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SEC Media Days buzz | Day one
No Texas spurs for Spurrier
Steve Spurrier said no to Texas … in recruiting, even with Texas A&M entering the Southeastern Conference.
“No, we will not recruit Texas,” Spurrier said Tuesday. “We have plenty of ballplayers in South Carolina and our border states. We sort of call Florida our border state.
“We’re not going into Texas and compete against Oklahoma, Texas, all the guys.”
For playoff, TV then bowl bids
Plenty of work remains in shaping college football’s postseason structure, but some ideas are moving forward.
It’s likely that the bowls identified for the national semifinals won’t be identified until after television negotiations begin in October. Fiesta Bowl executive director Robert Shelton said not to expect news on the semifinal bowls until January.
The current BCS bowls — Fiesta, Rose, Sugar and Orange — will be part of the semifinal rotation along with two other bowl games. Several bowls have expressed interest in becoming part of that rotation.
The national championship game will be a separate bid process.
A city that has emerged as a possibility for a greater role in the postseason, according to a bowl source, is Houston. Reliant Stadium is a plus, and Houston has been host to the Super Bowl and Final Four in recent years.
Kevin Sumlin at a loss for words
To hundreds of reporters, Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin went with “damn” to emphasize the toughness of the Aggies’ new conference home.
“It’s a pretty damn hard league,” and “… it’s a damn difficult league because of talent and because of coaching.”
Stanford of the southeast?
Vanderbilt coach James Franklin used his recruiting pitch on the assembled media.
“If you have a son, and he’s a Division I football player, he’s coming to Vanderbilt,” Franklin said. “We have too much to sell. If you truly respect a world-class education, there are very few schools that can compete with us.”
Some that can, Franklin said, don’t get the week-in, week-out competition like the SEC.
The players like the confidence but know the program needs more than a 6-7 season, capped with a loss to Cincinnati in the Liberty Bowl, to change the national perception.
“Our bowl game is not going to change what people have perceived about us for decades,” said quarterback Jordan Rodgers, younger brother of NFL star Aaron Rodgers. “It’s going to take winning, and winning on a consistent level for years.”
Quotes of the day
• “You think I make the schedule? If I made the schedule, Georgia would be playing LSU and we’d be playing Ole Miss.”
| South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier
• “If it means going to a little kid’s birthday party and blowing up balloons, I’m going to spread Vanderbilt’s message.”
| Vanderbilt coach James Franklin