With Wimbledon over, the British Open yet to start and Major League Baseball taking a three-day hiatus for All-Star Game festivities, the Southeastern Conference is ready to fill the void.
The annual SEC Media Days - featuring the league's 14 head football coaches and three player representatives from each team - start this afternoon in Hoover, Ala., a Birmingham suburb. The event runs through early Thursday afternoon, with the revealing of the media's preseason projections Thursday morning.
This will mark the first Media Days for Greg Sankey as the league commissioner, with the recently retired Mike Slive having kicked off every event since 2002. Sankey will get things started before being followed this afternoon by representatives from Auburn, Florida and Vanderbilt.
Florida's Jim McElwain is the only newcomer among the league's 14 head coaches.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, who is at Media Days for the 23rd time, will take the podium Tuesday, along with Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin, Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Tennessee's Butch Jones. Accompanying Jones to Hoover are quarterback Josh Dobbs, defensive end/linebacker Curt Maggitt and cornerback Cam Sutton.
Alabama, the defending league champion, will be up Wednesday morning, with coach Nick Saban joined by running back Kenyan Drake, center Ryan Kelly and linebacker Reggie Ragland. Also speaking Wednesday will be Kentucky's Mark Stoops, Missouri's Gary Pinkel and Arkansas' Bret Bielema.
SEC Media Days wrap up Thursday with Georgia's Mark Richt, Mississippi's Hugh Freeze and LSU's Les Miles. Joining Richt in Hoover will be receiver Malcolm Mitchell, left tackle John Theus and outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins.
Media Days used to be measured by the dozens in attendance and then the hundreds, with the league last summer issuing a record 1,267 credentials.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.