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It’s morning in Hoover.
College football has almost returned to an almost normal reality, and the mega-logos on the facade of a suburban hotel aren’t a better stop. The slogan “It Just Means More” went on the Wynfrey in Hoover last week, a sort of bat signal, to call to order this mid-July ritual.
SEC Media Days are back … for the most part … for the most part.
A year after July was spent having once-unthinkable conversations about a fall without football, 14 head coaches and 28 players will spend four days talking about football in Hoover.
With COVID-19 still a lingering reality and the number of cases in the SEC footprint increasing again, it won’t be a fully recognizable version of this event now in its 35th year.
Before the lights come on and the SEC network goes live, let’s take a look at what you can expect from SEC Media Days, version 2021.
An empty hall
Part of what separates the SEC version of these news groups is the number of non-members of the media flocking to the Wynfrey. The hall would be packed when delegations from Alabama (Wednesday) and Auburn (Thursday) are due to arrive.
That won’t be the case this time around, as the SEC announced last week. The lobby will be free from fanatics looking for autographs and selfies due to COVID-19 guidelines, according to an SEC statement. Instead, spectators will be directed to a designated area outside the Wynfrey “for those who wish to observe the arrival” of the teams, the SEC statement said.
This waiting area will be removed from the actual loading and unloading area where team representatives will arrive and depart. As a result, there will be no autograph signing – at least not as the SEC configured it to begin with.
How many will show up to get a glimpse of the July heat, but not a Sharpie stroke, that will be a barometer of what that means in 2021.
Missing star power
Also absent from the media days plan? Big names.
The SEC produced a record 65 NFL draft picks in the outgoing class of 2021. That beat the SEC set mark in 2019 for most conference draft picks and improved second place to. 21.
This leaves a significant void of renowned talent who will be available Monday through Thursday. Only three of the 14 teams will bring in a quarterback, including Bo Nix of Auburn, Matt Corral of Ole Miss and JT Daniels of Georgia. On the last media days of 2019, nine of 14 teams brought in quarterbacks, with Corral the lone survivor.
More than half of the players are linemen – important players and often good quotes – but it lacks some of the star power of what would have been if there had been a 2020 SEC Media Days.
Lane Kiffin’s back
On a positive note, this will be Lane Kiffin’s second debut at SEC Media Days. Often-cited and rarely-booked coach Ole Miss was a one-and-done with Tennessee in 2009, so he won’t need the Wynfrey Tour.
It was controversial then and 12 years later Kiffin has a new level of media literacy. Scheduled to appear on Tuesday, a day before Nick Saban and Alabama, Kiffin will certainly have some Crimson Tide talking points in the queue.
It’s hard to imagine him skipping an opportunity to mention Ole Miss’s 48 points on Alabama last October, right?
Seven other new arrivals
The one-year COVID-19 hiatus on media days and the two cycles of coaching changes mean a host of new faces are entering the hotel lobby.
There will be seven debutants, including Bryan Harsin of Auburn. Others slated to debut include Sam Pittman of Arkansas, Mike Leach of Mississippi State, Eli Drinkwitz of Missouri, Shane Beamer of South Carolina, Josh Heupel of Tennessee and Clark Lea of ​​Vanderbilt.
That’s half of the league’s coaches and when you add Kiffin the majority of the SEC will have different coaches than the ones who came to Hoover in July 2019.
Projected finishing order
One of the centuries-old traditions is that the media votes on the intended order of arrival and Saban mentions how often they get it wrong. Well, the batting average has improved in recent years.
The projected winner has won the championship in four of the past eight years with just one bad failure in this peloton. Auburn was picked to win in 2015 before the Tigers were 2-6 in the league and finished last in the West Division. Alabama has been chosen to win every two years since 2012, when LSU was the choice.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande Or on Facebook.
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