Oh, it's hot. Oh, it's humid.
Must be talking season in the Southeastern Conference, and there is plenty to discuss.
The 2023 SEC Football Kickoff Media Days, the first staged in Tennessee and the last with 14 member institutions, begins Monday morning and concludes Thursday afternoon. The Nashville Grand Hyatt will be the setting as the league's coaches and player representatives will express their optimism for the months ahead.
Tennessee will be among the three schools wrapping up the event, with Volunteers third-year coach Josh Heupel scheduled to be accompanied by quarterback Joe Milton III, tight end Jacob Warren and defensive lineman Omari Thomas.
This marks the first time SEC Media Days has been held in three different locations in three consecutive years, with the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta housing last year's extravaganza and with the four-day event taking place two years ago in the more traditional locale of Hoover, Alabama. SEC Media Days was scrapped in 2020 amid the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Topics will be plentiful given next year's arrivals of Oklahoma and Texas, next year's implementation of a 12-team College Football Playoff, and the increasing impacts of the NCAA transfer portal and name, image and likeness opportunities. The league will eliminate divisions when it expands next year, so this will be the last SEC Media Days in which East and West winners are projected.
Heck, this is even the last season of the "SEC on CBS" and its highly popular intro music.
Alabama typically receives the most attention at SEC Media Days, but that will shift to Georgia this week following back-to-back national championships by Kirby Smart's Bulldogs. No program has ever won three consecutive national crowns since the Associated Press poll began back in 1936.
Georgia, incidentally, has not been picked to win the league since 2004.
Here are five storylines worth tracking in Nashville:
1. KIRBY'S CONUNDRUM
Georgia has won 33 of its past 34 games while setting a record with 25 selections in the past two NFL drafts, with the Bulldogs capping last season's 15-0 run with a 65-7 humiliation of TCU in the title game of the four-team playoff.
Smart said moments after the rout of the Horned Frogs that entitlement would be the biggest obstacle for this year's team, but the subject matter quickly changed a week later after the fatalities of offensive lineman Devin Willock and athletic department recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy, who reportedly was driving an athletic department SUV more than 104 mph and had a blood alcohol level of .197.
That devastating January night also involved former Bulldogs defensive lineman and first-round NFL pick Jalen Carter, who was racing LeCroy moments before the crash, and the incident hasn't stopped other Georgia players from speeding. Receiver Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint recently pleaded guilty to traveling 90 in a 45 mph zone in May, while linebacker Samuel M'Pemba was ticketed earlier this month for going 88 in a 55.
"I'll be the first to admit we haven't solved that issue or problem," Smart said in a news conference this past Tuesday. "I don't honestly know that anybody has, but certainly for us, it's important to acknowledge it first. We've had a lot of intervention in terms of talking, and discipline measures have been implemented in terms of education, and we'll continue to do that.
"It's one of the things that we want to manage, but it is a tough situation to manage when you have 18-to-22-year-old men and a lot of them driving for the first time. Every fall we've got 25 new guys, and we average five guys who come here 18 years old with no driver's license. I don't have the exact answer. I wish I did, but we continue to work at it."
A day after Smart's comments, Victoria Bowles, a recruiting staffer who was riding with LeCroy and was seriously injured, filed a lawsuit against the UGA Athletic Association and against Carter. The lawsuit contradicts comments made by Smart, who said that LeCroy wasn't allowed to drive university vehicles in instances that did not involve recruiting.
The lawsuit also states that Georgia officials were aware that LeCroy had at least four speeding tickets, including two "super speeder" violations under Georgia law.
Smart accused the Atlanta Journal-Constitution of multiple falsehoods in a recent story about Georgia players and domestic violence incidents, so he could find himself answering many more questions this week about his program away from the field. He will be accompanied Tuesday by tight end Brock Bowers, center Sedrick Van Pran and cornerback Kamari Lassiter.
Georgia photo by Tony Walsh / Georgia coach Kirby Smart could make college football history with a third consecutive national championship to cap the 2023 season, but he may face more questions this week at SEC Media Days regarding off-field issues within his program.2. SABAN'S STATUS
Alabama has been picked to win the SEC the past seven years and in 11 of the past 13, with the exceptions being LSU in 2012 and Auburn in 2015.
That's a remarkable reflection of the Crimson Tide's dominance under Nick Saban, but Alabama missed out on the College Football Playoff for just a second time last year due to last-play losses to Tennessee and LSU. The last image of Alabama's 2022 season wasn't the 45-20 drubbing of Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl but of Saban serving as an ESPN analyst in Los Angeles and sitting beside former analyst David Pollack, who said that Georgia has "taken a hold of college football."
Alabama's task of overtaking Georgia this year will have to be performed after losing quarterback Bryce Young and edge rusher Will Anderson, the first and third overall picks of the NFL draft.
3. JIMBO'S JUMBLE
Most of the questions to Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher last year at media days concerned his spat with Saban a few months earlier over NIL.
Then the Aggies floundered to a 5-7 season and brought aboard Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator.
There is no telling where Fisher's turn at the podium on Monday will go.
4. TENNESSEE TALK
Heupel and Tennessee's contingent may have to answer their share of expectation questions given last year's 11-2 team that whipped Clemson in the Orange Bowl.
Of course, the Vols faced a bunch of that last year as ESPN's "College GameDay" showed up to three of their games.
"Having played quarterback and having been in a lot of different positions and understanding them -- I think your players are going to feed off of you way more than they listen to you," Heupel said late last season about facing more attention. "They feed off of your body language and your energy that you give off, so I try to be consistent and calm in those situations, hopefully keeping them calm in the storm, too."
Other subjects expected to surface are the Nov. 18 home game against Georgia, which some national analysts have circled as the SEC's top regular-season game, and Friday's NCAA sanctions from violations that occurred under former coach Jeremy Pruitt. Tennessee was found to have committed more than 200 infractions and must pay a staggering fine of nearly $9 million, but the Vols do not have to endure any postseason ban.
Heupel may have peeled off some questions about the NCAA verdict with his appearance Friday afternoon on the SEC Network.
"I'm excited that we were able to reach a great conclusion here," Heupel said. "Our administration has worked for 2 1/2 years on finding a resolution to this. They found out what was going on, self-reported it and have been transparent.
"We wanted to protect our athletes and make sure that they had an opportunity to compete for championships. We were able to do that and really happy that we get a chance to put this behind us and move forward now."
5. THE NEWCOMERS
Hugh Freeze was a media days fixture at Ole Miss from 2012 to 2017, but he was forced to resigned several days after his 2017 appearance due to a "pattern of personal misconduct" that included making calls from a university-issued phone to a female escort service. He rebounded with a successful stint at Liberty and parlayed that to the position at Auburn, which has been reeling the past two seasons after the decision to fire Gus Malzahn without a replacement lined up.
Whether Freeze will have to spend time reliving those dark days remains to be seen.
There is also new Mississippi State coach Zach Arnett, who has replaced the entertaining Mike Leach following Leach's unexpected death last December. Leach only got to grace media days twice.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.