SEC fans of the year: The Tennesseee fans who stayed around

In 2017, it was easy to be an Alabama fan. It was easy to be a Georgia fan. It was easy to be an Auburn fan. Hell, at the end of the season, it was easy to be a LSU fan and a Missouri fan. But it wasn’t an easy year for Tennessee fans. This inaugural award doesn’t go to the Tennessee fans who started up the #EmptyNeyland campaign, aimed to show fans’ chagrin at Butch Jones. It doesn’t go to the people who jumped on the ‘No Schiano’ bandwagon, like my former priest, who claimed not to care about Tennessee – or any college football for that matter – because he was ‘too busy with kids, but managed to

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Great hire: Tennessee hires Pruitt to be new head coach

It came at the cost of one athletic director and a lot of red faces in Knoxville. A lot of Volunteers fans were the butt of jokes about the social media. And then Tennessee hired a former head coach as an AD, and within a few days, the school had installed a new coach from hated rival Alabama – defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. While details on Pruitt’s contract are not known, Pruitt was hired over Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. All three had done fantastic jobs at their respective schools this season. Of course, the hiring of Pruitt did not come without its controversy. Apparently Jimmy Haslem, the school’s powerhouse booster, wanted Tucker for the

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Arkansas hires Chad Morris

Arkansas has hired Chad Morris to be its new head coach, the school said on Wednesday. Morris, who was formerly the coach of SMU and turned the school around after two poor seasons to a 7-5 record, will earn $21m over 6 years for his services. Morris is well-known as a fantastic recruiter in the State of Texas thanks to his links as a former high school coach, and his up-tempo offense helped to galvanize Clemson to the powerhouse when he was there as offensive coordinator. The new coach will replace Bret Bielema, who was fired after weeks of speculation. Morris will not get it easy in a stacked SEC West – which just became more stacked with the arrival

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College Football desperately needs an eight-team play-off

After penning an overly-long article about Alabama and Ohio State and why Ohio State didn’t get into the play-off but Alabama did, we at the SEC Football Blog also thought it was time to say what should be done about College Football. Why? Because if we’re honest, we’re getting bored of the arguments about who should be in, and who shouldn’t. In the past, we hated the BCS and its computers, we hated the pollsters, we hated everything that defined a National Champion.  We hated the BCS so much that we put in a play-off committee to decide things. Who then screwed things up. They seemed to be able to shoot themselves in the foot, be inconsistent, and seem like they

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Alabama’s in, but the Crimson Tide deserve it?

I love SEC Football as much as the rest of ’em, but there’s no way I can look at myself straight in the face and say: ‘We had the best conference. We deserved two teams in the play-off. College Football is great.’ Why? As a conference (apart from Georgia, Auburn and Alabama), the rest of the conference weren’t particularly great…or stank out right. As a conference, big names like LSU and Florida were a side conversation, Mississippi State lurched from looking like world-beaters one week to ‘world’ the next, Texas A&M wasn’t in the discussion, Ole Miss and Missouri were mostly interesting because of their great offenses and terrible defenses….and we all know how bad Arkansas, Tennessee and Vanderbilt was. When your

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Home run hire: Jimbo Fisher is Texas A&M’s new head coach

After a week of speculation, the Texas A&M Aggies have their home run hire: Jimbo Fisher. Former Florida State head coach Fisher came to a 10-year, $75 million agreement with the Aggies on Friday, in a deal that has Aggies fans abuzz with excitement. Fisher will earn $7.5m per year at College Station, making him the SEC’s second-best paid head coach. Alabama’s Nick Saban is the best-paid. Texas A&M fired Kevin Sumlin on Saturday despite Sumlin posting one of the best records the school has ever seen. Fisher brings with him an excellent recruiting reputation, as well as a National Championship that he won while being the head coach in Tallahassee. Fisher will walk into Texas – one of the

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Ole Miss avoids death penalty, but not penalties

Ole Miss has avoided the feared ‘death penalty’ from the NCAA for its payment of recruits, but it hasn’t avoided damage. The NCAA has said that Matt Luke’s team will be hit by another bowl ban in 2019, and also any senior player that wants to transfer from Oxford will be able to do so without needing to wait out a year to play again. Also, Ole Miss has been given a scholarship reduction of 13 over a few years – which shouldn’t hit the Rebels’ depth chart as badly as it could have done. The Rebels will also be hit with financial penalties, and all of Ole Miss’ staff will be given show-cause penalties, except for Luke. The most

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Tennessee fires AD John Currie, replaces him with Fulmer

If there is a celebration to be had in Knoxville at the moment, then surely today is an early tonic: Tennessee has just fired John Currie, its athletic director. They have now replaced him with Phil Fulmer, who was run out of Knoxvville as head coach in 2008, despite winning the Vols a National Championship. Although Currie was regularly attacked for the Greg Schiano incident, where he reportedly offered the Ohio State DC the job, and then had VolNation throw it back in face with such force that he had to rescind it again, he really should have left his post some time beforehand. Under his eight-month guidance, Tennessee football was a shambles. The Vols didn’t win a SEC game and finished the

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Will Georgia or Auburn win the SEC Championship Game?

Wow. The 2017 SEC Championship Game between Georgia and Auburn will be the first SEC Championship game since 2013 not to feature Alabama. It’ll be Auburn’s first trip to the SEC Championship Game since it won a 59-42 shoot-out against Missouri in 2013, and it’ll be Georgia’s first trip to Atlanta since they lost 32-28 to Alabama in 2012 in one of the greatest SEC Championship Games in living memory. This year, both teams come with one spot in mind: The College Football Play-Off. Basically, the winner will go to the College Football Play-Off, while the loser will be on the outside looking in. Of course, there’s a revenge factor for Georgia. On November the Bulldogs were schooled at Jordan-Hare, losing 40-17.

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