After winning six consecutive national championships and three of the last five Heisman Trophies, it would be easy to understand why Southeastern Conference fans would feel a sense of entitlement.
As understandable as it is, it would still be wrong.
The SEC still has to prove it on the field and that starts Thursday night when South Carolina opens the season on the road at Vanderbilt.
Finally, it is game week for the 2012 football season.
The news is still coming out of SEC camps even in the final week before kickoff. Florida is still insisting that Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel will play quarterback in the opening game.
Arkansas tailback Knile Davis and South Carolina tailback Marcus Lattimore look to be healthy and ready to take aim at the SEC rushing title after suffering major injuries a year ago. Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson will be in that conversation as well. Alabama running back Eddie Lacy is set to become Alabama’s next great running back if he can shake off the nagging little injuries that he’s had to deal with since last season.
And, oh yes, for the first time since 1992 there will be two news teams in the league.
Missouri and Texas A&M have joined the SEC, giving the league 14 teams and more promise as college football moves toward the playoff system in two years.
“Nobody really knows what we’re getting into. We’ll have a better assessment as we continue to compete throughout the year,” said first-year Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin. “Certainly, the schedule that we play is a complete one, particularly in the back end with all the road trips. As I’ve said since I came here, we owe it to our seniors, our former students and our fans to win now. It is coach-speak that you have to take it one game at a time, but that is the approach I’ve always taken as a head coach and that’s not going to change.”
Some have questioned whether A&M has the strength and speed to compete in the SEC, but Sumlin is not one of those. Still, he knows that the Aggies are not guaranteed anything.
“We’ve been guaranteed 12 opportunities to play and the first one comes a week from today,” he said after Saturday’s practice. “There are steps throughout the season and certainly that’s the first step. For our fans, former students and everybody involved; their excited about Week Two … and they should be, with the first SEC game and it being a home game. But our focus as a team has been our first game, which is Louisiana Tech.”
The Louisiana Tech-Texas A&M game is one of 12 non-conference games on tap for SEC teams, who have been among the best in the nation against outside foes. Last season, the conference had a 47-8 record against non-conference teams, which was eight wins more than the 39 wins posted by Ohio State of the Big Ten. That was the fifth time in the past six years that the league topped 40 non-conference wins.
The games that will gather the most interest in the opening week are when the SEC takes on teams from the other power conferences — Alabama vs. Michigan, Tennessee vs. NC State and Auburn vs. Clemson. Getting swept in those three big games would certainly be a black eye for the SEC to open the season, but a 3-0 record would certainly get the league off to a great start.
Here are some questions and some possible answers that we will be watching for over the next four months of dog-eat-dog SEC competition:
1. Can the SEC win a seventh consecutive national title?
Answer: The streak has to end sometime; this could be the year because the SEC has five teams good enough to be in the hunt — Alabama, LSU, South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia. Eventually, having so many elite teams will mean the league will beat up on each other and knock itself out of the BCS title game. On the other hand, the league has five teams that could get there and no other conference can make that claim.
2. Will the SEC have anyone who will mount a serious run for the Heisman Trophy?
Obviously Lattimore and Davis are strong candidates, but Davis will have the burden of sharing his backfield with another strong candidate in Wilson. Usually that means neither will win it because they have a tendency to split the regional voting clearing the path for someone else.
3. What effect will having star players like Da’Rick Rogers, Isaiah Crowell, Tyrann Mathieu and Michael Dyer leave prematurely for disciplinary reasons?
Answer: Very little. The SEC has star power in abundance. The individual teams that lost those players may feel it at times, but, as we’ve seen over and over again, nobody is irreplaceable in this league.
4. Can Ole Miss finally win a conference game?
Answer: Not unless the Rebels settle on a quarterback. Less than a week before the opening kickoff coach Hugh Freeze continues to try and determine the merits of Barry Brunetti and Bo Wallace.
”They had a good week,” Freeze said of this past week. “There are still some inconsistencies with just bad reads. I’ve got to do a better job; Dan (co-offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Werner) has got to do a better job of making sure that doesn’t happen. But there’s no doubt they’ve improved. We’ve just got to keep coaching them. I’m anxious to see how they do when the live bullets start next Saturday.”
5. Can Auburn continue to build its ground game without Michael Dyer?
Answer: Yes, Onterio McCalebb has the speed to change games but hasn’t had the opportunities. He will get them this year and he will rise to the challenge. Having new fullback Jay Prosch blocking won’t hurt either.
6. Who will replace Isaiah Crowell as Georgia’s featured back?
Answer: It appears that two true freshmen will be the guys. Todd Gurley of Tarboro, NC., or Keith Marshall of Raleigh, NC., have impressed in fall camp and will get the bulk of the carries. Both Gurley and Marshall have the tools to be stars.
7. Will AJ McCarron be the same cool, calm leader for Alabama that we saw in the BCS Championship Game?
Answer: Yes. In fact, he will be even better. He is the only returning quarterback in the nation who has a BCS Championship Game victory to his credit.
8. Can Derek Dooley win enough games at Tennessee to take himself off the hot seat?
Answer: Losing Da’Rick Rogers didn’t help, but it is the schedule that is going to make it tough. With Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, Alabama and South Carolina the first five SEC games, it could come down to the final three league games against Missouri, Vanderbilt and Kentucky determining the swing vote on Dooley, who has an 11-14 record in his first two SEC seasons.
9. Can LSU shake off the humiliating loss to Alabama in the BCS title game and make another run?
Answer: Yes. Les Miles’s team is talented, deep and enters the season with a chip on its shoulder.
10. Which of the two new teams will get its first win in the SEC before the other?
Answer: Both will be sky high when they host their first league games on Sept. 8, when Missouri hosts Georgia and Texas A&M hosts Florida. Missouri does have an experienced quarterback in James Franklin and Georgia will be short-handed on defense, so the Tigers might have a better shot to get their first SEC win before the Aggies.