It's no secret I hate Media Days, or as I like to call it, the SEC Media Armageddon. Over the next three days, we will be bombarded with hype and authoritative statements about the upcoming season when the truth is, nobody knows squat right now.
Sure, it's probably more fun than paying attention to baseball (What's that? My beloved Orioles are now under 30 games back? Rally!), but the SEC Media Days are when the coaches stand up and blather about the season in the most boring way possible. It's better than no football, but not by much.
I know, you may revoke my blogger privileges immediately.
In fact, let's just name the stories of SEC Media Days before they happen.
-- Mark Ingram is named unanimous first team All-SEC. Anyone who dissents is shot in the back of the head and buried in an unmarked grave next to all the other Alabama apostates.
-- Alabama and Florida are named the preseason favorites to win their respective division. Atlas shrugs.
-- Bobby Petrino and Gene Chizik talk about how great the defense looks and how this year will be a radical improvement on that side of the football. No one believes them.
-- Les Miles talks about how great the offense looks and how this year will be a radical improvement on that side of the football. No one believes him.
-- South Carolina will attempt to raise expectations. They will fail.
-- Whoever is coaching Vanderbilt (Robbie Caldwell? Really?) will talk about "competing", which is code for not going winless again.
-- Security will taser Spencer Hall. He will likely deserve it.
-- Mark Richt will say a lot of nice things and will the media will dutifully write articles about what a good, decent man he is. They will then proceed to rip him to shreds if when he loses to Florida.
-- People will lay off of Derek Dooley if only because he is not Lane Kiffin.
-- Houston Nutt and Les Miles will say something crazy. No one will notice.
-- Urban Meyer and Nick Saban will attempt to simulate the actions of human beings in accordance with their cybernetic programming.
-- Kentucky will remind us that they still play football. It will not stop the Kentucky press from asking a question about basketball.
-- People will praise Dan Mullen for almost winning some games. His team will be awarded SEC football participation ribbons.
-- INSERT MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSY HERE
-- There will be countless media articles describing white players who are "blue collar" or have "deceptive speed". They will only be outnumbered by the times a black player is described as "well spoken" or "athletic".
-- There will be over one million words written trying to parse meaning out of the three players selected to represent each respective team.
-- At the end of this week, we'll still be over a month away from football.
Let the SEC media apocalypse begin.