The SEC football regular season has finally come to an end, and it’s just in time for the holiday season! So, let’s combine these two pursuits and take a spin through the SEC while we knock out our holiday shopping. Here are my suggestions for self-help books tailored specifically for the SEC football fans in your life.
Georgia Bulldogs: Living Beyond Your Honeymoon
This is kind of a wild thing to say, but after years of being good but not great, UGA hasn’t lost a regular season game in over two years. The Dawgs finally broke through and won a National Championship last season, and have followed that up by slicing through the SEC this season, entering this week’s SEC Championship game undefeated. At some point, of course, this will end. The Dawgs will lose a game, or even a couple of games, and will go from being on top to just being somewhere in that upper tier. So, for UGA fans, I give the gift of enjoying this honeymoon period.
Alabama Crimson Tide: How Good do You Want to Be?
Between 2015 and 2019, Alabama didn’t lose more than one game in a season. They went to the National Championship Game in each of those four years, and won two National Championships. They’ve won one more natty since then, but they’ve also lost two games in the other three of those seasons. Even this year, after losses against Tennessee and LSU, the Crimson Tide seems a bit…washed? Rumors have swirled about Nick Saban packing it in—he’s 71 years old, after all—and despite a roster jammed with four- and five-star players, Alabama seems to lack the mojo they once had. So, let’s help the Tide regain their momentum, focus and swagger. And what better author to help than Nick Saban, himself?
Arkansas Razorbacks: Being True to Yourself
It’s always important to stay within yourself. You are what you are, with perhaps a little bit of variance allowed in either direction. With Arkansas, don’t you always get the feeling there’s some dissatisfaction there? Like they desperately want to be an Alabama or some other powerhouse, but they just aren’t ever able to quite get over that hump and play like they belong in the upper echelon for more than a week or two each season. I love Sam Pittman’s pragmatism and affability, but I wish Arkansas could just get comfortable with being who they are.
Tennessee Volunteers: The Power of Patience
For so many years, the Tennessee football program was, to be charitable, a real mess. They couldn’t find a coach, and then they got a coach and he was not very good, and then they got rid of him and couldn’t find a coach (again), and it seemed like the Vols were stuck in an orange-tinted drain, swirling around and around in sad perpetuity. But then Josh Heupel unclogged the drain! This year the Vols were white hot for a while, and even though they hit a few speed bumps, they finished the season with a 10-2 record, which is great! If you’re a Tennessee fan, you have to look at this season as proof of concept—they had injuries and a roster that was mostly holdovers from the last regime, but we know Heupel’s system works. Now let’s give Heupel a couple of years to recruit and see what he can make happen. In the meantime, stay zen, y’all.
South Carolina Gamecocks: You Are a Bad*ss
Let’s be honest, nobody expected the Gamecocks to be this good this season. After finishing 7-6 last season, Shane Beamer installing Spencer Rattler at QB and going 8-4 with wins over Clemson and Tennessee is basically a damn miracle. Is this sustainable? SC is losing their offensive coordinator, but likely returning Rattler and several of their key players on offense. More than anything, South Carolina fans should be encouraged by the presence of Beamer, who seems to get his players to consistently play hard and with real effort. I think Beamer might be a long-term fit for the Gamecocks.
Ole Miss Rebels: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
When you go into a relationship with Lane Kiffin, you know what you’re getting into. It’s gonna have ups and downs, highs and lows, rumors and allegations. But you’ll have more good times than bad, and in the end, all this is acceptable because you know your relationship with Lane Kiffin is probably not a long-term thing. Unless… it is? Because after some public noise about the jobs at Auburn and Alabama, Kiffin has just signed a contract extension with Ole Miss. He’s finishing his third season, and if he lasts longer than five games into next season, Kiffin will have lasted longer at Ole Miss than he’s ever been at any gig in his head coaching tenure. He’ll keep Ole Miss in the mix around the top of the SEC West, and if you’re a Rebels fan, maybe you should start getting used to the idea that the Lane Train just might be idling in Oxford for a while.
LSU Tigers: Redesigning, Realigning, Rediscovering Me
Somehow LSU went 15-0 in 2019, rolling to a National Championship, and then immediately put up back-to-back middling seasons and dismissed Coach Ed Orgeron. Bringing in Brian Kelly from Notre Dame seemed to be from out of the blue, but Kelly has had his moments early on, beating Alabama and stumbling to a win of the SEC West. We’ll see how the Tigers perform this week in the SEC Championship Game against UGA, but it certainly seems as though LSU is back on the right track.
Kentucky: Good Vibes, Good Life
This week, Mark Stoops fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello, who was the third offensive coordinator in Lexington over the last three seasons. Naturally, next year they’ll have their fourth in four seasons. Mark Stoops seems like a solid guy, real salt of the earth, who has managed to cobble together a Kentucky football program that is above average each year. They aren’t currently a championship level program, and perhaps they never will be—maybe being an offensive coordinator at Kentucky will just forever be a waystation for coaches on their way up or down the hierarchy of college football. So, let’s just be happy with where we are. (And also that Kentucky is a basketball school.)
Mississippi State Bulldogs: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
For years, I admired Mississippi State coach Mike Leach for his commitment to being a rebel. Establish the run? Nah, we’d rather pass 60 times a game. But then everyone else seemed to catch up, and suddenly Leach wasn’t all that different, at least on the field. Journalists knew there was still something special there, lobbing Leach questions about Halloween candy and cargo shorts and Thanksgiving sides in order to get wacky answers. But as far as football goes, Leach has become less revolutionary and more pedestrian. The Bulldogs are 19-17 in Leach’s three seasons, and as the novelty wears off, perhaps the shine is coming off a bit as well. Until something changes, let’s embrace Leach’s ability to block out everything else and do what moves him.
Florida Gators: Pull Your Self Together
Some of these new SEC coaches came in and right away managed to flip things around right away. And then there’s Billy Napier, who showed up at Florida and took over a 6-7 team…and has them at 6-6 heading into a bowl game. Look, we get it that building something sustainable doesn’t happen overnight. But Napier inherited arguably the most talented quarterback in the SEC East in Anthony Robertson and hasn’t been able to generate any consistency. Either way, with UGA on top and Carolina and Kentucky in good places heading into next season, I don’t think Florida will have the easiest road back to the top. As the saying goes, Gainesville wasn’t built in a day.
Auburn Tigers: Journey to the Center of Fear
Well, Auburn, here we are. Earlier this week, Hugh Freeze was announced as your new head coach. This seems like it almost didn’t happen, after Freeze was linked to Auburn over the weekend, and a completely unsurprising backlash apparently caught Auburn’s Powers That Be by surprise. But once people remembered they’d already hired Bruce Pearl, Freeze was welcomed with open arms. He’ll certainly make Auburn competitive, and maybe they’ll even beat Bama once or twice along the way. For Freeze, at 53 years old, this is likely his last shot at SEC relevance. As long as he can stay out of his own way. Get ready, Tigers fans–it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Missouri Tigers: blank notebooks
Eh, whatever.
Texas A&M Aggies: Your grief, your way
What a mess. I don’t know what else to say about this team, other than I guess the good news is that there’s nowhere to go but up? Jimbo Fisher seems to be clearing the way to bring in someone else to call plays, even though it seems weird to fire other coaches when it was Fisher calling the plays to begin with. Either way, Fisher’s ridiculous buyout basically guarantees that he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
Vanderbilt Commodores: The William Shakespeare Collection
Clark Lea and the Dores managed to defy all expectations and not only beat their win projections for this season, but they even won back-to-back SEC games, for the first time in 15 years! Vanderbilt is probably more pyrite than real gold, but this season alone will guarantee Clark Lea at least a decade of job security. Heck, maybe even two. In the meantime, let’s give the Commodore fan in your life what is likely, for them, some light reading.