SEC 360: SEC storylines I can’t wait to see play out in 2020
It’s Super Bowl week, but I can’t get my mind off college football.
I recently learned that pop star Shakira will be performing at halftime when the Chiefs meet the 49ers this Sunday in Miami Gardens, Florida. No offense, but give me the pageantry of a marching band, give me a raucous student section tethered in unison, give me the splendor and dazzle of majorettes, give me a mascot roaming the field and making children smile, give me the picturesque beauty of a football game framed by an aging college campus any day over … Shakira.
Sure, hips don’t lie, but neither does Kirk Herbstreit.
The year 2019 in college football entertained us and surprised us. LSU took home the national title and Ed Orgeron found redemption. Alabama struggled with injuries but still won 11 ballgames. Georgia battled admirably with a quarterback who never really seemed like himself. Auburn lost 4 games but salvaged its season by winning the Iron Bowl. Tennessee almost came apart at the seams but then turned its season around and won 8 games. Florida quietly took second in the East and posted an 11-win season. Four teams fired their coach, several players across the league decided to take their talents to “The League,” and the recruiting madness hit full swing.
The awesome thing about college football is that you always find a resolution with a championship crowning a champion, but every year leaves you with cliffhangers that you can’t wait to play out. Here are a few of them:
Which quarterbacks will replace Tua and Burrow as the best in the SEC?
Last year was the year of the quarterback. Approaching the season, many expected Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Georgia’s Jake Fromm to be sitting beside each other in New York for the awarding of the Heisman Trophy. Neither made it. Instead it was LSU’s Joe Burrow hoisting the bronze statue. Now all of these beloved quarterbacks are gone from their respective schools, leaving a massive void to fill and begging the question, “Who are the quarterbacks of the future?”
You have to think Auburn’s Bo Nix is a leading candidate, but he’ll have to develop, and that’s something that’s been a bit of a rarity in Gus Malzahn’s system. Nix’s Iron Bowl counterpart, Alabama’s Mac Jones, showed tremendous grit and should be even better next season. Over in Oxford, the pairing of John Rhys Plumlee with the offensive ingenuity of new head coach Lane Kiffin will be an exciting dynamic to behold. Jarrett Guarantano, Tennessee’s signal-caller who gathered himself remarkably after the famous facemask tug in Tuscaloosa, returns to Knoxville. And, believe it or not, Kellen Mond is back at Texas A&M for what seems like his 17th season in College Station.
Perhaps the best returning QB is Florida’s Kyle Trask, who threw for 2,941 yards and 25 touchdowns last year. In his last 5 games, Trask tossed for 257, 363, 282, 343 and 305 yards. That’s Shane Matthews-esque, in my book.
What about the dark horses? Can Myles Brennan pick up the torch left by Joe Burrow in Baton Rouge? Will graduate transfer Jamie Newman or some other quarterback lead the Dawgs back to the SEC championship? I can’t wait to see.
What teams are ready to take things to another level?
I should have just titled this section, “Are South Carolina and Texas A&M ever going to do anything?” I don’t mean to be hard on these teams, but I keep waiting for something to good to happen in Columbia and College Station, and I’m not talking about the Belk Bowl.
Last year, the Gamecocks picked up a huge win at Athens but couldn’t sustain the momentum and finished at 4-8. A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher has been crushing it on the recruiting trail, but will this translate into victories and a legitimate run at the SEC West?
Tennessee is probably the team that seems most antsy to make a jump. I don’t think there’s any question Jeremy Pruitt wants to win and is willing to do what it takes to get there. The Vols have won 6 consecutive games and return 16 starters from an 8-5 campaign that was punctuated by a thrilling victory over Indiana in the Gator Bowl. Which means look out for Rocky Top next season.
Alabama’s quarterback battle
Mac Jones (97-for-141, 1,503 yards, 14 TD) did an incredible job filling in for the injured Tua Tagovailoa in 2019, and he’s definitely the leader in the clubhouse for the starting quarterback slot this year. But how safe is his job? Is there any way we are in for a surprise like we saw in 2016 when freshman Jalen Hurts came in and wrangled the quarterback job away from Blake Barnett? Well, maybe.
Backups Taulia Tagovailoa (career 9-for-12, 100 yards) and Paul Tyson (redshirted in 2019) are chomping at the bit, and there’s the 5-star Californian, Bryce Young. They’ll have to be plenty good to beat out Jones, who, frankly, can be as good as any quarterback Alabama has had in the past 30 years not named Tagovailoa. To put things in perspective, Jones threw for as many touchdowns last year as former Alabama quarterback Jay Barker did the entire 1994 season.
Alabama has finally shed the reputation of having quarterbacks who are “game managers” and Jones is the latest evidence of that fact.
Can LSU keep it rolling with Alabama-like attrition?
The month of January 2020 for the LSU football team began with ecstasy and ended with volatility. After capturing the national championship over Clemson, Ed Orgeron felt the attrition of personnel that great teams feel, and I’m not just talking about from a player standpoint. Coaches, too. Over the course of 2 weeks, Orgeron lost his quarterback, running back, top defensive back, passing game coordinator, defensive coordinator and several analysts.
This is a critical time for the LSU program. To sustain superiority, Orgeron will have to mitigate the yearly exodus of players to the NFL Draft and coaches to other programs. Orgeron has raised the bar of expectations such that LSU will not tolerate a rebuilding year.
Welcome to Excellence, Ed.
How will new coaches fare in their debuts?
Fresh faces always seem to stir up excitement and 2020 will have the best new crop in recent memory. There’s Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri, Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, Mike Leach at Mississippi State and Sam Pittman at Arkansas. These coaches are, as we speak, probably fanned out all over the South, forging through the recruiting woods and trails like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Don’t be surprised if one of them turns up at a meat-and-three in your town.
We can talk and talk and talk about how exciting the Egg Bowl is going to be, but for now, let’s don’t oversell it. It’s like when the movie Cinderella Man came out. Because it had been billed as the greatest film in cinematic history, it was, honestly, a little disappointing (but still a very good movie). So let’s just pace ourselves for now.
Soon, my friends. Soon.
Where does Tua end up?
The Tua draft saga is a continuing narrative that doesn’t bore me a bit. General consensus is that the top 3 quarterbacks coming out of college this year are Burrow, Tagovailoa and Oregon’s Justin Hebert. The way prognosticators have it, Burrow can just about pack his bags to move back to Ohio, where the Cincinnati Bengals hold the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. The next quarterback off the board is a bit hazier. Do you take Hebert or do you take Tagovailoa?
ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. loves Tua in Miami as the 5th overall pick. But will the Dolphins take him?
For now, let’s just say Miami skips Tua and goes with Hebert. Where else might Tua land? Here are a few teams that desperately need a quarterback or will in the imminent future: Los Angeles Chargers (6th pick), Indianapolis Colts (13th pick), Tampa Bay Buccanneers (14th pick), New England Patriots (23rd pick).
That last franchise on the list provides an interesting set of circumstances. Could Tua be the heir apparent to Tom Brady? You have to imagine Nick Saban would have good things to say about 13 to his ol’ pal, Bill Belichick.
Does anyone want to play defense? (Or does it even matter?)
A couple of weeks ago I was digging around, looking at stats from the 1992 season (I know … I’m a geek) and I noticed something interesting and, honestly, a bit peculiar. The highest scoring offensive team that year was Georgia, averaging 31 points per game, followed by Tennessee (28.9 ppg), Alabama (28.2) and Florida (24.2).
This is interesting to me because last year’s top offensive teams were LSU (48.4 ppg) and Alabama (47.2 ppg). That’s a dramatic climb on the offensive side of the ball!
Ed Orgeron recently hired Bo Pelini to become his defensive coordinator. For now, Saban seems to be staying with DC Pete Golding, but to win in 2020, the Crimson Tide will have to tighten the screws considerably on defense.
I noted from this year’s national championship game that, as good as Clemson’s defense was, LSU put 42 points on the scoreboard. Can we expect this offensive feast to continue?
One certainly has to wonder if we’ve reached a point in the game when great offense finally beats great defense, and the old saying that defense wins championships has, sadly, become glib.
Targeting needs to be revisited — and revised
I think the NCAA needs to take a hard look at the issue of targeting. Is it a good policy to eject a college athlete in front of a hundred thousand fans when he had no intent to target an opposing player? And even if he did, why subject him to the jog of shame back to the locker room? If you’re going to do that, why not just sit him in the corner or make him write sentences or paddle his little fanny out in the hallway?
Honestly, I cringe when players are, as they say, “disqualified for the remainder of the game.”
A potent example occurred in the CFP National Championship Game when Clemson linebacker James Skalski was ejected for targeting in the 3rd quarter with LSU leading 28-25. It was a huge momentum swing for LSU and an embarrassing moment for Skalski and Clemson.
Yes, absolutely we need to focus on player safety, but no need to humiliate anyone in the process.
* * * * * * *
So how will all of these stories play out? Honestly, I don’t have a clue.
The only things that are certain in this world are death, taxes, and hips don’t lie.
Humiliation? I don’t see it when players get plenty of support from teammates and coaches after an ejection. The disqualified player also usually gets a big round of applause from his team’s fans on the way to the locker room. Holding off on a consequence because we’re too worried about tender feelings is the kind of mollycoddling that should be avoided.
Which quarterbacks will replace Tua and Burrow as the best in the SEC? – I agree with the author’s take on this.
What teams are ready to take things to another level? – TAMU maybe without Clemson and UGA on the schedule and a couple of good recruiting classes. USC – I don’t think so but Bobo will help tremendously. UT needs to beat some ranked teams before I’m convinced.
Alabama’s quarterback battle – Don’t know who wins but their QB room looks good.
How will new coaches fare in their debuts? – Can’t wait for the Egg Bowl.
Does anyone want to play defense? (Or does it even matter?) – Alabama and UGA will be the dominant defenses next year.
With the experience the Young guys on Bama’s defense got last season the defense should take a huge step forward if they can avoid the injury bug..
I am not concerned about the offense at all. Returning 4 starters on the line with Harris and Sanders Back will give Mac plenty of time to operate.
Mac time to operate? He’s gonna have loads of time operating that clip board until the 4th quarter. How does the backend of the defense look? I know the corner spots should be just fine but It’s hard to lose a guy as rangy as McKinney.
“Yes, absolutely we need to focus on player safety, but no need to humiliate anyone in the process.”
Yet you offer no alternative. Please advise us on how players can be ejected without anyone knowing.
Questionable targeting calls aided Clemson in the semi and hurt them in the final. Justice I guess.
Seems to me that the call is way too subjective. Others have called for varying degrees (like flagrant fouls in basketball). That would only make it more subjective.
More often than not the player being hit puts his down to protect himself causing the head to head (T-Law).
I don’t know. Eliminate the helmet?? (:
Grow the grass that they play on about an 2 inches higher. It will slow the game down so that the collisions aren’t so brutal. It’s a simple and sensible solution that would do much more for player safety than all these stupid subjective rules but no one in the “football marketing departments” want to hear this.
Domes?
Shag Carpet
Haha
I feel like that would make for a lot of feet getting awkwardly caught in the turf, and at the speeds with which these guys cut and rotate, that could have some bad consequences.
Yeah you’ll slow down the games and tear twice the amount of ACLs.
ACL Tear = adverse athletic career implications
Brain Damage = adverse life implications
I rest my case.
If you slow down the game, the brain damage will still happen and as an unwanted side effect, no one will watch. The sport will die.
Your case give me unrest.
“No one will watch” – I doubt it, but maybe. I don’t know what’s in the mind of millenials since I’m an old fart baby boomer. Seems to me that the popularity of football today is about the same as it was in the 60’s and 70’s. There’s more money and media involved but the individual fan interest and passion seems about the same. The increase in attendance is more about demographics than a measure of fan interest.
Personally, I enjoyed watching the good 20-17 final score ballgames back then more than the 51-48 final score ballgames today.
Neither of those calls were questionable, and the ball carrier lowering their head isn’t why the players were ejected.
They were ejected because they LED WITH THE CROWN OF THEIR HELMET, which is under their control regardless of what the ball carrier does.
Prolly get a few hundred thousand people who would disagree with you. And the same that would agree.
In the targeting that went against OSU, the player was trying to lead with his shoulder and aiming for Lawrence’s lower chest and was only ducking his head to move it out of the way so it wouldn’t hit Lawrence. Then Lawrence ducked into him. It’s really hard when you make a defensive player have to try to guess what the QB is going to do while he’s running at full speed, knowing if he slows down a little, that pass is getting off.
You nailed it. There is nothing wrong with the rule as it is. Both cases were good calls and the players who were ejected were at fault.
I’m not sure where you’d find the numbers, but I’d be willing to bet that LSU has actually had more players leave early for the NFL over the past 10 years than Alabama. It’s not a new thing for the Tigers. I think the greater attrition for LSU from the 2011 and 2012 teams was a major factor in disparity between the two teams in the immediate years following.
The coaching attrition is different and more like Bama for sure.
Agreed, we have kept coaches up until this year.
I don’t know about 10 years but if you look at the draft from the last few years It’s been more Bama for sure..
Maybe, but you’ve had better players say from 2015 to 2018. From 2011 to 2014 a lot of LSU guys left while Alabama retained many of it’s top players. As good of a recruiter as Saban is, keeping your top talent around for their senior year is probably a greater and more valuable feat than his recruiting. I don’t know what the trick to that is but LSU needs to learn it. I can’t imagine LSU retaining guys the caliber of Najee Harris, Davonta Smith, and Dylan Moses, all who would have most certainly gone in the first two rounds. It just doesn’t seem to happen anywhere else but Alabama.
Your post started off good and just ended flat out wrong… I don’t know what the last 10 years looks like but like I said the last few has been Bama losing the most.. If it was a beat who lost the most over the last 10 years I would still say Bama but I don’t know if that’s the case and don’t care enough to look it all up.
Bama has a lot of players leave early every year.. Having players like the ones you listed come back is actually new for Bama. Besides those you named from this year what other early draft pick JR did Bama have come back?
For example.. Below is a quote from a 247 article before the start of 2019 about LSU…..
“Aranda dodged several NFL bullets when Kristian Fulton, Michael Divinity, Rashard Lawrence and Breiden Fehoko elected to return for their senior season, giving the Tigers playmakers at every level when you factor in unanimous All-American safety Grant Delpit.“
Delpit wasn’t draft eligible and Fulton was the only guy out of them that may have gone in the top 3 rounds after last year. He came back and improved his draft status markedly. That doesn’t compare to the three guys you have returning that are all potential 1st rounders and definitely no worse than 2nd.
Seems like Alabama has had a lot of high draft pick eligible juniors return over the years, but like you, I don’t care enough to look it up. The last big time player I recall staying for 4 at LSU was Glenn Dorsey way back in 2007.
I don’t believe NH has a first or second round grade and the only reason DM is back is because he was injured all season so he wants to raise he stock… having those back isn’t the norm
They need to have a penalty box for targeting or fighting. Make a player sit 15 minutes (one quarter). I never saw the reason behind making them go to the locker room. Make them sit on a red bench.
Yeah, they need to have a “Targeting 1”, which less severe and comes with a 15-yard penalty and a warning, and a “Targeting 2”, which is more blatant and results in immediate ejection along with the 15-yard penalty.
Try defining “blatant”. No one will be happy. But, that’s the nature of sports.
Yeah but once you put that judgement in there, you’ll see the exact same play in two different games get called different ways and then people will still be equally unhappy.
The one change I would make to the targeting rule would be that the instigator and the player targeted would be required to miss the same amount of plays for the game that it happened. In the Clemson OSU game for example, Lawrence was back on the field one play later. No harm, no foul, let the OSU defender come back on too.
Seems this would make things even more dangerous – the quarterback gets targeted at the beginning of every game by a 2nd/3rd stringer defender, and both sit out the rest of the game. Am I missing something?
I understand the strict rule, it’s an effort to completely eliminate the danger with a “no tolerance” policy. I believe it will work, at least by eliminating intentional and most non-intentional helmet-to-helmet contact. I do agree there could be a lesser penalty, maybe a 2-quarter suspension that can carry over to the next game – that would be a deterrent.
This isn’t a new thing, we were taught “facemask up” in peewee ball in the mid-70s (but also to reduce neck injuries).
Like all calls by the refs, they’re going to miss things sometimes. Part of the game.
You realize that teams could still try to do that now, right, but you don’t see that happen do you? Because you don’t wanna put in a guy who might give up a TD just for the CHANCE of giving the QB a concussion on purpose. What you DO see are guys trying to make football plays, unintentionally committing targeting because the QB’s head moves or the receiver is falling and it’s hard to judge if you are gonna hit the ball or the head when a 200 lb object is falling at 9.8 fps squared.
Shakira in a skimpy outfit, shaking her hips, very pleasing to the eye and nothing wrong with it.
Shakira and Jennifer Lopez both on skimpy outfits and shaking their hips, better still
[Headline]: “Old creepy man talks about young pop stars in weird fashion”
J Lo is 50 and Shakira in her 40s, both in my wheelhouse. And you sir are an ignorant stalker
Back in 2006, Miami passed on a QB in free agency because of an injury concern and it ended up biting them pretty hard. I don’t think Miami needs to think too hard about this one. Don’t make that mistake again. The only thing is, what if another team wants Tua and is willing to trade up into a pick 2-4 to grab him?
Thanks for putting the brakes on the Egg Bowl hype. It will be a great rivalry game. It always is, regardless of the records coming in and the scores at the end. But I don’t see the new head coaches impacting the excitement level that much, before, during, or after the game. I mean do you really expect Leach and Kiffin, who are on pretty friendly terms off the field, to do anything that will top last year’s Egg Bowl drama?
IF you want to address “targeting” then you need to consider calling it on the OFFENSIVE PLAYER! When a defender commits to making a tackle and then the RB/QB/WR DUCKS HIS HEAD and CAUSES the targeting – why not review and CHARGE the OFFENSIVE guy?? And if you want to talk about humiliating a player, stop announcing when a lineman gets a holding call! They never say “great block by #74”, but just get caught holding and listen for your number!!