Jul. 23—Somehow, SEC Media Days has come and gone faster than a head football coach at Tennessee. I learned a few things over the course of the week.
1. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is a lot different than the last time I worked with him
Full disclosure, I went to USC. Kiffin was the head coach when I was a student reporter. He was hard to deal with back then; he had trouble laughing and making light of things. Ten years later, Kiffin is still very dry-witted, but he can laugh. And I think in a business that can eat you alive, sometimes a little lighthearted banter isn’t such a bad thing. He made jokes at his own expense this week; that’s not something I can remember him doing a decade ago.
2. Things felt … normal?
I hadn’t shaken the hand of a college player or coach in about 20 months until this week. I stood next to Kiffin during an interview and shook Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral’s hand after I finished chatting with him. We ate lunch around other reporters and were able to go out and socialize. I haven’t had that type of professional interaction in a long time and, to be honest, if felt really nice.
Follow Michael Katz on Twitter and Facebook.
3. There could be forfeits in 2021
A lot of the talk this week was about COVID-19 vaccination. Commissioner Greg Sankey pushed it very, very hard, saying that if teams were unable to play during the season, there wouldn’t be postponements; the incentive to vaccinate, then, is to avoid forfeits.
Depending on which coach you heard from, some are pushing vaccination hard (Nick Saban says his team is at around 90%) while some aren’t. Regardless of where you stand on the vaccination issue, the fact of the matter is that there might be instances where teams cannot play due to positive tests. And unlike last year, there won’t be makeup opportunities. Will that inspire players and coaches to vaccinate when they otherwise might not? We shall see.