ATLANTA - The Southeastern Conference has been running low on colorful personalities during its annual Football Media Days event.
Former Florida and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier was no longer at the podium in 2016. Former LSU coach Les Miles wasn't around last summer, and former Arkansas coach Bret Bielema didn't show up this week.
Enter Mississippi State newcomer Joe Moorhead, who takes over a program that went 9-4 last season and returns 17 of 22 starters. Moorhead was born in Pittsburgh and spent the past two seasons as Penn State's offensive coordinator, and everywhere in between was either in the Midwest or Northeast.
Moorhead was asked Wednesday if he's experienced any "Welcome to the South" moments.
"I guess stepping out of your front door every day and being smacked in the face with the humidity. That's a pretty good one," Moorhead said, "and everything being wrapped in bacon. That's pretty good, too."
Before Moorhead helped guide James Franklin's Nittany Lions to berths in the Rose and Fiesta bowls the last two seasons, he spent four years as Fordham's head coach. He guided the Championship Subdivision program in the Bronx to a 38-13 record, and he pointed out that the Patriot League staged its media day event at the Green Pond Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to a much smaller scope.
Moorhead was asked about the difference in coaching in the Patriot League and the SEC and quickly used a motion picture in which the audience could relate.
"Has everybody seen the movie 'Hoosiers,' where Norman Dale takes the team before the state championship in Butler Fieldhouse, and he has Strap put Ollie on his shoulders, and they run the tape measure down from the hoop to the floor?" Moorhead said. "They see that it's 10 feet. That's how I feel transitioning here from my time at Penn State and my time at Fordham into the SEC.
"The field is 53-and-a-third yards wide. It's 100 yards long. When you're on the field, there are going to be 11 people on the other side."
Moorhead quarterbacked at the same high school as Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino, but Moorhead's playing career ended with a one-year stint with the Munich Cowboys of the German Football League in 1996. It's a unique background compared to most SEC head coaches, and it's one his players appreciate.
"Coach Moorhead is a great guy," quarterback Nick Fitzgerald said. "He's a little quirky, which I really like about him. He talks about everybody in the South kind of being on his own dime.
"He doesn't think there is much hustle to anything that people do."
Bouncing off Dooley
Missouri third-year coach Barry Odom has an offensive coordinator who spent three years as a head coach in the SEC East.
Derek Dooley guided Tennessee to a 15-21 record from 2010 to 2012 and is now in his first season with the Tigers after working the past five years as receivers coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Dooley replaces Josh Heupel, who left Mizzou to become head coach at UCF.
"It's been good for me to be able to bounce some things off of Derek," Odom said. "He has sat in this chair. He has been in some of those opportunities to make decisions, learning from some things that he did right and learning from some things that he didn't do right.
"I'm appreciative of the approach he's taken."
Playoff requirements
Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, spoke briefly Wednesday morning before the SEC coaches and was asked about UCF's self-proclaimed national championship and whether it would take a Group of Five program to go undefeated two straight seasons before being considered.
"First of all, what happened last year has no bearing on what happens this year," Hancock said. "We start with a clean sheet of paper every year. Second of all, we have consistently congratulated UCF on a great season. I got to see them play on television several times last year.
"For the College Football Playoff, things are simple - play a good schedule, win your games, and you're going to be in the hunt. That holds true for UCF and for Houston and Northern Illinois, as well as for Alabama and Ohio State and Texas and Washington."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.