Freddie Maggard's SEC Media Days Diary: Day Two

Day two of SEC Media Days started off with Alabama and the circus of autograph seekers that accompanied Nick Saban and his trio of All-Americans. I wrote about the Crimson Tide already. Now here is what I learned following appearances from Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, and South Carolina.

10:30 AM: Clark Lea’s Lengthy Commodore Address

Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea was second on the center stage. The head coach’s opening remarks rambled on for 17 minutes prior to opening the session up to Q&A. For comparison purposes, the three previous head coaches averaged closer to five minutes. Mike Leach’s lasted less than five seconds. Lea provided a State of the Program speech that I initially thought was a smart play given that several media members departed following Saban’s appearance which meant fewer questions would be asked. But, the Commodore leader went a little long and was somewhat rigid with his remarks. The most newsworthy aspect of his dialogue, other than that odd new logo, surrounded the quarterback position. Lea declared Mike Wright as the starter and stated that former QB1 Ken Seals remains with the team as a backup.

Lea had this to say about his quarterback situation:

It’s all about moving the ball. One way to do that is with a mobile quarterback. Mike Wright is one of the best in the country in that respect.
We want him to develop as a total quarterback, which he has. He’s demonstrated leadership abilities, too. We’re excited for him to enter the fall as our starting quarterback. He knows that he has to earn that every day. That’s part of our covenant.
On top of that, we’re fortunate to have a second quarterback with a ton of game experience and starting experience in Ken Seals. I want to say this because I think it’s important. We had a challenging conversation at the end of spring to set a course through the summer. Our staff got together and said, What is the best course forward here? What is the right thing to do to set a trajectory for our offense?

However, Lea’s later comment caught the dozing crowd completely off guard. He said, “We know in time Vanderbilt will be the best football program in the country.” Ok, I like the optimism and confidence, but that’s a bold take, Clark.

Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach speaks at the 2022 SEC Media Days (Jimmie Mitchell/SEC)

1:00 PM: The Pirate Speaks

First things first: I’m really sleepy. We get one free meal today which came at lunchtime and I absolutely wore it out. I ate way, way too much, and need a nap. Ok, back to recapping Media Days. I sometimes enjoy Mike Leach’s bizarre rants and press conferences. I do not enjoy watching his offenses. There are only so many short passes that I can take.

The two-time National Coach of the Year is one of the architects of the Air Raid Offense along with Hal Mumme. Leach was introduced by Commissioner Sankey. His opening remarks were as follows, “I appreciate that. Any questions?” His brevity was refreshing after Lea’s 17-minute rant. I could write a book about Leach’s time on the center stage. Instead of analyzing his takes, I’m just going to simply copy and paste his remarks for your reading pleasure.

Q. Sankey said you have some Netflix recommendations. Would you be willing to share those with us?
MIKE LEACH: Yeah, I wish I’d watched more Netflix lately. And I haven’t. Somebody said I need to watch “The Terminal List,” which I haven’t watched it yet.
I guess the hidden gem, which I think I said it last year, “Operation Odessa,” that documentary, you need to watch that about these international criminals that try to buy a submarine for Pablo Escobar. That’s worth watching.
I wish I could tell you I watched more Netflix. I haven’t watched a lot lately. During the season, it’s good to watch to kind of get your head straight. I’m up to date on “Better Call Saul,” I’m up to date on “Yellowstone.”
Yeah, I’ll tell you, that’s part of it. The kids got me into “Stranger Things.” I’m certainly not ready for this season, I’m about halfway through. I don’t know.
Q. Why no opening statement from you?
MIKE LEACH: Opening statements? Well, I hate opening statements. I really don’t see the point of it. So as opposed to me sit there and think of some flowery opening statement, which I’ve done before, and then at the end of the opening statement a number of people ask questions that have already been addressed in my opening statement, I decided we’d just sort of cut out the middleman. You go ahead and ask the questions, and I’ll go ahead and answer ’em.
Q. How have you seen the evolution of calling trick plays? Has it become more difficult with the offenses getting more exotic, harder to trick people?
MIKE LEACH: I’ll tell you, you bring up something that I’ve kind of thought about a little bit. I wish I had a good resolution to it.
No, there’s still trick plays. They still do trick plays. Trick plays need to be executed well. Trick plays have a value of the opponent seeing ’em just from the standpoint now they have to adjust and they have to deal with something.
The other thing, their imagination of course could go wild on what else may be coming. So it does create a certain amount of psychological damage whether it works or not.
I mean, there’s all kinds of trick plays. I can think of all kinds of them. The rules have somewhat aggressively tried to prevent trick plays, which I don’t care for that approach. I mean, there’s been one rule after the next that over the years you can’t have trick plays, you can’t have a certain type of play, which essentially was a trick play, which was probably a good idea.
People squawked enough that they legislated against it. I actually wish we still have drop kicks. I had the perfect guy to do it, too, at Washington State. Logan Tago. He would drop kick it about 50 yards out.
Anyway, yeah, I don’t like to homogenize and make football kind of a cubicle game. I think some of these rules eliminating trick plays do just that. I think that, of course, is ridiculous.
I also think this: You have to pick your type of trick play. There’s more three-man fronts, nickel and dime packages as the result of people throwing it a lot more. So this notion of getting behind ’em is more difficult because teams are playing looser.

Classic Leach.

2:30 PM: Shane Beamer wants everyone to know he’s the coolest coach in the SEC

Update: I’m refreshed and not as sleepy. Mike Leach was fun. No notes, no prep, no opening statement, and made the Q&A fun for a change.

Shane Beamer was up next and wants everyone to know he’s the most energetic and coolest coach in the conference. His opening remarks aligned with that assessment following being introduced by Commissioner Sankey: “Thank you for that introduction. I told Commissioner Sankey I was disappointed we didn’t have Soulja Boy as a walk-up song when I came up here as well.”

The South Carolina head coach really likes his team and took to the podium to sing its praises; I don’t blame him for that. The program’s leader is supposed to promote his players and organization in the nation’s top recruiting infomercial. Multiple talking heads and Pro Js love them some South Carolina as well. The Gamecocks are being discussed as Georgia’s primary competition in the East. It’s almost like it’s an annual tradition or something. Strange. Furthermore, ESPNU is filming a show on USC’s preseason camp. The fun will keep on keeping on.

Beamer didn’t mention transfer quarterback Spencer Rattler in his opening remarks but later talked about his quarterback in the Q&A.

I don’t worry about Spencer. There may be some outside pressure with him. He’s been through the fire before. I saw firsthand how he handled it when he was at Oklahoma and started out 0-2. Never flinched. Continued to get better. There will be some ups, certainly some downs this season. But I have no worry about him from that standpoint and being able to handle it.

Much like every other team in the SEC, Carolina has been active in the Portal. Beamer went into his philosophy on transfers.

But certainly you want to be able to build a competitive roster year in, year out. When there’s a December signing period, as we go into December you kind of had a pretty good idea who you’re going to sign in December. You realize if we need to sign two running backs, for example, which we needed to last year in high school recruiting, and we didn’t, now we need to look to the portal, which is what we did, bringing in Christian Beal-Smith, Lovasea Carroll.
I think every year is different. If we could sign 25 guys from the high school ranks last year, we would. That’s not always going to be feasible to win football games in the SEC, though.

That’s about all I got from today. I’m about typed-out. Hope you enjoyed KSR’s coverage of SEC Media Days. The Wildcats are in town tomorrow. Stay tuned for a bunch of stuff from Atlanta.

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