Now that the World Cup is out of the way and real football is back on the menu, SEC Media Days arrives with the kind of timing only Greg Sankey and company could love.
The league’s annual gathering lands in Tampa, and one of the big themes hanging over it is familiar: the SEC’s second-class status when it comes to producing national champions. It has felt like forever since Georgia crushed TCU by eleventy billion in January of 2023, and Kirby Smart remains the only current SEC head coach who has won either an SEC or national championship. Kalen DeBoer’s NAIA titles, of course, do not count.
That leaves Sankey set to introduce five new head coaches to the stage, including Pete Golding at Ole Miss after Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU. Golding guided the Rebels to the CFP semifinals, though it’s fair to wonder whether that run was a one-off fueled by spurned adrenaline.
He may have the conference’s best QB-RB pairing in HeisMEN candidates Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacey, but his first full season in charge will tell the real story. As another Saban disciple, will he look more like Smart or Will Muschamp?
The other four newcomers have never spent a fall Saturday as an SEC head coach: Auburn’s Alex Golesh, Florida’s Jon Sumrall, Kentucky’s Will Stein and Arkansas’ Ryan Silverfield. That makes any forecast a little bit of a guess, but the race for best new SEC coach feels like it comes down to two names.
Golesh or Sumrall?
Golesh brings the offensive edge. Sumrall comes with the defensive mind and, as the source of this debate puts it, “a little bit of crazy behind the eyes.” Both inherit programs that have won SEC and national titles within the last 20 years, yet both schools have slipped into hard times lately.
If Auburn and Florida can get this right, they could matter again in the SEC standings. The conference wasted no time trying to stir that back to life, matching the Tigers and Gators in their SEC openers on Sept. 19 in Jordan-Hare After Dark.
That matchup has an extra layer of intrigue because, in classic Auburn fashion, it features the coach Auburn hired against the coach Auburn might have hired. The Tigers have lived this movie before: hiring Gus Malzahn instead of Smart after the 2012 season, then watching Smart end up at Georgia three years later while the Bulldogs took over the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. Then came Auburn’s attempt to land Kiffin after the 2022 season, only to settle for Hugh Freeze, and the result was disaster in the Loveliest Village.
Now Sumrall enters the picture as another what-if. With his in-state connections, he looked like a natural fit for Auburn after Freeze was fired. But in the SEC coaching carousel’s version of three-card monte, Kiffin picked LSU over Florida, Sumrall chose Florida over Auburn and Golesh took Auburn over Arkansas.
It will take time to sort out who got the better end of those decisions, but the Golesh-Sumrall comparison is going to follow both men. Golesh already has a point on Florida, which didn’t go after him even after his South Florida team beat the Gators last season. Sumrall has a point on Golesh after his 2024 Tulane team beat USF 45-10.
For the SEC, though, the bigger hope is simpler: that both coaches bring their programs back. At some point, somebody besides Smart has to win an SEC title and a national championship. The rest of the Saban family tree keeps falling short.
In Other News...
Gus Malzahn Buzz Is Stirring An Auburn What If Again
Gus Malzahn stepped away from coaching in February and then moved into a new role on the College Football Playoff committee in March, but the conversation around him has not exactly gone quiet. Even with no confirmed plan or offer on the table, his name keeps surfacing whenever a major opening or a creative staff idea comes up, which is a reminder of how quickly a veteran coach can go from retired to being part of the sports rumor mill again.
Eli Drinkwitz has added to that chatter by describing Malzahn as the kind of coach who watches the game and might decide he wants one more shot on the sideline. For Auburn fans, the most natural what-if still feels like some kind of return to familiar ground, perhaps in a role that would let Malzahn stay connected without jumping straight back into the full grind, but for now it remains exactly that: a possibility, not a plan. [Read more 🡒]
Former Auburn Guard Aden Holloway Just Took A Surprising Step At Alabama
Aden Holloways path at Alabama has taken an unexpected turn, with the former Auburn guard now working through a legal situation that has put his basketball future in the spotlight. Alabama coach Nate Oats and athletic director Greg Byrne have given Holloway a route back to the team, tying it to a Second Chance Program that is designed to address the off-court issues before any return becomes possible.
The program calls for Holloway to meet several conditions, including community service, monthly payments, educational courses and drug screenings, along with other steps laid out by the school. It is a notable show of structure from Alabama for a player whose arrival already carried plenty of attention because of where he came from, and now the next phase depends on whether he can finish the process the university has put in front of him. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn Just Took Another Painful In-State Recruiting Hit Up Front
Auburns push up front took another hit on the recruiting trail, this time with one of Alabamas best young defensive linemen choosing to go elsewhere. Karlos May, a highly regarded Birmingham prospect in the 2027 class, sits near the top of the national board for his position and remains one of the states most coveted players, the kind of in-state target Auburn usually needs to land when it is trying to build a defensive front that can hold up in the SEC.
Instead, the Tigers are left watching a player they chased as Ohio State continues stacking elite line talent in that class. Mays decision adds to the frustration for Auburn because the Buckeyes already have multiple defensive line commitments and now have another top-end piece in place, while Auburn has to keep sorting through the rest of its board and trying to avoid more losses to national powers in its own backyard. [Read more 🡒]