Peter Burns spoke on the SEC's overall athletic performances in 2024-25

SEC Network voice Peter Burns joined us on Thursday's edition of TexAgs Live to detail the Southeastern Conference's athletic performances in 2024-25. Burns covered what he expects to see from SEC football this upcoming fall as offseason rolls on.

Key notes from Peter Burns interview

• SEC basketball and softball were good this year. Football was the weakest of the national sports. They had a run by Florida in ‘07, all the way to Ohio State or Michigan winning it, and Clemson winning it a few years ago. Outside of that, the SEC reigns supreme. It’s the changing of the guard in NIL and the transfer portal. Nick Saban used to have third-string linemen be future NFL players, but now they want to play somewhere and not wait. Now, they will transfer as opposed to being part of the depth. Kirby Smart has been hurt by a bit of that, too. He had the same mentality as Saban. The haves and have-nots are not a big jump. All these schools in the conference care about football. If you look at the Big Ten, there are maybe four or five schools that truly are all in on football. The rest of it is seat-fillers. SEC football is still good, but a bunch of people are beating up on each other.
   
• That's the way the bracket fell for the College World Series. You don’t reseed it. Allow Murray State to have an opportunity. They’re a dark horse and a Cinderella story. Arkansas has to beat LSU sooner or later. They had to play them. You may as well see the best of the best. Dave Van Horn, Zach Root and Kade Anderson in the first round. That’s two Friday night starters. LSU is set up well for the Super Regionals. You can hate Arkansas all you want, but you have to respect Van Horn. For Arkansas to win it, there would be six SEC teams to win the College World Series, with six different programs in the last few years. It will be unbelievable.
   
• A&M baseball’s Missouri series was a jaw-dropping thing. The fact that they hadn’t won yet, you can lose one, but can't get swept. Did this team quit, or were they done? They were banged up and injured, but the most important thing is that I saw Jace LaViolette come up and bat for Michael Earley. There’s love and compassion for those players. A&M is one of those programs that I’ve covered in Omaha. That's the expectations for the fans. You give him another year and hope for the best.
   
• If you're in this niche part of the media, you enjoy the House v. NCAA coverage. It gives you something. I feel bad for Ross Dellenger because every week, he waits in DC for an update. The coaches want clarity. They want to figure out if they can get a national standard. The state-by-state idea is a cluster. I hope we get some type of answer for college sports.
   
• I'm more excited about this year than the past. I feel more collectively in the dark about individual teams. Y'all are different because y'all are on the ground of College Station. SEC and college fans, for the most part, didn’t go to practice. There’s not enough coverage on it because of coaches and no spring games. This is the first time we can ask coaches about games. There are no depth charts, and they are afraid of the transfer portal. I'm looking forward to it. I would be lying if I knew who would be in the SEC. Normally, I have a good feel for it. It's wide open for the first time in 30-40 years.
   
• It comes full circle. It used to be that Georgia would replenish from the draft, then would have the third-string guy. Now, he might transfer out. Ole Miss crushed the transfer portal last year. It didn’t make a difference because it wasn’t a playoff squad.
   
• I respect Mike Elko because he used it more as a band-aid than a surgery. People have to come out and love the team and love Aggie football. That is the only way to have a national champion team. Today, with how deep the SEC is, you can't have mercenaries. You can have one or two players fill a spot. If that's how you build a team, you have eight to four teams that aren’t playoff-ready.
   
• Again, I think top to bottom, Kalen DeBoer has more pressure. For the first game, even with Alabama vs. Florida State, Brian Kelly has more pressure in facing Clemson. LSU has lost five straight openers. That’s unacceptable. I talked to Kelly a couple of weeks ago. He said he will change everything. They will win that game. That's what a coach is supposed to say at this point. With Alabama fans, they don’t know what it’s like to be mediocre for an extended period of time. Saban would have a short period like that, but make the championship. DeBoer can’t go 9-3. If you do, that’s a bad situation for everybody.
   
• It's sad to say, because no one would consider them middle tier, but I think LSU is a middle-tier team I would buy stock in. From the times I talked to Blake Baker and Joe Sloan, I think they will beat Clemson. They may even end up being an 11-1 team. I think they’re that good with Garrett Nussmeier. Defensively, Baker will do good with his guys. Even Sloan, he was on a learning curve last year. It's everything that comes with being a play caller in the SEC. It's vastly different.
   
• I remember Mark Stoops one year during SEC Media Days got all pissed off at an ESPN staff meeting because no one is getting any type of credit to them. It was that interaction behind the scenes that I was like, Kentucky will be good, and they won 10 games. You learn a lot on the line going into SEC Media Days.
   
• For me, I'm not sold on Alabama. I think for business and more organizational things, it’s not DeBoer. I think he's great. I think the structure of the boosters has always recognized that Alabama is always Alabama with Saban, and everyone will come to play for them. Now, it's as competitive as anything. The boosters, collectives and NIL dollars are behind them as Texas, Texas A&M, LSU and Georgia ultimately will hurt them and have more pressure on DeBoer. If you go 8-4, that doesn't cut it. They aren't used to it. I think Alabama is the team that I’m worried about, where they can be, vs. where we have known them the last 10 years.
   
• It’s funny because I went to the Las Vegas Bowl. It was almost as if they told Marcel Reed not to run and see what he could do as a passer. I think that will be a key thing coming out this year. I like Elko because he reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt. He doesn’t say much and speaks softly. He will never win a press conference, but he is an old-school mentality football guy. Him getting his hands on the defense is monstrous. For some guys, you hate giving up the power of what you can control and what you are truly good at. Giving him that back gives him juice. I'm flying as blindly in this season as ever before.
   
• I'd rather have the question marks on defense and have Elko. Look at Brent Venables, his defense was great, but his offense was terrible. How do you mix that? With Elko, if you say, “Hey, someone can put it together and figure it out.” He's the reason why he has two commas in his yearly salary, he's that damn good on that side of the ball. Give him some credit for that.