Welcome to talking season. SEC Media Days is underway in Tampa, where 16 head coaches, dozens of players and roughly 1,000 media members will spend the next four days discussing everything from championship expectations to quarterback battles and College Football Playoff expansion. We’ll update this tracker throughout the week with the biggest news, notable quotes and key takeaways from every coach who steps to the podium.
Josh Heupel, Tennessee
Let’s start with a little peak behind the curtain for everyone. Anyone that has followed me on social media knows that I love a deep dive. Tennessee is fascinating, statistically, under Josh Heupel.
Tennessee is loaded this year on offense. They return four starters on the offensive line, two 800 yard receivers and a 1,000 yard rusher for the first time in a decade. All the things a young and inexperienced quarterback needs to succeed are in place.
Whoever starts will be the fifth new starter at quarterback in five years under Heupel. He also pointed out that they’ve had a first year starter in seven of his nine years as head coach and finished in the top ten in scoring offense in almost every single one of those seasons.
Heupel is always one of the more direct coaches at SEC Media Days, and this year was no different. His opening remarks felt less like a 30,000-foot overview of Tennessee’s program and more like a subtle reminder that the biggest concern everyone outside Knoxville has about the Vols isn’t a concern to him at all. Nor should it be.
Will Stein, Kentucky
First time head coach Will Stein took to the podium to start the afternoon session. It was electric from the start. His first quote to the SEC media was historic.
“My wife’s really good at pickleball.”
We love to hear it. From there, Stein dove into the actual program and the whirlwind that has been the last 231 days since he was hired.
Stein is the least polished coach in the conference, which is to be expected from anyone in their first year. He was equally unpolished at the podium looking noticeably nervous with a shakiness in his voice.
Public speaking isn’t for everyone. Neither is coaching Kentucky football. Will Stein wasn’t made for the former, but he seems absolutely built to do the latter.
There are a ton of unknowns about what this year’s Kentucky football team will be. They brought in a great portal haul with 20 Power Four players and a roster that features 43 players with at least one career start. He raved about Notre Dame transfer quarterback Kenny Minchey and the skillset he possesses, and talked at length about the importance of Kentucky’s trenches and rebuilding the Big Blue Wall mentality of their offensive line.
As awkward as the intro was, two things were very evident from Stein. One, he loves the University of Kentucky. He grew up in Lexington, was a diehard Wildcats fan and even brought up storming the field after the 2007 LSU game.
There’s no metric that says coaching at your alma mater or childhood favorite program doesn’t translate to success. But, it sure worked out well for guys like Kirby Smart and Ed Orgeron. Stein most likely won’t win a national title like those two did, but the passion he has for turning this program around is genuine and real.
The other thing that was very clear, he’s confident in himself. During the question and answer period, one media member asked why he thinks he can win at a place like Kentucky. Stein hesitated before answering, and it felt like he was deciding how much of what he really wanted to say he should actually say.
“Because of me,” Stein said.
For the local crowd, I asked him about hiring former LSU offensive coordinator Joe Sloan this offseason. He had nothing but positive things to say.
“Joe is one of the best quarterback coaches I’ve ever been around. He’s an elite communicator. And, I mean, the man can recruit.”
Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri
Eli Drinkwitz is the Chili’s of SEC football coaches. Incredibly reliable and wonderfully underrated. Lane Kiffin gets a lot of the headlines for his trolling and sarcasm, but Drinkwitz is hands down the funniest coach in this league. Every year he has three to four jokes that he’s clearly written ahead of time and all of them are hilarious. This year was no different.
Drinkwitz didn’t cover any significant topics about Mizzou or college football as a whole at length. He did, however, open with some really positive news about one of the best players in the country, Ahmad Hardy.
Hardy suffered a gunshot wound this offseason and is trying to recover as quickly as possible. Drinkwitz provided an update and some new information on the severity of the injury.
The bullet hit his bone, which is usually very bad news and takes at least a month or so to recover from. Hardy’s wasn’t as severe and, as of Monday morning, he was officially medically cleared by Missouri’s health staff.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be ready by the season opener.
Drinkwitz also provided some clarity on a comment that went viral a season ago about the playoff expanding to 32 teams. He was asked about it on Monday by a media member, and he gave a better explanation of what he meant. He, like many, wants more inclusion and opportunity to the entire FBS but doesn’t want expansion just for the sake of expansion.
The current models have not only devalued the regular season, but they’ve also diminished the importance of conference championship games. Drinkwitz’s proposal would expand the playoff through additional play-in games, putting more emphasis on on-field results instead of committee decisions.
“Committees are a bad idea for deciding who should get in. Sports are meant to be decided by playing on the field.”
Brent Venables, Oklahoma
The presence at the podium from Brent Venables this year versus the last two was very noticeable. That’s what a ten win season and playoff appearance will do for someone who coached his way off the hot seat.
Venables talked at length about the health of the team this year, which is drastically different from his first two seasons. The Sooners’ introduction into the conference wasn’t easy in 2024. That was largely due to being beat up on the offensive line and losing their top six receivers.
It’s hard enough to win in the SEC. It’s even harder to win with Jackson Arnold as your quarterback. Combine that with losing your entire first and second string pass catchers, and it was a recipe for disaster.
You get the feeling that the 2024 season and identity around the program is long gone. Venables returns an overwhelming amount of veteran experience, leadership, and production in 2026.
If there was one surprise from his 30 minutes at the podium, it was the lack of questions about his star quarterback John Mateer. Last year, it felt like Oklahoma’s ceiling was entirely tethered to how far Mateer could take them. The way he spoke about this year’s team feels much more balanced. It also makes them much more dangerous.
