Coaching departures top list of 10 biggest stories in 2015 SEC season
By Nick Cole
Published:
It seems like yesterday when we were talking at SEC Media Days about how great an Auburn vs. Georgia SEC Championship Game was going to be.
Turns out, that wasn’t in the cards at all.
But the 2015 season did bring us plenty to talk about, and we’ve ranked the Top 10 stories that came out of the last 13 weeks. Here’s the best of what’s been a very interesting year:
10. Georgia RB Nick Chubb suffers devastating injury.
You can watch the replay of the talented sophomore’s first carry against Tennessee a hundred times and it doesn’t get any easier to stomach. Chubb was in the discussion for Heisman Trophy consideration and the Bulldogs were still the favorite to win the SEC East. It was a turning point in the season for the Bulldogs, who went on to lose that game and the division.
9. Florida QB Will Grier receives a year-long suspension.
Freshman QB Will Grier was in the midst of winning over the hearts of all Gators fans, progressively improving his performance during a 6-0 start to the season. But heartbreak was around the corner after it was revealed he would miss the remainder of the season and the first half of the 2016 due to a failed drug test for performance enhancing supplements. We’re left to wonder if the Gators, who finished the season at 10-2 after struggling to produce offensively without Grier, would have been a College Football Playoff contender had he been able to stick around.
8. Les Miles was a goner, but not really.
With the Tigers in the midst of a three-game losing streak after beginning the season 7-0, rumors were swirling that LSU was going to make a change at head coach following the regular-season finale against Texas A&M. Miles completed what was perceived as a farewell tour of media/public appearances during the week of the game, and the narrative changed to who would be his replacement. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Tigers AD Joe Alleva announced that Miles would remain the LSU coach following a 19-7 win against the Aggies. Chalk it up as another one of the Mad Hatter’s tricks?
7. Ole Miss beats Alabama…again. Crimson Tide rebounds to win SEC West…again.
It has to be a frustrating time to be an Ole Miss fan. Hugh Freeze has the program in great shape and the Rebels have taken down the SEC West giant, Alabama, early in both of the past two seasons. But just like they did in 2014, Nick Saban’s crew refused to let an early-season loss to Ole Miss ruin its season. The Crimson Tide won out from that point forward, setting up a return to the SEC Championship that could lead to a return trip to the College Football Playoff.
6. Leonard Fournette runs for 150-plus seven times in a row.
There was a time during the season that LSU RB Leonard Fournette was all the college football world could talk about. Week after week, he was putting up video game-quality highlights and ripping off big gains. Through seven weeks, LSU was 7-0 and Fournette had rushed for 150 yards each game along the way, including three consecutive 200-plus yard efforts.
5. Florida experiences resurgence, runs away with SEC East title.
The Gators entered the season under the direction of a first-year coach who was supposed to have a major rebuilding job ahead of him, but it seems as though no one told Jim McElwain that. Instead, he took advantage of the premium defense left behind by former coach Will Muschamp and found a way to piece together enough offense to sweep the SEC East and win 10 games.
4. Derrick Henry destroys LSU, turns in Heisman-quality season.
No one ever doubted that Alabama RB Derrick Henry had talent, but most didn’t know he was capable of the monster season he turned in this year. The turning point for Henry, at least in the eyes of the viewing public, was a 210-yard, three-touchdown performance in a head-to-head meeting with Leonard Fournette during a win against LSU. With 1,797 yards rushing and 22 touchdowns for the SEC West champions, he’s well on his way to receiving college football’s most prestigious individual award.
3. Gary Pinkel announces he’s been battling illness and retires.
After winning back-to-back SEC East titles, Gary Pinkel entered the 2015 season with external expectations that this might be a bit of a rebuilding season on the offensive side of the ball. That turned out to be true, and the struggles the Tigers experienced in a 5-7 season were actually pretty predictable in hindsight. What wasn’t predictable was the bomb that the Tigers’ coach for the last 15 seasons would drop in November, informing the college football world that he has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that 2015 was his last season as a coach.
2. Georgia decides to move on from Mark Richt after 15 seasons.
One of the league’s elder statesmen with a well-built reputation in the eyes of fans and foes alike will no longer be on the Georgia sidelines. After entering the 2015 season as the heavy favorite to win the SEC East, Richt’s Bulldogs failed to make noise in conference play, losing games to Alabama, Tennessee and Florida. Though those were the only blemishes to a 9-3 season, it was enough of a letdown that the Georgia athletic administration decided it was time for a change in Athens. Time will tell if letting go of a coach with a 145-51 record was a good idea or not.
1. Steve Spurrier abruptly resigns after six games.
Few coaches have left an imprint on SEC football that was as impactful as the Head Ball Coach, and though most knew his career was winding down, few were expecting it to end the way that it did. After a 2-4 start to the season, the 70-year-old coach decided to hand in his whistle at South Carolina and watch the second half of the season as a spectator.
Nick Cole is a former print journalist with several years of experience covering the SEC. Born and raised in SEC country, he has taken in the game-day experience at all 14 stadiums.
