LITTLE ROCK — The next three days will be a football love fest in Hoover, Ala.
Every SEC coach will make an appearance, as well as three players from each team, and with everyone undefeated, hope will be exploding everywhere. Smiles will abound.
With defending BCS national champion Alabama kicking off the SEC football media days, the environment will be a crimson tidal wave.
Nick Saban will have to fight his way through a jam packed lobby of Crimson Tide fans trying to get his, or the players’, signatures.
The fans will have jerseys, programs or pieces of paper they hope to have autographed. The professional collectors, and there will be some, will have miniature helmets hanging from both arms.
The odds are Saban and Co. will get through the throng as quickly as possible.
They might even board the elevator in the parking deck below the hotel and take the elevator up to the second floor, which is guarded.
Only the media, coaches and players are allowed on that floor during the interview sessions. But when Alabama finishes its almost three hours that includes separate tours of duty in front of newspaper, radio and television representatives, and the crowd leaves, so will some of the media.
Alabama is always the big draw for media days for reporters and fans.
Saban will be like a rock star with TV cameras capturing his every move. But for the first time, the Crimson Tide players will challenge for attention.
Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and quarterback Greg McElroy are high-profile players, and linebacker Dont’a Hightower will be.
Hightower was a freshman All-American in 2008 but tore up a knee against Arkansas last season and missed the last 10 games, which technically means the Tide return three defensive starters, not two.
Mississippi State shares the opening honors, but will be an also-ran while the Tide are on the premises.
Yet, by the time the media event wraps up Friday, every school will have been featured, and there are some things that can be expected:
Saban will not comment on any investigations into alleged contact between an agent (or representative) and a current player.
South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier will probably make a comment that the only USC that needs to be under NCAA scrutiny is in California.
He’ll also deny he’s retiring after this season, but admit he’s been disappointed in what he’s accomplished as the Gamecocks’ head coach.
Ryan Mallett will be asked so many times about the screw in his foot he might try to take it out.
Jake Bequette and D.J. Williams won’t be in quite as much demand as Mallett, but they’ll do a very nice job.
Robbie Caldwell, Vanderbilt’s interim head coach, will have the fewest reporters present for his talk, but the same would have been true for Bobby Johnson, who retired as the Commodores’ head coach last week.
Bobby Petrino will be witty and personable, and he’ll attract a huge crowd of media. The Razorbacks are an intriguing team with 17 starters back.
Lane Kiff in won’t be missed.
The SEC’s football media days will be the most heavily attended by the media of any conference in the country, and by Friday, notebooks will be full, tape and video recorders on overload.
Another much anticipated college football season is almost here.
Sports, Pages 19 on 07/21/2010