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Media Days taking place tells us that football season is just around the corner. In my previous article, I joked that you could even begin to smell football season and the garbage that a lot of the coaches were saying. With that in mind, I wanted to highlight a few more intriguing comments from coaches that happened at media days.
Curt Cignetti’s comments here as to why they decided to cancel an upcoming series against the Virginia Cavaliers. He says that they are “adopting the SEC philosophy” on scheduling. This statement couldn’t be farther than the truth when it comes to a few SEC schools. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and Texas all will play at least two power four non-conference opponents over the next 10 years. For example, South Carolina plays Virginia Tech to open the season and Clemson to close the season giving them two power four non-conference opponents. Florida will play two power four non-conference opponents in seven of the next nine years. Texas plays Ohio State, Michigan, or Notre Dame over the next five seasons in non-conference games. Meanwhile, Indiana has zero power four non-conference opponents, zero road games, four FCS opponents, and just two of their seven FBS opponents had a winning record in 2024. So, while Curt Cignetti may be right about a few of the teams in the SEC having easy schedules, Indiana has it just as easy on their schedule as well. These comments struck me as really rich and bogus from Curt.
Curt Cignetti wasn’t the only coach taking shots at the SEC at his respective media day. Rhett Lashlee got in on the fun at ACC Media Days as well. In the above graphic, Coach Lashlee shares a pretty crazy statistic about the SEC having the same six teams win the conference since 1964. Can we name them all? Alabama, Florida, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee, and Georgia are the only six teams to ever win the SEC. Rhett Lashlee went on to say that this makes the SEC top heavy and says that the conference lacks depth. This statistic does nothing to support the conference not having depth. Anyone who knows football and talent knows that the SEC constantly has the best players and best teams top to bottom. If you don’t believe me, just ask the NFL and their talent evaluators. I just don’t understand why coaches want to talk about the SEC so much. I think they would be better served talking about their players, their coaches and their conferences. Afterall, that is why the media days exist in my opinion. It isn’t to take shots at other players, teams or coaches. One last note Coach Lashlee, only Florida State, Pittsburgh, or Clemson have won the ACC over the last 13 seasons. So what does that say about the ACC? Does it lack depth? I don’t know Coach, like I said, I would just focus on my team, my players, my coaches and my conference and let’s leave the SEC out of this.
For more of my reaction to these comments, please check out my live show and subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Football season is just around the corner, and I can’t wait to provide everyone with more coverage.
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