In life, there are SEC players we remember. We all know what happened to Peyton Manning, Matt Stafford and Julio Jones. On the other hand, we remember – sadly – what happened to Aaron Hernandez.

But there are some players where you sit there and think: “Damn! What happened to these guys. They were GOOD in college”.

So here are your players. We’ve gone with one or two per SEC team. So if you’ve got any further ideas, let us know.

ALABAMA

Tyrone Prothro: Playing in Tuscaloosa from 2003 to 2005, Prothro pulled off one of the most memorable, brilliant catches in 2002. It was so good it had me in tears. Then again, so did his career-ending injury that made you want to throw up if you saw it again. Now, Prothro is working at Wagner’s after a stint at Regions Bank, Coca-Cola and Toyota. He also did an internship with the Carolina Panthers.

 

ARKANSAS

Cobi Hamilton: Still the top wide receiver in Arkansas History, Hamilton came into the NFL as a sixth round pick (frankly, I thought he’d be higher with his incredible figures), and has played on nine different teams before getting finally ‘retired’ in 2018. In his time in the NFL, he had 17 total receptions. And was targeted 28 times. Ouch.

AUBURN

Brandon Cox: By the end of his time as quarterback on The Plains from 2004 to 2007, Cox is actually Auburn’s fourth-highest QB in terms of passing yards and touchdowns. Probably recognising that his time in football would be over when he left, he got a degree in business administration. He’s now working in construction helping with clients.

FLORIDA

Shane Matthews:In his time in The Swamp, Matthews earned first team all-SEC for three years straight (1991-3). After a poor NFL career, he did some high school coaching, did a Sports radio show and…. was involved in a fraud with former teammate Monty Grow, where he earned $400,000 from Grow’s health company from clients. The company was later busted for illegal kickbacks. Matthews paid back the money and pled guilty to a misdemeanor and did three months in jail.

GEORGIA

David Greene: Passing for over 11,500 yards during his time at Georgia – where he finished with the most wins under his belt over four years in the history of top flight college football – Greene never panned out in the NFL, and now works selling insurance with a former teammate.

KENTUCKY

Andre’ Woodson: Woodson had 81 touchdowns and over 9,000 yards receiving during his time in Lexington. After never playing in a NFL or CFL game, he decided to go back to football. He was wide receivers coach with Moorhead State for a couple of years, but that didn’t pan out either. He works for Amazon as an Ops PR specialist, where he’s been for the last 5 years.

LSU

Al Richardson: It’s easy to name Ryan Perrilloux or Jamarcus Russell in the “Where are they?’ section, but LSU all-timer Richardson is one that intrigues me. After four years where the linebacker smashed LSU’s all-time tackles record – he even managed 21 in a SINGLE GAME (a feat that’s not been bettered since 1981), made All-American in 1982, he vanished, only popping up after he moved his family from New Orleans to Baton Rouge just before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. He was last seen supporting his son’s decision to go to Auburn instead of LSU in 2009. Ashton Richardson was a brilliant student on The Plains. But one question plagues me: Why didn’t he go and play in the NFL?

MISSISSIPPI STATE

Billy Jackson: Jackson’s 49 sacks is currently SECOND ALL-TIME in the SEC, only behind Derrick Thomas’ 56 sack record at Alabama. Both are unlikely to beaten. No-one has any idea why he didn’t play in the NFL. Maybe it was his 6-1, 225lb frame. I don’t know. But he did continue  his football career up north in Canada, where he played for three teams, getting 10 sacks and 80 tackles in a five-year career.

 

MISSOURI 

James Kinney: The all-time leader for tackles at Missouri, Kinney left and went to the NFL as an undrafted free agent. He was promptly waived by the Jacksonville Jaguars, went to play for the New York Jets, and finally ended up on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He didn’t play for them, it seems.

OLE MISS

Chris Collins: Collins was Eli Manning’s top receiver in Oxford for the last three years of his career, putting up 2,621 yards in four years for the Rebels. After not panning out in a one-year ‘career’ in the NFL, he took his degree in sociology and for the last 13 years has been an assistant driller with Transocean.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Stephen Garcia: Undoubtedly the funnest QB on this list, Garcia managed to get himself in trouble a lot under Steve Spurrier. But because he was pretty good at football, he was never booted by the smart-alec coach. Nutty though it is, he’s still third all-time in passing yards for the Gamecocks, 5th in touchdowns, and second all-time in all-purpose yards. Anyhow, he went off to play in the CFL for Montreal, but never played. He also never played in the Arena Football League, and was not even selected in the AAF Draft. After that, he was running a private coaching clinic and is now a QB coach at Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School in Florida. Hopefully his message to quarterbacks will be: “Don’t turn out like me”.

TENNESSEE

Casey Clausen: Clausen went into the 2000 as a much-heralded quarterback, riding on the back of Peyton Manning and Tee Martin’s excellent careers in Neyland Stadium. I still remember Clausen’s first game at Neyland. The place looked ready to explode. Anyhow, after an excellent career with the Vols, he went undrafted in the NFL Draft, and went to the Kansas City Chiefs to the almighty Amsterdam Admirals. He’s now a well-respected high school coach in California.

TEXAS A&M

Reggie McNeal: McNeal had a pretty good college career during A&M’s Big 12 days, throwing for nearly 7,000 yards and 44 touchdowns, as well as rushing for 1,889 yards and 15 TDs in his career. After being a sixth round pick by the Bengals, he was cut and spent three years on three different teams in Canada. After it all finished, McNeal managed to ingratiate himself with Houston’s local authorities, where he was busted for pushing an off-duty police officer while on drugs, and then busted again for possession. Since then, he started QB and WR school Darts and Dimes, which still exists today.

VANDERBILT

Greg Zolman: The prime Vanderbilt kid. Throws for over 7,000 yards and 50-odd touchdowns in Nashville. Then leaves to a forgettable NFL career, comes back, goes back to school…….and ends up working for a big-time hedge fund. You lose some (see Vanderbilt football), you win some (see Vanderbilt education, and hedge fund job with Point 72 (fun fact, Point72 was started by disgraced financier Steve Cohen).

 

 

With no SEC football in the near future, I decided to turn off the news and turn on what I enjoy the most: Good college football games.

Most great college football games in the SEC in the past 10-15 years have generally been played by LSU. Because Les Miles coaches Les Miles, and Les Miles was/is batshit crazy.

The 2007 season was no different. Going into the Florida game, The LSU team – which eventually won the National Championship – after one of the weirdest, most-fun seasons in college football memory – was going into Baton Rouge against one of its most hated rivals 5-0, having easily beaten its opposition, including No.9 Virginia Tech and No.12 South Carolina.

Florida, on the other hand, were the National Champions after their 2007 victory, and had lost 20-17 at home to Auburn – a team in itself had been upended by South Florida and SEC West bottom-dwellers Mississippi State.

We know the rest. Les Miles went all Les Miles, pushing his Tigers to go for FIVE 4th down conversions, and going 5/5 – including an exceptionally ballsy Colt David fake field goal. With the team on his back, Hester took the ball in with 1.25 on the clock, and LSU batted down a Tim Tebow Hail Mary to come away 28-24.

A FEW KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THAT GAME

Florida should have won that game. It wasn’t the string of fourth down conversions that killed the Gators. It was the drops throughout the game by the Gators receivers that eventually would haunt them.

God, Matt Flynn and Tim Tebow had ugly actions. Maybe that was why both didn’t amount to very much in the NFL.

Trindon Holliday in today’s game would have been a world-beater. This era seems before the days of crazy spread-offenses, and the Meyer/ Dan Mullen combination certainly wasn’t playing too much of one. But had Les Miles used Holliday out of the backfield and maybe in the slot, Holliday would have been nigh-on unstoppable…..rather like Hollywood Brown was for Oklahoma two seasons ago.

LSU was the only team able to stop Tebow that regular season. Jesus’ favorite football player had his lowest game in terms of throwing yards (158), and one of his worst in rushing yards (67). There was also a hysterically-awful trick play to boot, too.

Glenn Dorsey came through at the end. Glenn Dorsey spent most of his time during the game getting double-teamed or held by the Florida offensive line, meaning that he couldn’t consistently put Tebow under pressure. Until the final drive, when Dorsey spent the last few snaps living in Tebow’s face.

The Tigers made Percy Harvin a non-factor. Harvin, who ended up first-team All-American, had 4 catches for 58. yards

There was a bunch of NFL talent on the field. This wasn’t the bygone days that they are right now, when SEC teams ruled the earth and the NFL Draft. The SEC was pretty great, but let’s consider. Cam Newton was a back-up. He was thrown off the Florida team because Urban Meyer had someone better in Tim Tebow. If Newton was the starter, Meyer would have kept him. We know this because this is Urban Meyer. Markice Pouncey is en route to a NFL Hall of Fame Career.  Harvin, Brandon Spikes, Andre Caldwell, Carlos Dunlap, Joe Haden and racist Riley Cooper all graced the field for Florida, while at LSU, nine players (Dorsey, Flynn, Early Doucet, Holliday, Keiland Williams, Byrd amongst others) all graced the field in the pros – to varying successes.

The coaches weren’t bad either. Miles won a National Championship, Meyer’s won three, Dan Mullen’s been a successful SEC coach (back at Florida), Bo Pellini, after an unsuccessful career that saw him booted from Nebraska, is back stalking the sidelines at LSU as defensive co-ordinator.

And one final question: Ryan Perilloux. Much-heralded player who said he would try to win four Heismans at LSU, did exactly zip in the pros. It was almost funny.

 

It wasn’t the greatest season of SEC games, but it was a great season to be an SEC fan. Whether it was the sheet craziness of the Alabama vs Auburn game (we’re still trying to work out how it all unfurled) to the rip-your-nose-off atmosphere in Athens for the visit of Notre Dame to the manic upsets involving Tennessee, it was fun.

Here you can re-live your favourite SEC games. Some of them full-length, other of them simply highlights.

Happily, not all of these have Gary Danielson commentating. 

1. Alabama at Auburn

FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE ALL THE CRAZINESS.

2. LSU at Alabama

FOR JOE BURROW.

3. Oregon vs Auburn (Neutral Field)

FOR THE MOMENT THAT YOU LIKED BO NIX BEFORE YOU HATED HIM BEFORE YOU LOVED HIM AGAIN

4. LSU at Texas

FOR A HELL OF A LOT OF OFFENSE

5. Georgia State at Tennessee

FOR SHEER COMEDY. IN ORANGE.

6. South Carolina at Georgia

 

FOR GEORGIA DOING GEORGIA.

7. Ole Miss at Mississippi State

FOR DOG PISS

8. BYU at Tennessee

FOR ALL THE MORMONS

9. Kansas State at Mississippi State

FOR GARRETT SCHRADER, FUTURE OLYMPIAN

10. Notre Dame at Georgia

FOR GREAT NIGHT ATHENS ATMOSPHERE AND THE START OF A LIGHT FIGHT

11. Texas A&M vs Arkansas. 

FOR NO PANTS

12. Cal vs Ole Miss

FOR CLOCK MANAGEMENT 101, TAUGHT BY LES MILES

 

13. Missouri at Wyoming

FOR HORSES

14. Tennessee at Indiana

FOR A BAD-ASS BOWL GAME

15. Appalachian State vs South Carolina

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO KEEP TELLING PEOPLE NOT SCHEDULE FRICKING APPY STATE

16. Florida at Kentucky

FOR KYLE TRASK LOVERS

17. Florida at LSU

 

FOR KYLE TRASK LOVERS. FOR ATMOSPHERE LOVERS. FOR LOVERS OF CHRIS FOWLER SAYING: “THE BAYOU” A LOT.

 

18. Missouri at Vanderbilt

FOR VANDERBILT DOING SOMETHING WEIRD.

19. Auburn at LSU

FOR DERRICK BROWN AND JOE BURROW.

20. Western Kentucky at Arkansas

FOR TRAINWRECKERY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY ARKANSAS