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Summer officially lasts until Sept. 22, but in terms of the college football season, the countdown is on.
The Big 12’s football preseason event wrapped up in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and media and fans alike are awaiting the four-day SEC Football Media Days, which will be held Monday through Thursday next week in Dallas.
The SEC Network will be covering the event like a blanket with programming beginning at 6 a.m. Monday with “SEC This Morning,” featuring co-hosts Peter Burns and Chris Doering. The coverage continues throughout the day. “The Paul Finebaum Show” takes over from 4-6 p.m. The same schedule is maintained through Thursday when the event wraps up.
My intention is to soak up every minute I can, but I know by the end of the first day, I’ll grow weary of the coach speak and some of the commentators, and likely read about most of it online. Certainly, I’ll pay rapt attention to what Razorback head coach Sam Pittman says from the podium on Thursday, but whatever is said next week in Dallas becomes old news the second any of these teams step on the practice field in early August.
In the past, Pittman has given a lengthy run down of his team. The idea is not only to address questions before they are asked, but also to eat up as much time as possible so fewer questions from the media have to be fielded.
The most comfortable coaches at the podium might give a short synopsis of their team and then open it up to questions. Former Florida and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who famously dubbed the preseason interview circuit ”the talking season,” usually made no opening statement. He just comfortably asked for questions.
Pittman is great in less formal settings on TV. His natural personality, intelligence, and appreciation for people just exudes from him, but in the past, he’s always seemed a little uncomfortable at the SEC Media Days podium. Maybe it’s the necktie?
Razorback defensive end and All-American candidate Landon Jackson will join Pittman along with receiver Andrew Armstrong, and quarterback Taylor Green.
After the event, the coaches and players will retire to their home campuses for two weeks give or take before preseason football drills open. As I type, the University of Arkansas hasn’t officially announced when practice will start, but NCAA bylaws allow four weeks of practice before a team’s season opener.
The Hogs kick off the season at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 28 with a Thursday night game against Pine Bluff in their home away from home War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. The game will be televised by ESPNU.
So, Pittman’s fifth team will likely begin workouts around Aug. 1. Perhaps a bit earlier or maybe a few days later.
Those days will pass swiftly for the Razorbacks and their coaches, who are probably enjoying a bit of vacation time with their families this weekend. The grind for the coaches will begin shortly with prep work for practices.
The players have been working out for months in anticipation of the opportunity that stands in front of them in August. The key for a great preseason for the players individually and as a team is to stay as healthy as possible through the grind that August always is.
Preseason drills aren’t as grueling as they once were in decades past when players usually returned home or worked jobs around Fayetteville through the summer. Twenty years ago, coaches had to get their players in shape while practicing. Two-a-day and three-a-day practices were routine.
Today the players work up to football shape throughout the summer. There is some conditioning work in practices, but most of that was supposed to be handled by the players and training staff in the weeks leading up to practice.
The Hogs should be fit enough to hit the ground running. The ones that aren’t will be left behind.
It’s football. There will be injuries, but the better conditioned the players are, the less likely they are to be injured.
As for what will be said about the Hogs next week at SEC Media Days?
Outside of the state media covering the event, probably not a lot. Based on the preseason magazines, the Razorbacks are pegged to finish in the lower third of the now 16-team league with South Carolina, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt.
Of those teams, only Mississippi State is on Arkansas’ schedule. Extrapolate that out, and it seems prognosticators will expect the Hogs to go 1-7 again this year in SEC play.
That may sound like bad news, but old-time Razorback fans will be familiar with the truism that the Razorbacks have had some of their most surprisingly strong seasons when picked low in the media polls. They’ve also fallen flat at times when the media thought highly of them in the preseason.
I’m certainly not bold enough to step out on a limb and predict an eight- or nine-win season, but odder things have happened.
When asked about his team since the end of spring drills, Pittman has always said the Razorbacks are a good football team.
In less than 50 days, we’ll be able to see for ourselves just how good the Hogs will be.
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