The Unofficial Guide to 2012 SEC Football (Part One)

Florida Coach: Will Muschamp 2011 Record: 7-6 You Should Know: Here's my impression of Florida's 2011 team: "Hey everybody, I'm Will Muschamp. Are you guys ready for some football? Awesome! Ow! Stop throwing things at me! Aaah! This sucks!" Hopefully, the second-year coach can turn out a better product for the fervent Gator nation than he did last year. But they will play a lot of freshmen and have a few new coordinators who'll need to get the feel of things. And hey, if it doesn't work out, they can always probably get into the Gator Bowl. Fun Fact: Statistics have proven that 45% of Florida fans are still blindly pretending that Urban Meyer is still the coach there. Georgia Coach: Mark Richt 2011 Record: 10-4 You Should Know: Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray should be back in fine form and a possible(?) Heisman candidate and Isaiah Crowell, who rushed for 850 yards last year, will be ready to do it again was dismissed from the team after an arrest on weapons charges. Still, it's Georgia football. It can't be that bad. They should get an automatic bowl bid just for having to practice all this summer outdoors in Georgia. That's serious business. I have to change my shirt just going to the bank in this kind of heat. Fun Fact: Mark Richt is currently growing a goatee. He thinks it makes him look like John Travolta in the action film From Paris with Love, but it doesn't. UK Coach: Joker Phillips 2011 Record: [cough, mumble] You Should Know: Seriously? Is this your first time here? Scroll up or down. Fun Fact: Do not mess with UK's intimidating new receivers coach Pat Washington or he will rip off your arm and beat you to death with it. Missouri Coach: Gary Pinkel 2011 Record: 8-5 (so they claim...I've never seen them before) You Should Know: Even though the name Gary Pinkel sounds like a nebbishy movie character for whom nothing ever goes right, they beat North Carolina in the Independence Bowl, so I guess that's something. Still, they're a new SEC with something to prove (and that something is "we are a middle-tier SEC football team!"). They'll probably hit walls playing the big guns for the first time, but them's the breaks. Welcome to Shawshank, kid. Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. Fun Fact: Missouri's returning quarterback is named James Franklin. So that means now you have to keep track of James Franklin the Mizzou quarterback, James Franklin the Vanderbilt coach, James Franklin the early 1700's printing innovator, James Franklin the Australian philosopher and James Franklin the British naturalist. How are you going to do that? Tennessee Coach: Derek Dooley 2011 Record: 5-7 You Should Know: Key returning starters include Da'Rick Rogers (also known as The'Rick Rogers) and a "100% healthy" WR Justin Hunter, so head coach De'Rek Dooley has a little ammunition even though his job's probably on the line. Also, QB Tyler Bray has been in the news lately for both launching beer bottles into the street and and "hot-dogging" on a jet ski, so I guess it's true what they say about pets and football programs: you don't find them, they find you. Fun Fact: Tennessee's roster features super-cool names like Prentiss Waggner, Greg Greico and Vincent Dallas, which probably really makes teammate and senior linebacker Herman Lathers rue his regrettable birth name. Vanderbilt Coach: James Franklin 2011 Record: 6-7 You Should Know: Though a prior year 6-7 record at Vanderbilt is commonly referred to as "awesome," but they're at least trying, and this year could be another small step up (6-6? DON'T JINX THEM!). On the upside they don't have to play Alabama or LSU, but on the downside they will face traditional juggernauts like UMass and Presbyterian. They also open the season against South Carolina at home, during which the Commodore website says that all freshman will "be given the opportunity to run across the football field before the game." Which will be fun for them, I guess. Fun Fact: Head Coach James Franklin is currently checking out your wife. And he likes what he sees. South Carolina Coach: Steve Spurrier 2011 Record: 11-2 You Should Know: Gamecock fans are hoping quarterback Connor Shaw, who debuted mid-season last year after Stephen Garcia got his party on, continues to improve in the 2012 season. They kick off the football season on August 30 against Vandy, and everything should probably go well for them if they can dodge all the freshmen running across the field at Vanderbilt Stadium. Fun Fact: Insult comic Steve Spurrier, always playing for laughs, made a comment in July that if he made the schedule Georgia would be playing LSU and the Cocks would be playing Ole Miss. Then he asked one reporter if he had a license to be that ugly, said he recognized athletic director Ray Tanner from a recent trip to the zoo and said Frank Martin's mama so fat that when her beeper goes off people think she's backing up. He will be playing Banana's on Assembly Street in Columbia this Friday and Saturday.