{"id":75338,"date":"2025-07-15T18:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=75338"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:57:11","slug":"75338-sec-media-days-day-2-nice-and-calm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/07\/15\/75338-sec-media-days-day-2-nice-and-calm\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Media Days, Day 2: Nice and Calm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day two of the SEC Media Days bordered on serene. No comments from any of the four coaches that were going to make for social media headlines. The most anticipated topic was Hugh Freeze being asked about Lane Kiffin\u2019s social media posts about the Auburn head coach\u2019s golf game. Everyone on Tuesday was staying far away from the flames.<\/p>\n

SEC Media Days, Day 2: Nice and Calm<\/h2>\n

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart led off the panel of straight answer guys by paying homage to the most important part of the day, his 19th<\/sup> wedding anniversary with his wife, Mary Beth.<\/p>\n

He did take on two of the hot topics of the week. He talked about using the transfer portal, as 54% of his current roster is first or second-year players. And, as Smart noted, most of the Covid-era class has moved on (pending more lawsuits against the NCAA by Twitter-based attorneys\u2026our words, not his). Smart said the working strategy is, \u201cRelationships over transactions,\u201d clearly making a point about players and financial demands.<\/p>\n

The other topic, straight from the ESPN rumor mill, was that Nick Saban is prepared to return to coaching after this season. \u201cI almost laughed,\u201d Smart said of the idea of his longtime friend coming back.<\/p>\n

\"SEC
Photo courtesy: Gary Cosby Jr. \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Test Results<\/h3>\n

Auburn coach Hugh Freeze talked about how the football program is giving personality tests to current players and coaches, as well as prospects. Freeze said the goal was to for the coaches to learn how to get the most out of the individuals on the team. He said it was most important for players they were looking at in the transfer portal. \u201cIt\u2019s like speed dating,\u201d he said, talking about the need for as much information as possible.<\/p>\n

Freeze also left Auburn fans with a big question. In his opening statement, Freeze, in an off-handed comment, said, \u201cMost of our locker room has bought into the standard.\u201d He meant it as a good thing. But one has to ask, why only most? What about the rest? What\u2019s the hold-up?<\/p>\n

Golf Game<\/h3>\n

Since Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was asked Monday about his social media posts having fun with \u00a0Freeze\u2019s golf game, it was only logical that the Auburn coach would also be queried. He said he was aware of Kiffin\u2019s posts that seemed to make fun of how much golf Freeze was getting in, but he did not see it firsthand. \u201cI\u2019m not on social media. But I love Lane. He makes me laugh.\u201d He added, \u201cI assure you, it (his time on the golf course) does not take away from my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time is of the Essence<\/h3>\n

Today\u2019s opening statements were comparatively short<\/a> when put next to Monday\u2019s. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian went the longest at 8:40. Freeze helped bring down the group average with an opening speech that lasted only 2:40.<\/p>\n

Say What, Now?<\/h3>\n

Sark also gets the award for the sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek comment when he made a \u201cstartling\u201d roster revelation. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a new quarterback, Arch Manning, in case you didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Speak of the Day<\/h3>\n

We have two of them from Tuesday. And they both belong to Tennessee coach Josh Heupel. He tried to get ahead of the wave in his opening comments by addressing the quarterback situation for the Vols. Yet, he was still asked by a media member about Nico Iamaleava<\/a> leaving at the end of Spring camp in a reported money dispute. There really wasn\u2019t much left for Heupel to say that he had not spoken already. So we got a moment of coach speak. \u201cIt\u2019s not about who isn\u2019t in your building, but who is in your building.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second one, we had been waiting for since Commissioner Greg Sankey first took the stage at 9 am local time on Monday. It took the seventh coach to get us there. It\u2019s a tradition as certain as the event itself. \u201cI hope everyone had a great Summer,\u201d said Heupel as he opened at the podium. This is the sign that college football operates on a different calendar. For most coaches and teams, training camp for the upcoming season opens in about two weeks. Expressing hopes that everyone had <\/em>a good Summer is standard fare. Even though the calendar said it was \u201conly\u201d July 15th,<\/sup> and it was 93 degrees in Downtown Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Day three on Wednesday has Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, and Mississippi State.<\/p>\n

Main Image: SEC Media Days Day 2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day two of the SEC Media Days bordered on serene. No comments from any of the four coaches that were going to make for social media headlines. The most anticipated topic was Hugh Freeze being asked about Lane Kiffin\u2019s social media posts about the Auburn head coach\u2019s golf game. Everyone on Tuesday was staying far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":75341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2,35578,3,35587,35576],"tags":[162,65,3303,59,204],"class_list":["post-75338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-georgia-bulldogs","category-sec","category-tennessee-volunteers","category-texas-longhorns","tag-auburn-tigers","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-sec-media-days","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-texas-longhorns"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75338"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75343,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75338\/revisions\/75343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}