Thoughts of the Day: July 29, 2021

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:

RANKING THE FOOTBALL COACHES IN AN EXPANDED SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE

1. Nick Saban, Alabama: With seven national championships (six at Alabama, one at LSU) under his belt, Nick is generally considered the greatest coach of all time. At Alabama he is 170-23 in 14 years and that includes 7-6 in year one. He’s gone from ground and pound to wide open while going through eight offensive coordinators in 14 years. The secret to the success is running the roster like an NFL personnel department. Alabama outrecruits everyone because Saban does the best job of evaluating high school kids. Until he retires, the rest of the country will be playing for second place nearly every year.

2. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M: When A&M gave Jimbo a 10-year deal worth $75 million to leave FSU, it raised eyebrows. Heading into year four, it looks like well-spent money. Jimbo won a national championship at FSU and he’s spent three years building the Aggies into a team that nobody wants to play. Always a superb recruiter and play caller, Jimbo helps out defensive coordinator Mike Elko with a great ball control offense that typically averages more than 34 minutes of possession time. A&M will be good this year. Circle games with Alabama, (at) Ole Miss and (at) LSU. Those three games will determine whether the Aggies are simply very good or real contenders.

3. Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma: When he was handed the keys to the Cadillac by the surprising retirement of Bob Stoops, it was thought that Riley woke up on third base and thought he had hit a triple. His first two quarterbacks (Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray) won the Heisman Trophy and his third (Jalen Hurts) was on the podium. No one will be surprised if Spencer Rattler wins it this year. Granted, Riley inherited a program that was a consistent playoff contender, but he hasn’t allowed it to slip even an inch. Now that he will be coaching in the Southeastern Conference, Riley will be recruiting even better players. If there is a question it’s about defense. They don’t play much of it in the Big 12. It’s expected in the SEC.

4. Ed Orgeron, LSU: This is a shaky No. 4 because of the off-the-field shenanigans that are associated with the LSU program. It’s also shaky because he has two coordinators for 2021 who have never called plays before in a college (or pro) game. But, Coach O did go 15-0 to win the national championship in 2019 with a team that he recruited and there is something to be said about that. There are NCAA issues, most of which occurred when Les Miles was the head coach, and Coach O is named in a Title IX lawsuit so even though he’s somewhat of a folk hero in Louisiana for that national championship season, he could be shown the door if any of these allegations are proven true.

5. Kirby Smart, Georgia: He sure can recruit, but until Georgia’s on-the-field performance matches up with the wins on National Signing Day, the knock on Kirby will be that no one does less with more. He’s 52-14 in his first five seasons on the job at Georgia, which is essentially the same record Mark Richt had (52-13) in his first five years. Smart inherited a program from Richt that was 51-17 in the five years prior to his arrival. Until he wins the national championship that is expected of him every year, Smart will be thought of in the same vein as Lee Westwood, who PGA commentators are quick to label as “The Best Who Never Won a Major.”

6. DAN MULLEN, FLORIDA: As a playcaller and quarterback whisperer, Mullen has few peers. What he’s done as Florida’s head coach in three years (29-9) is remarkable considering the state of the program he inherited from Jim McElwain. Florida’s offense in 2021 will transition from chunk it all over the yard to more of a balanced attack that takes advantage of a dual-threat quarterback (Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson). It’s not the offense that has Mullen ranked the sixth best coach. It’s the defense that has to make a rather substantial improvement. If Todd Grantham rebounds with a top 30 defense, the Gators will win 10 games or more in 2021 and Mullen will climb the coach ranking ladder.

7. Mike Leach, Mississippi State: Critics are quick to say Leach will never win big with an Air Raid offense that all but ignores the running game, but considering he’s never held a head coaching job at a blueblood school, his 143-97 record is pretty remarkable. Quirky offense or not, you don’t win consistently in Lubbock (Texas Tech), Pullman (Washington State) or Starkville if you can’t coach. Those aren’t exactly the garden spots of college football. He went 4-7 in a pandemic year at Mississippi State and probably gets the Bulldogs to seven regular season wins in 2021.

8. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin Part Deux will be scary good if he ever has a defense that can get him the football. The Rebels averaged 555 yards and 39 points per game last year and that was without the benefit of spring practice to install his offense. The problem was a defense that gave up 38.3 points and 519 yards per game. The offense will be every bit as good this year. The defense might take awhile before it catches up but if and when it does, Ole Miss will contend for championships. Kiffin’s once atrocious image is on the up and up after getting it cleaned up those three years at the Alabama laundromat run by Nick Saban.

9. Mark Stoops, Kentucky: He has taken Kentucky to five consecutive bowl games, which is a school record and tells you how far he’s brought the program since taking over a near disastrous situation left behind by Joker Phillips. Stoops is trying to open up the offense more this year which is why he brought in Liam Coen as his coordinator, but Coen isn’t going to wander far from Stoops’ control the clock with the running game to keep the defense off the field philosophy. If the Wildcats can’t throw the ball any better than they have the last couple of years, they’ll be hard pressed to be any better than 7-5. Fortunately for Stoops, the folks in Lexington are thrilled when they get to go to the Music City Bowl in Nashville or take an occasional trip to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl.

10. Steve Sarkisian, Texas: The folks in Austin are counting on the Sark who called the plays so brilliantly for Alabama in 2020 to turn the Longhorns into national championship contenders. Sark has come a long, long way since his alcohol induced meltdown at Southern Cal in 2015. He’s kept his nose clean and he’s done rehab at St. Nick’s Home for Wayward Coaches. The Longhorns figure to score a bunch of points. Success in the SEC will require a defense that can come up with stops on a fairly regular basis.

11. Bryan Harsin, Auburn: With the exception of two years as Mack Brown’s offensive coordinator at Texas and a year as the head coach at Arkansas State, Harsin’s entire coaching career has been spent on the Left Coast. He was 69-19 as Chris Peterson’s successor at Boise State. He favors a power running game and a midrange (15-17 yard darts) passing game that works off play action. He hired Mike Bobo as his offensive coordinator to exorcise the demons out of quarterback Bo Nix. The defensive coordinator is former Vandy head coach Derek Mason who is shifting the team to a 3-4 front. Harsin shares the same state with Nick Saban and he’s about to learn that he’ll be judged by his ability to beat Nick. Good luck on that.

12. Josh Heupel, Tennessee: Heupel was 28-8 as the head coach at UCF. All but one of the losses were by eight or fewer points. His teams are going to score. The question is can they stop anyone? To his credit, he didn’t bring UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon along with him to Knoxville. His DC is Tim Banks, who he hired from Penn State. He brought in Rodney Garner, who is somewhat of a recruiting legend, to coach the defensive line. Tennessee is not going to be a quick fix, but Heupel should right the ship after the disaster that was Jeremy Pruitt.

13. Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri: The first-year results at Mizzou were promising. No one expected a 5-5 record, but it was an unusual year and difficult to judge. He won’t catch anyone by surprise in 2021 so we’ll have a far better idea of Drinkwitz as the head coach. He did a fine job bringing along untested Connor Bazelac at QB last year. If he makes as much progress with his QB this year, then Mizzou will be a bowl team and Drinkwitz’s head coaching stock will rise higher.

14. Sam Pittman, Arkansas: The Arkansas program was in such bad shape when he took over that it may take awhile to determine if Pittman can turn the Razorbacks into a consistent winner. They do have the misfortune of playing in the SEC West. One thing for certain, Arkansas was vastly improved when it came to physical toughness and play in the trenches last year. It’s going to take two or three recruiting classes to have an SEC roster that doesn’t have big holes in it.

15. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt: This is Lea’s first head coaching gig after spending the three previous seasons as Brian Kelly’s defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. He has approached Vanderbilt as a solvable problem that requires exceptional personnel evaluation to bring in the kind of players who can win games in the Southeastern Conference. Lea is a defensive guy but so was Derek Mason before him. Mason’s offenses always stunk. Lea brought in David Raih from the NFL where he coached wide receivers. He’s never called plays. The administrators at Vandy will have to be very, very patient.

16. Shane Beamer, South Carolina: When Beamer was Steve Spurrier’s lead recruiter, the Gamecocks put together the four most impressive seasons in school history. Now he’s back in Columbia as the head coach facing a serious rebuilding job. The single most important task will be to rebuild the roster. The Gamecocks have maybe 40 SEC-ready players. To compete they’ll need at least 25 more.

GATORS AT THE OLYMPICS It was a big day in Tokyo for Gator swimmers Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke, who brought home gold medals. Dressel won the 100 freestyle with a time of 47.02 while Finke won the 800 meter freestyle in 7:41.47.

Dressel led from start to finish in his sprint to gold while Finke turned it on with an impressive 54.98 over the final 100 meters.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Reggie Bush wants his 2005 Heisman Trophy back, but unless the Heisman changes its rules, it will not happen. Using the recent name, image and likeness (NIL) ruling as the basis for his appeal, Bush asked the Heisman Trust to give back his vacated award, citing the impermissible benefits that got him and Southern Cal into hot water in 2005 is perfectly legal now. The Heisman Trust said it would consider doing it if and only if the NCAA restored his records. The NCAA announced Wednesday that it stands by its ruling even though it settled out of court a lawsuit with Todd McNair, Bush’s former position coach at USC who was involved in the infractions. Hypocritical? Not really. Times change and rules change with the times. You can’t go retro and apply today’s rules to what happened way back when.