During Southeastern Conference Media Days of 2009, a Florida reporter was incredulous — perhaps offended — that Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow wasn’t a unanimous choice on the coaches’ preseason All-SEC football team.
Ole Miss’ Jevan Snead also had gotten a vote.
The reporter took it upon himself to interrogate each coach about how they voted on the “secret” ballot. Eleven consecutive coaches said they indeed had voted for Tebow.
The final coach to face the media was South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier. He opened his 30-minute press conference by revealing he was the culprit.
“We screwed it up pretty badly,” said Spurrier, who himself was a Heisman recipient from Florida. “I’m embarrassed about it. I feel bad about it. I take full responsibility.”
Well… not completely.
Spurrier acknowledged what many in the media suspected. Not only did he not vote for Tebow, he didn’t vote at all.
Not wanting to be bothered by such trivial duties, Spurrier had instructed his director of football operations to vote for him. The ops guy noted Florida had 10 other players on the team and was just seeking more representation.
Scandals seemed to follow Spurrier, who was always brutally and hysterically honest.
Three years later, he drew the ire of the state of Mississippi when he was asked about imbalanced inter-division scheduling.
“You think I make the schedule?” he said. “If I made the schedule, Georgia would be playing LSU, and we’d be playing Ole Miss.”
When Spurrier exited South Carolina during the 2015 season, most of the fun of SEC Media Days went with him.
Sure, Mike Leach was unpredictable and colorful when he was at Mississippi State. And in 2010 interim Vanderbilt coach Robbie Caldwell stole the show talking about his first-ever job working at a turkey farm as a … well, let’s just say he made sure the turkey population multiplied.
Those coaches and a few others were islands in a sea of monotonous coach-speak about schedules, schemes and general information that has already been discussed ad nauseam since the end of last season.
That’s not to imply that SEC Media Days is without value. Listen closely, and some clues for the upcoming season or seasons can be detected.
When new Arkansas coach Chad Morris clumsily dodged questions in 2018, it raised thoughts that he might be in over his head.
The Razorbacks won four games in two years under Morris.
Five years later, Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher had hired Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator. But when asked to clarify who will call plays, Fisher just made things more unclear.
“(Petrino will) call a lot of — hopefully he'll call the game,” Fisher said. “We'll have suggestions on things we do, whether it's offense or defense. Every coach is always involved.
“It's a more collective thing than people want to give it room for, but when you get to calling, and you get on a roll, you've got to have a guy that can do it, and I think Bobby can definitely do that, and does it as well as anybody in college football.”
Hopefully call the game? Every coach is always involved? It’s a collective thing?
Anyway, A&M only collected seven wins that year. Fisher collected millions of dollars to leave A&M.
Reporters and (bless their hearts) stenographers struggled to keep up with the fast-talking Fisher.
There are no such issues with A&M coach Mike Elko. Reporters love to quote Elko, who gives articulate, thought-provoking answers to the big-picture questions of college athletics.
He’s among the handful of coaches whose press conferences cannot be missed. The others?
Well, unassuming Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz is typically entertaining. LSU coach Lane Kiffin can be humorous with his version of honesty. Georgia’s Kirby Smart usually just spouts coach-speak, but he’s Georgia’s Kirby Smart, so it’s graciously accepted.
The other 12 coaches usually just rehash and maybe update the talking points of spring football.
But this year could be a little more interesting.
Five new coaches will make their SEC Media Days debut, including Arkansas’ Ryan Silverfield, Auburn’s Alex Golesh, Florida’s Jon Sumrall, Kentucky’s Will Stein and Ole Miss’ Pete Golding.
Perhaps one of them will be the next Spurrier. If not on the field, then at least at the podium.
We can only hope.
