Football fans finally got a taste of the mania surrounding the upcoming season last week, as the Southeastern Conference held its annual Media Days.When all 12 SEC-member schools and almost 1,000 journalists got together to talk football in Birmingham, Ala., the expected plethora of interesting jock-talk ensued.MILES NAMES A STARTER “TODAY”Fall football camp is still two weeks out, but LSU coach Les Miles has his starting quarterback if the season started right now.”If we had to start today, I would start Jordan Jefferson,” he said. “But I believe our offense will function extremely well with the idea that our quarterbacks are a little bit more veteran.”Jefferson saw time in mop-up situations for most of last season before he took over the starting role just before halftime against Ole Miss. He completed 49 percent of his passes for 419 yards and four touchdowns in two starts, including a 38-3 pasting of Georgia Tech.He also rushed for 211 yards and a touchdown.”He’s bigger and stronger than he’s been. In my opinion, the experience that he had in his true freshman year will benefit him tremendously,” Miles said. “So many times you want to get on the field … then you realize you have cadence, stems in motions — the ability to execute the offense becomes a little bit harder to do than when you’re standing on the sideline where it appears easy.”‘TEBOWGATE’ To very few people’s surprise, Florida senior quarterback Tim Tebow quickly took precedence over the proceedings.Tebow was not among the three unanimous selections to the SEC coaches’ preseason All-SEC team, a snub that elicited quite a stir given his credentials — one Heisman trophy, two SEC championship rings, two national championship rings and a touchdown tally of 110.”I really don’t think this will be something that I will think about too much,” Tebow said. “[I’ll] probably get asked about it a few more times. [It] really won’t be something that I’ll focus on. I really have enough to be motivated about.”The entire affair turned out to be a misunderstanding — former Florida legend Steve Spurrier accidentally left Tebow off the ballot and quickly reversed course to make the Gator QB a unanimous selection — disappointing any hopes of an escalation in the Lane Kiffin vs. Florida affair.
KIFFIN DEFENDS JACKSON COMMITMENTSpeaking of Kiffin, the first-year Tennessee coach fielded question about his signing of Louisiana’s top cornerback prospect, Janzen Jackson, last spring.The last-minute nature of Jackson’s switch from LSU to Tennessee in February had many LSU fans complaining the Volunteers had landed Jackson by offering his father, Lance Guidry, a job on their coaching staff in the future.”Anybody who said that, that’s just that, to me, is a typical reason why when people recruit so well, all of a sudden people want to accuse them that they’re doing something wrong or accuse them of cheating because they got beat,” Kiffin said.Kiffin has been a part of both of the coaching staffs that have lured five-star prospects away from Louisiana in recent years. He was the offensive coordinator at Southern California when the Trojans signed super recruit running back Joe McKnight from John Curtis High School.SABAN DONS PURPLE AND GOLDAs if they needed any more reminders of Nick Saban’s days with the Tigers, LSU fans are in for a walk down memory lane this November when “The Blind Side” premieres in theaters. The film focuses on former Ole Miss offensive tackle Michael Oher and his college recruitment in 2004. Several of the SEC’s familiar faces play minor parts, including former coaches Tommy Tuberville and Phillip Fulmer, as well as Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt and Saban himself — wearing his old color code of purple and gold.”I’m hopeful all of our fans will understand that the movie is an historical event. When this happened and it occurred, that was the part of history where I was. I think we all try to represent that,” Saban said. “It’s no disrespect to LSU or anybody involved at LSU. We have special memories of the times and things we accomplished there.”
BLUEGRASS REVISITEDIn the spirit of remembering Saban’s time in Baton Rouge, one reporter at Media Days asked him for a recollection of LSU’s famous 2002 Bluegrass Miracle, a last-second hail mary touchdown to beat Kentucky, nearly seven years after the fact.”There was about a 30 mile an hour wind that day, and we were fortunate to be able to game manage to get the wind in the fourth quarter by the way the coin toss went and all that stuff,” Saban said. “The Kentucky players actually misjudged the ball. That’s what created the tip. Devery Henderson was the key running guy that’s supposed to play the tip. And it just worked out that way.”But Saban said he remembers the fallout from the play more than the “miracle” itself.”I’ve always been told by mentors, that the worst thing your team can do is play poorly and win,” he said. “We played poorly that day and won. And we got our rear ends kicked in the worst defeat in all the time I was at LSU the next week because of that.”The Tigers lost, 31-0, to Alabama, the only time LSU has failed to score a point this decade.—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]