SUMMIT ON THE BEACH: SEC football coaches meet to discuss hot topics

The SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla., unfolded this week as the Sandestin Hilton Resort was overrun with athletic directors, head coaches and SEC personnel. Reporters flocked outside of meeting rooms like vultures waiting for the chance to feed on their prey while impromptu interviews took place in hallways and stairways. And the topic that seemed to dominate conversation for the week was the possibility of the SEC expanding.
SHAKING THINGS UP (MAYBE) …
The SEC has earning power.
The conference stakes claim to the last four BCS national championships in college football. And because of that kind of TV time and powerhouse reputation, the conference closed a $3 billion, 15-year deal with ESPN and CBS.
With that type of success permeating throughout the conference in football as well as other sports and because of the Big Ten’s talks of expansion, the SEC has been hit with the same dilemma.
Are 12 teams enough? Should the SEC follow if the Big Ten goes through with its contemplated expansion? Or is it a stick-with-what-ya-know scenario?
“This is a conference that was just able to strike one of the best television deals in the history of intercollegiate athletics with the institutions we have,” Georgia athletic director Damon Evans said. “I think our¬ job is to keep our eyes on the landscape and to see if at some point in time we need to adjust. But we don’t need to adjust just for the sake of adjusting. If we’re gonna adjust, it’s gotta be something that’s beneficial to us and help us grow from where we already are.”
The last time the SEC expanded, it moved from 10 teams to 12 teams after adding Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992. Mark Richt was still coaching under Bobby Bowden at Florida State and Evans was finishing his senior year at Georgia.
And at the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla., Richt brushed off the notion of a change coming for the conference in the near future, as he and his fellow head coaches give the feeling they will watch the Big Ten’s endeavors play out before beginning to fully consider the same expansion for the SEC.
“I really don’t think it’s going to affect us anytime soon,” he said.
Throughout the week’s meetings, fingers kept pointing to current format that is the 12 teams that already make up the conference. Taking a hands-off approach as of now and following the lead of SEC Commissioner Mike Slive is exactly what LSU head coach Les Miles plans to do.
“You know, I think obviously we kind of feel like the SEC has the advantage and we like where we’re at,” Miles said. “I don’t imagine that Commissioner Slive is considering moving any time soon.”
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE …
Richt began his career at Georgia with an 8-4 record.
In the seven seasons between his first season and his 2009 season, Richt posted at least 10 wins six of those years.
And in 2009, Richt reverted back to a record similar to his rookie season at the helm.
The Bulldogs went 8-5 and managed to stay at .500 in conference play.
Though Richt has led his Bulldogs to the postseason each of his last nine years, the Boca Raton, Fla., native enters his 10th season as Georgia’s head coach with some saying he’s plopped down on the hot seat.
But the coach with the longest tenure at one school in the SEC isn’t worried.
“First of all, my goal is just focus on the things that are really important and that’s recruiting and academics and the process of how we go about our business,” Richt said. “Everything else is not really conducive to success, so I don’t worry too much about it.”
He has a new defensive staff in place with a defensive coordinator who he “really likes” and who has “a lot of fire.” Richt has the utmost confidence in first-year starting quarterback Aaron Murray and a returning supporting cast who he hopes will catapult the Bulldogs back to a double digit-win season.
“I think when you have enough history of winning and enough history of guys playing well at a certain position, I know Aaron has confidence in me,” Richt said. “He has confidence in (offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo. So that just helps the whole process because a lot of it is a confidence level.”
Ten years into being head coach of a college football program, Richt still sticks to his same basic plan he had when he walked onto center stage of Bulldog Nation in 2001 as a 40-year-old, former offensive coordinator.
“I had no true preconceived idea about what could happen. The only thing I didn’t wanna do is put any limit on what we thought we could do,” Richt said. “My goal on a yearly basis is try to maximize the talent that we have and try to win as many games as we can and also help these young men grow up and get ready for life.”
HEALTHY AS A HORSE (SORT OF)…
Florida head coach Urban Meyer said his doctors diagnosed his chest pains as esophageal spasms, which are “irregular, uncoordinated and sometimes powerful contractions of the esophagus … Esophageal spasms can prevent food from reaching the stomach, leaving it stuck in the esophagus,” according to WebMD.
“The biggest thing is I wanted to find out what those darn chest pains were and I did, Meyer said in his Tuesday news conference. “It’s esophageal spasms and they’ve got me on some medications. I’ve just got to be smarter in the future and I’m going to be. I’m not going to let that happen again. But the biggest thing was all that was related to what the heck were those pains going through my chest. Once you find out what it is, life gets a little better quickly.”
And with Meyer’s chest pains finally being diagnosed, SEC head coaches – whose average age is 50.6 years old – are growing more aware of the toll that having the head job at a Division I school can have on physical health, especially the stress they live with and the fast-paced schedule they keep.
“There was a point in time where I didn’t know what stress was, and then I can tell you that the older you get your body is a little bit more sensitive,” Miles said.
Though Miles said working out regularly would be “wise,” the LSU head coach also said: “I gotta be honest with ya, I haven’t been able to do it. I do really good (working out regularly) until about September 4 and then I’m done with it for the year.”