Odds and ends from SEC Media Days

Mark Stoops had a lot to be happy about at SEC Media Days. (SEC Twitter Photo)

During SEC Football Media Days one never knows what’s going to come up in the coaches’ opening statements or in the question and answer sessions that follow but you know it will often be interesting. Take Mark Stoops for example. Who knew he was a house painter before he became a football coach? And to hear him tell it he’s a darn good one.

After his introduction by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Stoops said, “I’ve known Greg for such a long time. I didn’t know he was a painter, but I was a very good painter growing up. I was on that ladder. I was working.

“You know, a true story, Greg. My first job I worked at the University of South Florida. That was my first full-time coaching job. I worked construction, and I did the painting at night to pay the bills. So that’s a true story. Eric Wolford, who’s my offensive line coach right now, he and I worked construction at night, so that painting paid off for me.”

For Stoops, it’s that blue-collar mentality coming through, but that’s not surprising for a guy that grew up the son of a high school football coach in a family with three brothers sharing one bedroom in Youngstown, Ohio.

Stoops seemed to feel pretty good about his house painting ability though. He said, laughingly, “It’s good to have something to fall back on.”

And speaking of coaches that are feeling good Eli Drinkwitz, second-year head coach at Missouri, seemed pretty confident that if all the SEC expansion talk actually came to fruition he would have no problem playing Texas and Oklahoma each year in football.

“They’re not on our schedule this year, but if they are in the future, I hope I’m employed long enough at Mizzou to see that,” he said.

When Drinkwitz was asked if he thought Oklahoma would be a pretty good rival for Missouri he said, “I kinda like the rivalry we have with Arkansas, I can’t remember the last time they beat us.”

I’m sure that quote will end up on the Arkansas bulletin board at the end of November.

Since we are talking about teams on UK’s schedule let’s talk about the always controversial Mike Leach, head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs. His opening statement at SEC Media Days was exactly the opposite. He said, as he reached the podium, “Alright, I’m not a big opening statement guy, and plus, you guys are going to ask whatever you want to know anyway, so let’s just go ahead and get started. Are there any questions?”.

He followed that up by going into one of his many opinions that usually go cross-grain to the college football establishment.

In regards to a question about college football potentially expanding to 12 teams, Leach said, “I think 12 teams is a huge step in the right direction. I personally would like to see 64, and you could map it out pretty easily.”

At a time when Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney said he was dead set against it because his players did not want to play more games in a season, Leach said, “Twelve teams is never enough”.

Another head coach that will see the Kentucky Wildcats on his schedule this year is Josh Heupel, Tennessee’s new head man and the former head coach at UCF. It’s no secret that Heupel believes the way to win games is to have the best offense on the field.

He said, about his time as head man at UCF and offensive coordinator at Missouri, “You look at the last three National Championships offensively, I think every team has averaged over 520 yards on offense,” Heupel said. “You look at what we’ve been able to do in our track record as a staff at the previous two stops at UCF and at Missouri, top five in basically every offensive category the last three years. The two years previous to that while we were at Missouri, led the league in total offense. This is a quarterback-friendly offense that’s going to allow us to play and apply pressure to defenses every single Saturday that we step on the football field.”

All that sounds great except that Heupel forgot to mention that the last three National Champions — Alabama, LSU, and Clemson — ranked 13th, 33rd, and 1st in team defense, respectively during their championship seasons.

On the other hand, Heupel’s teams at UCF finished 12-1 in 2018, 10-3 in 2019, and 6-4 in 2020 while ranking 36th, 42nd, and 92nd, respectively, in team defense those same years. It’s great to put points on the board but if you can’t stop the other team from scoring it’s hard to win games. Just ask Lane Kiffen at Ole Miss.

It was an interesting Media Days. In my next article, I’ll cover what’s been happening with some of the other SEC teams that aren’t on UK’s schedule next year and throw in a couple of additional tidbits from Mark Stoops time at the podium. Thanks for following along.

— Keith Peel, Contributing Writer