As the doggy dog days of college football painfully drag on, we are in total look-ahead mode.
We went into total speculation mode with our way-too-early position rankings last week, and after taking a look at who we think could be instant impact recruits in the SEC last week, we’ll continue diving into some recruiting fun this week.
But as we check out all of these players, it’s important to put these coaches on notice, too. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today.
These million-dollar men are always under pressure and must get all those blue chips in tip-top shape or risk having their feet dangled closer to the coals.
Here are six SEC coaches with the most pressure on them heading into spring practice. Now this isn’t to say that all of these coaches are in trouble of actually losing their jobs, but they are all feeling the most pressure for various reasons.
1. Butch Jones, Tennessee: Jones knows that his relationship with fans took lumps in 2016. The overwhelming favorites to win the SEC East last year (whether they deserved to be or not) lost four conference games. Last year was a major disappointment at Tennessee, and Vols fans want — and deserve — more. Injuries and locker room issues derailed this team in 2016, but Jones did himself no favors with his “Champions of Life” comment or transforming fans eagerness for five-star prospects into being happy with “five-star hearts.”
It’s just too much for Vols fans at times, and they want real results.
In Jones’ defense, Tennessee has been to three straight bowl wins for the first time since the 1994-96 seasons and had three straight nine-win seasons. However, with so many solid departures on his roster and an almost complete offensive overhaul, the deck is stacked against Tennessee. But being overlooked could be a good thing for Jones and the Vols.
2. Bret Bielema, Arkansas: Arkansas has had three winning seasons in four years under Bielema, which is certainly a plus, but 2016 was mind-numbingly frustrating for everyone involved. Arkansas went from starting 3-0 with a double-overtime win over TCU on the road, to finishing 7-5 with season-ending losses to 4-8 Missouri 28-24, after leading 24-7 at halftime, and Virginia Tech 35-24, after leading 24-0 at halftime.
Those were both very bad losses, and the defensive struggles for this program last year are well documented. Bielema promoted DBs coach Paul Rhoads to defensive coordinator in hopes of improving a defense that ranked in the bottom half of the SEC in scoring, rushing, passing and total defense last year.
3. Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss: Freeze has done absolute wonders for a program stuck in mediocrity. Those top recruiting classes and back-to-back New Years Six bowls was uncharted territory for Ole Miss. But this NCAA cloud hanging over the program has been debilitating. Unless the NCAA finds more issues directly linked to Freeze and absolutely drops the hammer on Ole Miss, I wouldn’t say that Freeze’s job is in jeopardy after last year’s 5-7 season, but he has the pressure of keeping this team and this program together and focused during a spring in which the NCAA storyline will be all anyone will want to talk about.
If the NCAA delivers some bad news to the Rebels, it’ll be up to Freeze to manage how players and coaches respond on the field … and that could be a lot to ask.
4. Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M: It feels like we were here with this last year, too. Well, after another promising start — 6-0 to be exact — the Aggies finished 8-5 for the third straight year. And for the third straight spring, Sumlin will be working with a different potential starting quarterback.
Star recruit Kellen Mond could be the present and future at quarterback, but Sumlin must find his starter early and stop the playcaller carousel. He also has some depth issues on defense to overcome, especially along the defensive line. It’s also interesting to note that Sumlin changed strength and conditioning coaches for the first time in his head-coaching career. Maybe there’s a new approach and a new way to wire these guys, because another late-season collapse could be spell real trouble for Sumlin.
5. Gus Malzahn, Auburn: Jarrett Stidham should be a major quarterback upgrade for Auburn. Poor quarterback play for two years has seriously eaten into their overall offensive production, and the former Baylor backup, who’s shown promise in the past, looks like a perfect fit for what Malzahn wants to do. A slew of young talent comes back on both sides of the ball, and Auburn looks poised to challenge Alabama in 2017.
But we’ve seen this before and that story ended in disaster. Remember how bad 2015 was after many picked Auburn to win it all?
Malzahn is safe, but this team can’t fall into 2015’s trap. That’s on Malzahn, and he has to hope Stidham is the truth. The pressure to deliver a real SEC contender is alive and well on the Plains.
6. Jim McElwain, Florida: OK, so we know this is silly. The man just won back-to-back SEC East titles! There’s a great facility plan underway in Gainesville, and McElwain has 19 wins in two seasons.
However, the offense still frightens Gators fans and McElwain is still searching for a quarterback. There’s no way McElwain should even touch a lukewarm seat, but Gators fans are restless because of the lack of enthusiasm surrounding the program because of a below-average offense. McElwain is an offensive mind who has to find the right quarterback to make Florida’s offense take off in 2017. Fans love the SEC East titles, but back-to-back blowouts in Atlanta and to rival Florida State drain the excitement out of those Atlanta trips.
With the defense losing some very key parts, the pressure is on McElwain to get this offense on track to win three straight East titles.
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