Early SEC Storylines That One Might Find Compelling and Rich

After spending the past two months doing my best to ignore SEC football, mainly all the media love Ole Miss is getting, I finally cracked. I started reading about the SEC coaches’ meetings in Destin, read about eight pages worth of archives on Chris Lowe’s ESPN blog (which I need to start linking here) and suddenly found myself swept up in the soul consuming mania that is SEC football. I had hoped to make it until August before I started inhaling information and becoming a nervous wreck about Ole Miss’ season. Instead, I made it to May 28th. Dammit.

So in order to get my fix, and hopefully lure you into the dark world of giving a crap about a sport that starts three months from now, I give you a storyline for each team that is, in the words of Ron Burgundy, compelling and rich. Only, this won’t be some long-winded crap that is the popular consensus for each team. I’m keeping this crap to three sentences and doing absolutely no research on any team or any players. It’s all off the top of my head, which means there’s a 1,000% chance I won’t remember anything for half of the teams. In alphabetical order…

Alabama
Will Alabama find someone who can competently throw the ball forward? It could be argued they didn’t exactly have that last year and still won, but John Parker Wilson never did anything overly stupid. If I could remember right now the guy who is supposed to start this year, you would find his name in this sentence.

Arkansas
Will Bobby Petrino’s alleged coaching wizardry (he doesn’t get full credit for tearing apart the C-USA) take shape with a quarterback who might actually have potential? Ryan Mallet (I must confess I had to look up how to spell his name) takes over for the, how shall I put this, loved-by-the-rest-of-the-SEC Casey Dick. All that’s left for Mallet to do is avoid stumbling drunk around Fayetteville before the season begins.

Auburn
Will Gene Chizik need a name tag? Seriously, if he walked into your office or home, would you have any idea who he was? And I’d like that name tag to have his career 5-19 record written on it.

Florida
Will Tim Tebow finally walk on water? All signs point to don’t put it past him. However, Tim Tebow’s awesomeness does not lessen Urban Meyer’s turd level.

Georgia
Will Georgia find someone who can competently throw the ball forward? I believe someone named Joe Cox is the leading candidate to take over at quarterback, but I can only keep up with so much. However, if incoming freshman receiver Marlon Brown lives up to the hype, the duo of Brown and A.J. Green will make it easy for any warm body under center.

Kentucky
Will I be able to name a single player on Kentucky’s team by the end of the year? I’m going to take the over on that and say I’ll be able to name at least three. The only thing I know for sure is that we’re all going to miss being able to say, “Dickie Lyons, Jr.”

LSU
Will Les Miles be in Baton Rouge in 2010? If he produces another 8-4 season, Tall Hat will be spreading his insanity elsewhere. So no pressure Jordan Jefferson.

Mississippi State
How many incomplete passes from Tyson Lee will it take for Dan Mullen to send in true freshman Tyler Russell? And if it were possible to accurately chart a coach’s confidence level in his team, I’d like to see Mullen’s chart when he watches Tyson Lee run his first series of the season against an SEC team. I’m predicting tears.

Ole Miss
Will Ole Miss pull an Ole Miss and fall flat on their faces? I can’t even talk about this. Everyone just needs to shut the hell up about Ole Miss until late August.

South Carolina
Will Steve Spurrier wish he had never met Stephen Garcia? If Garcia continues in his ways of playing quarterback and living his life to the poorest of his ability, Spurrier is in for a long season of visor throws, headset ripoffs and smirks that mean “why are you so stupid.” I just hope the Stephen Garcia I know and love shows up on Thursday, September 24th against Ole Miss.

Tennessee
Will Lane Kiffin prove to be the worst SEC coaching hire since Ed Orgeron, who also happens to be his top assistant? I’m so excited about this potential disaster I often have random smiles break out just when the words Lane, Kiffin, Tennessee, Orgeron, violation, text message and speech are mentioned. I just hope this is going to be as good as I think it will be.

Vanderbilt
Will Vanderbilt pull off the unthinkable and go to two straight bowls? Because that would be two more bowls than Jay Cutler ever played in (ZING!!). I also hope to be able to name at least three Vandy players by the end of the season.