All You Need to Know From Day Three of SEC Media Days

The third and final day of this completely unnecessary but totally necessary event brought the arrival of a Chizik (more commonly known as a block of granite with the ability to talk), a lawyer, an idiot and the Staccato Man.  As expected, Chizik didn't blink (not once) and executed the David Cutcliffe coach-speak playbook perfectly, Derek Dooley sprinkled in some lawyer-speak with coach-speak, Les Miles, well, was Les Miles, and Houston Nutt made up words and kept his sentences to independent clauses.

So, here's the final round of quotes of the week, courtesy of Gene Chizik, Derek Dooley, Les Miles and Houston Nutt.

Chizik
He's been in the league for over a year and still has a streak going of saying nothing worth quoting.  And that's not easy.  However, he did mention how proud he was of offensive lineman Lee Ziemba and that Ziemba has a chance to set the Auburn record for most consecutive starts.  He failed to mention how many streaks of consecutive starts by opposing defensive linemen Ziemba has ended by obliterating their knees.  Also, he referred to one-time Mississippi State savior Cam Newton and now Auburn's starting quarterback as "Cameron."  It's a good move because I know of no laptop thieves named Cameron.

Dooley
Not sure if this joke has been made yet, and I apologize if it has and for the obviousness of it, but the great thing about Dooley being a lawyer is that he can also represent all of his arrested players at their arraignments and save the University of Tennessee thousands in legal fees.  Hell, they could go a step further and get rid of the school's attorney and just have Dooley do both jobs.  This is also a great idea for a shitty sticom.

"He's a lawyer AND a coach.  And with a family, how can he possibly make time for everything?  Coming this fall to CBS, it's Derek Dooley in What About Me, Coach?"

Anyway, Dooley said nothing.  Wait, he did say that Tennessee had a quarterback on its roster named Nash Nance, which is a name he made up on the spot.

Miles
His opening statement reeked of confusion and "Please don't fire me."

"The summer went well.  The coach enjoyed following his kids' youth sports, and camp season just underway and got concluded.  Had two boys in that that had some great experiences.  I don't know if I can go by the fact that my family's prospering in Baton Rogue.  They're getting older.  When I came to Baton Rouge, one of them was 10, and now is 16.  One was 8, now is 14.  I have an 11-year-old and a 7-year-old.  I'm in Baton Rouge's debt.  The family is growing well.  I am enjoying how they're maturing."

And that was a perfect piece of evidence that he has no filter between brain and mouth.  Whatever pops in that tall head of his comes right out.  Aaaaannnnnd again:

"After last season, here's what we did.  We looked at those things that we needed to do to put this team in a position to win a championship.  We looked at everything we did.  We hired three coaches.  Our weight/strength position, you know, adjusted.  What we do on offense and defense we adjusted.  We practiced a little differently.  We've done a lot of great things.


Certainly we kept some of those.  Some things we needed to fix and put in a right perspective.  We're working towards making real quality adjustments so that our team can focus on those things that will lead it to the championship."

It's like he's trying to speak coach-speak but only speaks on a fourth grade level.  But what does he think about the upcoming season:

"I can tell you this.  It will only be a championship season, and that's the only point and direction of this program.  That's where we're headed."

I respect the fact that he's going down crazier and bolder than ever.  You know what, I'm just going to shut up and let him take you home:

"We're very fortunate at LSU, we have an opportunity to offer quite an opportunity."

"We went through some of the situations we went through last fall.  That did not go beyond my scrutiny.  I scrutinized the coaching - me and others.  I can promise you that those situations, some of those situations I'd never run into in coaching.  Some of those situations I was, even though prepared for, had not envisioned the time constraints."

"In the two-minute drill, in our acclimatization, the practices at the start of our two-a-day schedule, we're going to be in two-minute really for about 45 minutes in two practices, okay?  It's never been given that kind of emphasis certainly at our place.  We just feel like the teaching of the situation and the understanding of the situation is more important.  If you looked back over the time here, the number of games that we've won in two-minute situations, we need to re-up the understanding of what must happen in some of those clock management situations, both as players and coaches."

If you're an LSU fan, I highly encourage you to go read the transcript of his time at the podium.  I can assure you what little confidence you did have left in him will drop by at least 75%.

Nutt
I truly believe that Houston Nutt says more sentences with fewer words than any other coach in America.  I just read the entire transcript and it's basically six pages of this:

"Thank you.  Good to be here.  13th straight year.  Good to be here.  Before I get going, I want to wish Bobby Johnson a happy retirement.  I thought he was one of the finest coaches in the country.  Great integrity.  Seemed to me, he always had his guys ready to go, always had a good game plan.  Just really appreciate him.  Got close to him the last eight, nine years, whatever it was, when he joined.  Just think a lot of him, really do."

And then this masterpiece talking about the schedule:

"It's not easy as if - I want to make sure our players understand, just don't look at the schedule and look at it like maybe one of your relatives are looking at it, like, okay, one, two, three, four, five, six.  You should win the first six.  Hold on now.  Let's get these practices going, let's get better, let's get the snap from the center.  We got a lot of work to do."

I know he's excitable while talking, but we may never get to the SEC Championship game (actually, we never will because we're Ole Miss) if we don't even call it by the right name:

"Ole Miss, we've never had a team go to the Atlanta championship game.  That's where we want to go.  That's where we want to get to.  One day we're gonna be there.  But it's very, very difficult."

His speech is a giant metal sheet of independent thoughts and clauses beaten into paragraphs with a hammer.  And the SEC owes a bonus to check to the intern who transcribed Nutt's time at the podium.

With that, SEC Media Days has come to a close.  As usual, nothing of significance happened (although Robbie Caldwell's explosion onto the scene was nice), but for three days we got a solid football fix (with track marks to show for it) and crossed off three more days in July, which somehow is STILL NOT OVER.  For now, I shut down the football engines for another week or so, then have them roaring and ready to go once practice starts and anxiety settles in for a four-month stay in my body.