the job after the Wildcats dropped six of their final seven games to finish 5-7. It marked the second consecutive year the ‘Cats have collapsed down the stretch after losing their final six contests in 2014. Not exactly finishing strong, but Stoops will survive for now despite a 12-24 three-year record in Lexington. You can expect some significant staff changes, whether Stoops wants them or not.
3. How can there not be hard feelings in Baton Rouge after the recent debacle in which coach Les Miles was nearly fired, only to be retained? There’s no way to avoid it for a while, so it ought to make for some interesting face-to-face exchanges when Miles meets with AD Joe Alleva and other school officials and key boosters for a while.
4. Why would Missouri turn down a bowl and an opportunity to get in an extra month’s worth of practices? It’s been a trying season to say the least in Columbia, so school officials felt that simply putting a disappointing 5-7 season to bed and moving forward was the best bet, especially since the Tigers need to find a new head coach as well following Gary Pinkel’s health-related departure. It’s unlikely that a bid to some obscure bowl would galvanize students or alums alike at this point, meaning the school would be left on the hook for unused tickets and exorbitant travel costs.
5. What are the chances that defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt is retained at Georgia? None, now that Kirby Smart is all set to succeed Mark Richt. Pruitt’s name has also been mentioned as a head coach possibility at South Carolina, but another landing spot could be at Alabama as Smart’s replacement as defensive coordinator. Either way, it was clear that Pruitt’s days in Athens were numbered.
Let’s just say that it spoke volumes when athletics director Greg McGarity deflected the question away when asked this week. Pruitt apparently hadn’t made a lot of friends within the athletic department, McGarity included.
6. How concerned should Georgia fans be about prized quarterback recruit Jacob Eason making an official visit to Florida? Very concerned because Eason, the nation’s top-rated pro-style quarterback, already had a good relationship with Gators offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier and is already familiar with the pro-style offense he runs.
It’s obvious that Treon Harris isn’t the Gators’ long-term answer at quarterback, meaning playing time could come right away with Will Grier suspended for half of next season. Georgia’s hiring of a defensive-minded coach in Smart probably didn’t help lessen any doubts Eason had about his commitment to the Dawgs. Eason’s high school coach says he’s still coming to Athens, but Georgia fans have every right to be more than a little anxious.
7. Could coach Dan Mullen leave Mississippi State? Mullen reportedly interviewed for the vacant Miami job this week and has been mentioned in connection with several others. You have to think he would take the Miami job in particular if it were offered to him. Starkville, Miss., can’t compare to South Florida, where talent and beautiful weather abound.
Mullen may wonder if there is any more that he can possibly do at Mississippi State.
8. Can anybody’s football fortunes rise as quickly as that of Tennessee coach Butch Jones? Jones was on the verge of being run out of Knoxville after the Vols blew double-digit, fourth-quarter leads in losing to Oklahoma and Florida. But winning your last five games and ending the season on a positive note at 8-4 has a funny way of changing perceptions.
UT will likely be favored to win the SEC East next fall, so proactive school officials moved quickly this week to give Jones a raise and extend his contract two years through 2020. College football can be a fickle game.
9. Who was the best quarterback in the SEC at the end of the season? Ole Miss’ Chad Kelly and Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott had the gaudier season numbers, but there was no hotter quarterback by season’s end than Arkansas Brandon Allen. He helped salvage what appeared to be a lost season for the Razorbacks with road wins over Ole Miss and LSU and an overtime win at Auburn. His seven-touchdown pass performance in the narrow loss to Mississippi State was one for the ages.
10. A putrid Missouri offense was the only thing preventing Vanderbilt from again having the SEC’s most anemic offense. What can the Commodores do to pick up the pace?
Horrid quarterback play was the main culprit as Vandy’s signal callers combined to complete just better than 51 percent of their passes with 11 touchdown passes to 16 interceptions. As a result, the Commodores finished the season ranked 124th nationally in scoring offense (15.2 ppg.) and 117th in total offense (326.5 ypg.) Things should get better next fall because it’s hard to fathom that either quarterback Kyle Shurmur or Johnny McCrary could play much worse.
John Hollis is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers Georgia and Florida.
