THE 2020 SEC AWARDS

It’s 2020 and we thought we’d give out our inaugural awards for the 2020-1 SEC season. And while people might be talking about 2020 as being a bad year, we’ve got through COVID-19 as a college football unit, and certainly in the SEC. Sure, COVID’s 4-0 against the SEC in bowl games, but it only took out 3 games on the SEC schedule (miraculously), but Greg Sankey and the SEC managed to avoid a few bullets and get the season to finish.

While this doesn’t take the College Football Play-Off into account, nothing’s really going to change here. 

Man of the year: Kylin Hill (Mississippi State) and Kellen Mond (Texas A&M): Hill got the flag of Mississippi (finally changed) because he said: ‘I’m not playing unless this flag’s changed), while Mond stood in front of the statue of Sully – a confederate general still
honoured by Aggie fans everywhere – and said: ‘This should be taken down’. Mond was criticised by Aggie fans for a poor performance against Vandy because he ‘was concentrating on other things’, but he overcame the racists and led A&M to an excellent season. Sadly, Sully hasn’t been removed yet because Texas.

Team of the year for 2020-1’season: Alabama. Scourged the SEC with dynamics in passing and running, and their defense woke up after the Ole Miss game. They also knew how to win the close ones (Ole Miss and Florida).

Best moment of the year: Sarah Fuller becoming the first woman to a kick a point in a Power-5 game. It was awesome. The kicker had only come along two weeks earlier after she was given a place on the team after Vandy’s special teams group were out with COVID and injuries. Here’s to hoping she’s a trendsetter!

Fun team: Ole Miss. The Rebels scored over 40 points per game and gave up 40 points per game, and every game was spectacularly fun. 

Coach: Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri): Many predicted Missouri to win 3 games and they won 5 despite having a new coach and a depleted roster for much of the season. Also Sam Pittman and Jimbo Fisher deserve your love. Why not Nick Saban? Because Alabama is doing what is expected of them, stupid.

QB: Mac Jones (Alabama): After Kyle Trask’s dreadful performance in the Cotton Bowl, Jones showed himself to be the premier QB in the SEC.

WR: DaVonta Smith (Alabama): Not even the best WR on his team, Smith showed his skills and unstoppability when Jaylen Waddle got hurt at Tennessee.

TE: Kyle Pitts (Florida): Unstoppable. If you want to look at how valuable Pitts was, look at the big games where he wasn’t playing (LSU and Oklahoma).

RB of the year: Kevin Harris (South Carolina): Look, it’s easy to give Najee Harris the Award, but his life was made a lot easier by Bama’s lively passing game. Most defenses can’t stop both. Harris, however, played on a crap South Carolina team, and still put up 1,138 yards.

Offensive line of the year: Texas A&M: A&M kept Kellen Mond pretty clean all season, and the holes they opened up for Isaiah Spiller and the A&M rushing game was phenomenal.

Defensive player of the year: Grant Morgan (LB, Arkansas): A ferocious interrupter of games, the Razorbacks player’s loss was deeply felt during the game against Missouri. He was a freak, with 40 solo tackles and 71 conjoined tackles, as well as 2 sacks, an interception and five passes defended.

Kicker of the year: Cade York (LSU): Bombed SEVEN kicks from 50+ yards out, including a game winner against Florida.

Punter of the year: Jake Camarda (Georgia): A bomber who averaged 47.87 yards per punt. A real help to a UGA defense that had to help out a Bulldogs defense that stuttered all year long.

Best player on a bad team: Terrace Marshall (LSU): Opted out during the seasonbut before that, Marshall still had 48 receptions and 731 yards in just seven games. His final game was a 135 yard, 10 reception game in a downpour against Texas A&M.

And the bad ones…..

Dunces of the Year: SEC Officials. It seemed that every week the SEC made some stupifyingly bad decisions, highlighted by Arkansas losing to Auburn on a decision that was calamitous, and Missouri’s Nick Bolton getting ejected for targeting despite actually hitting someone with his head. I mean, they were so bad that even Gary Freakin’ Danielson criticized them.

Disappointment of the year (team): Georgia. After a strong start, the Bulldogs were torn apart by Alabama and Florida, and only recovered in the final games of the season when JT Daniels came aboard. We expected Georgia to play in the SEC Championship Game, but they failed to do so.

Disappointment of the year (Player): Bo Nix: A livewire, fun quarterback at the best of times, you could argue that Gus Malzahn’s policy of starting Nix when it was obvious that he’d taken a step back cost him his job. I honestly thought he’d be a lot better.

Dickhead of the year: Dan Mullen (Florida). Never known to lose gracefully, The Mullen took it up a notch by blaming COVID (Texas A&M), calling a loss a result of an exhibition game (Oklahoma). Hey, he also said that players shouldn’t vote because they might miss a practice (yes, this happened), and said Florida should fill the Swamp. In a pandemic. Oh, and he also got in a fight during a Missouri game, and then showed up to a press conference dressed as Darth Vader. And there was also the lobbying to get in the play-off despite losing to the team ahead of them (that’s what all coaches do, but this was particularly inane). Oh, and his failure to motivate his team before The Cotton Bowl was at best negligent, and at worst disgusting.

And predicting:

Team we’ll all be talking about in 2021: Texas A&M. The Aggies had a HUGE recruiting year this year, and Jimbo Fisher’s team was on the edge of the College Football Play-Off. The Aggies will be challenging for the SEC West once again.

Player we’ll all be talking about in 2021: JT Daniels (Georgia): When Daniels finally played downs at Georgia, the Bulldogs offense looked like a different machine. With excellent WRs like George Pickens Jr on the roster, Daniels will be set for a massive year.

Coach we’ll all be talking about in 2021: Ed Orgeron (LSU): A lazy take might be Tennessee’s Jeremy Pruitt, but if LSU’s as bad as they were in 2020 (and yes, we know they beat Florida last year blah blah blah), he may well get the boot.