SEC Media Day quotes: Texas A&M, LSU, Kentucky

It was the first day of SEC Media Days on Tuesday, and there were a couple of changes: Firstly, the crazy train rolled up to Atlanta rather than Hoover, Alabama, and second, there seem to be 401 new head coaches. Thankfully, they are all used to crazy people, so walking in the first shouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

On the first day of FinebaumStock, Texas A&M’s head coach Jimbo Fisher, LSU’s Ed Orgeron and Kentucky’s Mark Stoops took the stage to face off against such questions as: “Do you feel good about your team this year?” and “What’s it like coming to the SEC?” and “How much pressure is there to beat Alabama win the SEC West?”.

Anyway, so here we go with some quotes….

JIMBO FISHER (Texas A&M)

• The return to the SEC: “I didn’t [think I would get back to the SEC] I had no intentions leaving Florida State. I was very happy and very content there. As you know, life takes changes and decisions are made (EDITOR’S NOTE: NO MENTION OF 10 YEARS, $75 MILLION) . I was very happy and at a great university there.”
• On the SEC West: “Whoever can survive that gauntlet of games and come out of there, you know is going to compete. And whoever wins the SEC has a chance to win the national championship. You can play with anybody in the country….I know. I lived it for 13 years. I understand what’s it’s like. I understand the way your players are Monday and Tuesday after the game. You think I just played that big game, you look up and that’s a big game. That’s a big game. They’re all big games to coaches.”
• Getting Clemson and Alabama in the first 2 weeks: ” I think when you have those kind of games in the early parts of the season, I think it makes your summer that much better. I think it gets your attention. They understand the competition level and what you come to…..It’s great that we play those two teams, the top two ranked teams in the first four games of the year. I think great teams, it’s not that your opponent becomes faceless, it’s not that you disrespect them; it’s just that you understand how you want to prepare. I’m hoping that’s the way our kids go about it.”
• Pressure:  “I think the pressure in today’s world, everybody wants instant gratification. Everybody wants things quickly. That’s just the world we live in. And that’s all part of this business, is dealing with that and putting things in place to do it.
  So what you can’t worry about, suppression, you can’t work about the results, you have to go through the process of doing things the right way. Because if you don’t set things up right, you’re never going to get the results. It’s like the foundation of a house. It may come up quickly, but it will fall quickly if the foundation is not there.”
• On leaving Florida State: “Like I said, I had no intentions of ever leaving there. It was very emotional. Very tight to those players and to the people in the community. Everyone there was wonderful to me, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for what they do and wish them nothing but the best in the future. It’s a tremendous place. It really is.”

ED ORGERON (LSU)

First things first, Coach O managed to use the word ‘excited’ about the word 401 times in his opening statement. It’s a new SEC record, and therefore a LSU National Championship. Ironically, there was  Twitter poll about whether Orgeron would be around this time next year. 71% said ‘no’. Tough crowd.

• On firing Matt Canada: “It’s tough when you make a mistake, but it’s even tougher not to admit you made a mistake and it’s just not a good fit. And I had to do the best what I thought was for the LSU program, and that’s why I did it.”
• On hiring new OC Steve Ensminger: “And just going through last year, some of the things that we went through, I felt that Steve and I would be on the same page. The players respect Steve. He runs more of the offense than I’m used to, an offense that we won championships with in the past….So a combination of all of those things. More comfortable with Steve. He’s able to adapt to the things that we want to do as a staff. I think he’s an excellent game day caller. He knows our players, and he’s a great recruiter…..A lot of people don’t though about Steve Ensminger as a recruiter, but he’s done a tremendous job in the Shreveport area and done a tremendous job this year recruiting quarterbacks.
• On adding QB Joe Burrow: “We felt that his knowledge of the game is able, his ability to run the offense, he can be a pro quarterback. He can run the football, extend plays if he has to, he’s very tough. He’s a leader….Overall he’s very smart, throws in anticipation and accuracy. We felt that he would add to the quarterback competition that we already have.
• On the LSU’s losing streak against Alabama: “Almost is not good enough against Alabama. But we feel that a couple of plays here and there and continue to be physically, we’re going to be right in there with them.”
• On the Georgia game: “Kirby did a great job with the Georgia Bulldogs, tremendous team, tremendous recruiting classes. They’re going to be a very tough opponent to play. But that night Tiger Stadium is going to be alive. It’s going to be loud. There will be a lot of tailgating. Should be a great college matchup in the SEC.”

MARK STOOPS (KENTUCKY)

No-one ever asked Stoops the question: “How in the hell did you managed to have nine players on the field in the last second against Florida?”, which annoyed me because his answer or look of rage could have been hilarious.

Stoops gave the best rallying call for his team before the Q&A started by saying: “We expect more. We’ve been close. We’ve done some good things. I’m proud of the work that we’ve done, that we look forward to making a big jump this year. We return some players with experience. We returned some talent. We returned some players that decided to forego the NFL and come back to do more, to play with a chip on their shoulder, to win some football games.” We kinda liked that. Hopefully the Wildcat marketing department will whack “We expect more” on some T-Shirts. Or maybe they do. It’s called Wildcat basketball. Anyway….

• On coaching in the SEC: “I think that made my heart drop. I can’t believe you mentioned that. That’s not a good feeling. I’ve only been here six years. And to have that kind of turnover, obviously, the way it is right now, it’s the sign of the times. There’s some very good football coaches that have come and gone through this league, and there’s a lot of good ones in here. But I think it just speaks to the league, and, believe me, the 14 schools, there’s not one school in here that wants to take a step back.”
• On beating Florida: “I’m going to get it a thousand times between now and that game. You know, my answer, first three or four years, I really wasn’t concerned about it. I’m trying to build a culture at Kentucky and win games and get in position, but you do hear it. You can’t hide from the elephant in the room. It’s been a long time. We need to beat Florida.”
• On RB Benny Snell: “Benny is certainly worthy of the hype that he gets because of his consistency. He’s done it in this league at Kentucky his first two years, and he spent over a thousand yards each of those years, and we look forward to him doing that again this year. Certainly he deserves to be in that kind of conversation.”
• On the SEC East: “There’s no doubt in my mind some of the teams in the east were ready to make a big jump.”
• On College Football free agency: “I don’t think any of us coaches are looking forward — we’re not looking forward to a form of free agency. I think all of us — I can’t speak for everybody. I don’t want to. I think the pulse of conversations is we’re not interested in going out and recruiting players from another team. Obviously it’s illegal, but you don’t want to turn it into another form of free agency. None of us want that. We are college coaches. We like developing these players and building your teams, and that’s the way I like to do it.”