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- [00:01]
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- [00:28]
Paul Feinbaum
the pride, passion and pageantry of college football lives here. This is the Paul Feinbaum Show. Our two podcasts this Might Be College Football.
- [00:46]
We have arrived for the final day of Media Day. Great to have all of you back and what an afternoon we have for you, starting with Commissioner of the SEC Steve Sarkeesian, among others. And Commissioner, I was just joking with you. I saw I was doing Radio Row. That's something that they ask us to do. And I'm going up and down and I'm thinking, how could this is an hour and a half of my life. And I said, you were on Radio Road the entire time though, and I've seen you there for four days.
- [01:18]
Greg Sankey
There's usually a stat list of interviews I've done and I know it's Thursday because it was the final day. I have no idea what time it is. And when you do those radio interviews on Radio Row, Paul the funny story is my first year I felt this pressure to say something unique for each interview. And then I realized I'm in Little Rock and then Baton Rouge and Houston and Jacksonville and then Atlanta and there's like no overlap. So I can say the same thing repeatedly.
- [01:49]
Paul Feinbaum
And I don't know if the questions get better or worse, but I'm sure they're the same, though, in many respects. And that has really been one of the I'm just going around trying to be entertaining and every single place I've been this week, from ESPN to First Take to get up to SportsCenter to all these radio, the same question has been asked. Can you comment on Greg Sankey saying that the SEC is going to break away?
- [02:16]
Greg Sankey
I told our president on a video conference, I said, I'm at SEC Football Media Day. And the most popular word used has been breakaway. And it's not about like a wide open pass or something. So yeah, I have been asked about
- [02:30]
Paul Feinbaum
that and I don't want to ask you to go through the whole thing chapter and verse, but I would like to at least address it since it is the biggest story of Media Days.
- [02:39]
Greg Sankey
So for America. I did bring my transcript From Monday. Because on Monday afternoon I was asked about my remarks related to breakaway and I'm trying to remember what happened. And I observed, I don't think that comment was in my remarks. I think it was a question that was asked of me. So the transcript, I think is publicly available and the question was, we'll have fun. Just for a moment, how real are the conversations within the SEC about potentially breaking away from the college structure as we know it? And I said, so you phrased the question of how real. I'll take that as real or not real. So then if you're me, you have the opportunity to make a decision like, do you just be truthful? Which I was. And that became the headline. So has anyone ever had a real conversation about, wow, we should do something else? Yes. Does that dominate our time? Is that at the top of the agenda? Is that a priority? It is not. It is a concept. And in fact, Paul, last year for our presidents and chancellors, I provided, I think it was a four or five page analysis of all the elements that go into that timeline. I mean, this will be news. And then here's the real headline. My recommendation is we not pursue that course of action. We have. I said, you know, we're working with Congress. If you want to be in front of Congress, you could pursue this. And so we have other priorities. The Protect College Sports act legislation considered in the Senate, the potential for legislation to be considered in the House of Representatives. How do we make conference led decisions that are right for us? Do we have the right policy? But as I commented on Monday, what is underneath the breakaway type conversation, or we should do something else, is the frustration with the circumstances. And I've shared some of those through the week. Those will continue. And it causes people to say, wow, we could manage this better ourselves, or does this really work for us? Or there has to be a better way. Now we'll work to continue to contribute to solutions. We hope people listen. And I could illustrate that further. But you know, I was asked a question, I provided an honest response that became the headline, but it's really not the headline issue for us. It is a conversation that's taken place and that's how I've handled it internally.
- [05:08]
Paul Feinbaum
I know you're a consummate professional and you're in the media and you've appeared in front of Congress and talked to the white, all these things that, that are very high, high strung and high pressure. But when you say what you did, as you've explained it, and the headlines start bouncing around the world. I mean, is there a. I mean, when you see it, is there a level of like, how do I stop?
- [05:32]
Greg Sankey
Well, I've told you, you know, in Covid, I think you and I had a conversation like at the end of that experience where I went back and watched all my interviews. So I do self scout. So part of the reason I grabbed the transcript, by the way, it's on page five. If anybody finds the transcript, wants to save time and not read my boring remarks, is I'm like, what did I say? Did I say something that is so far out of the realm to have generated this kind of hyperbolic response? And I understand in the Southeastern Conference, when it's us and then when it's me in this position, it does attract interest to present that headline. And I want to be clear, I was being honest. That conversation has taken place. It's not the priority. And we're working diligently. As I sat here, I just texted a senator saying I'm on the Fein bomb show and so I can follow up in 30 minutes. And I so appreciate that we have leaders willing to engage in a hard conversation and I think they're learning the complexities we live every day to see if we can come to a finish line on this Senate legislation.
- [06:39]
Paul Feinbaum
I mean, I'm not telling you anything because you know all these things, but somebody came up to me the other day and introduced herself as the comms director and the deputy chief of staff for Maria Cantwell. She was credentialed US Senate going, this is different than it used to be.
- [06:55]
Greg Sankey
We had a great visit. In fact, I texted the senator that it was great to have her comms director, assistant chief of staff here with us and if we could be helpful and what I think is important and I would go. I think I can issue this invitation to any member of the House of Senate who wants to experience the Southeastern Conference, our universities. I've met representatives and senators from different parts of the country at our games. And I think it's an experience that provides insight and education and information and to go tour our facilities, meet the young people, meet the support staffs, helps inform how we do things really, really well and why having a return of national standards, which Congress can establish is so important because what we do is so special, special for young people.
- [07:46]
Paul Feinbaum
I want to get to other things, but since you are on a text chain with one of 100 and maybe half of 100 US senators, can you give us an update on what is going on there?
- [07:57]
Greg Sankey
Well, I know they continue to work so the fact we've had outreach and interaction is positive. I've not been to D.C. since, I think late June was my last trip. I think I came home from the World Series, Oklahoma's national championship victory and went right to D.C. for two days. Enormous interest. I think an understanding that Congress can be helpful at this time. The focus is from our end is on elements of the Protect College Sports act that need to be improved. That was released publicly and the first time I saw the proposed bill was on Wednesday back in Destin. I think you and I visited that day. So 111 pages long. We said priority is for us to have independent decision making around our meteorites in the future. We dug into it and we've said we don't support the bill as it's currently written and continuously through June through this morning and this afternoon, we've worked to provide, I think, helpful feedback and a rationale on why adjustments in the bill can help everybody in Division one. This isn't about the Southeastern Conference exclusively and be helpful across Divisions two and three because that is part of the college athletic ecosystem and those are around not having different laws that govern elements of kind of basic administrative issues in different states, clarity around name, image and likeness policies. So we close the loopholes. A lot of talk and speculation about different elements. And we'll try to support the senators in working through those considerations with the idea that the most basic statement is from student athletes who say over and over, when I line up for kickoff, I just want to know that the team in the other uniforms from another campus in another state have the same basic standards to meet that I have. Same, same rules. It doesn't mean everything's the same, but the same basics. And those have really been disrupted either by state laws or by court decisions. And that's why the ask for Congress is so important, because our young people are asking us for that help.
- [10:09]
Paul Feinbaum
We are with the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference at SEC Media Days. We'll take a short break. We're coming right back.
- [10:18]
You're listening to the Paul Feinbaum show podcast.
- [10:25]
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- [11:25]
Paul Feinbaum
We're back here in Tampa. Time running out on SCC media days. It will be in Nashville next year. The commissioner announced on Monday. And very often at these events, Commissioner pretty much the first question we asked was what's going on with the cfp? That has taken a little bit of a backseat to congressional movement. So now I realize there's a couple of meetings coming up and nothing is on the docket today, but can you give us a primer on what is ahead?
- [11:55]
Greg Sankey
Sure. Decision deadline, I would say for 27 is 26-12-1. So a year ahead on any change format. And on Monday I walk through a set of questions that we have that I think everyone's working to seek answers. You know, what is the fan interest? When do you play the games? The calendar as it's currently constructed is really complex. You actually do have in the Protect College Sports act and it's a position the American football coaches communicated the idea that you'd finish all of football season by January 8, which adds like I could go on a whole other rabbit trail of complexities that introduces. So I think we should be staying away from that date. What's the media interest? Not print journalist, social. But what are the media companies, the media platforms? What's their interest? I do think the discussions about selection, which apply both this year and in the future become more important with whatever direction we go. And we'll have some meeting opportunities. So we're in late July over the next 60 days, I think. And what I've suggested is not waiting until that deadline. But can we move through towards a decision? When I look at the Southeastern Conference, plenty of conversation about nine games. Kind of walled myself off from that. We know where people are. The nine game schedule decision is the right decision for the Southeastern Conference. It allows annual rivalries to be played. Our fans see every team play their team every other year and they'll see them at home Once every four years at least. And that's a great scheduling format, having nine games as one more highly high interest, high visibility, high viewership game. But its attachment to the College Football Playoff creates that angst about access and then that drives conversations about both selection process and format. And we'll see through the season. I have high expectations for our team's access. We'll see how the season develops, what format options are there, what answers are provided to questions about 16 or 24 or anything in between. And then work to make a decision during the fall.
- [14:22]
Paul Feinbaum
And you've been quoted a couple of times saying that, I mean, you have to be. You're open to a lot of things. I think that's what makes you so unique. But on the 24. But can you address that? Because we're still at 12. We were at 4, what, three years ago in the old days. Yeah, there's just, I'm perplexed when I hear some of your colleagues who a couple years ago were arguing that we don't need to go to 12 because player safety and now they just are running to 24,
- [14:59]
Greg Sankey
in my opinion. And I was part of the group, so this is not a secret that that helped develop the 12 team playoff. That was done over a couple years time. The task was assigned to us in 2019. It was introduced in 2021. We looked at everything. I mean, if you go back and look at the models we had, we had four. We actually had going back to two, believe it or not, we had five, six, eight. I think 10 was in there, 12, 16. Then it jumped to 32. And I've given the tribute to Mike Leach because he would talk about 64. And really the focus came from 16 downward. But if you remember the narrative from 2018, 19 until the 12 team playoff was announced, was either 6 or 8 really a focus on 8? And I think the work to inform the decision that caused 12 to be presented was really, really important. And that's the work we're asking for some of these other ideas now. We've done the work on 16, but it is interesting that the move to 12 generated a lot of conversation about too many games. And we're kind of yada yada ing our way right past that at this point. And so one of the questions I asked on Monday, we've asked before is how do we think about player recovery, travel preparation during the postseason? I do think adding that week zero, not ideal. But having two open weeks within the season helps with recovery. And then we need to look outside the season. And that's one of the things that was talked about way back in 2122 when we slowed down this process is, hey, we need a holistic solution and we're really in the same place. So I don't think we're going to get to a calendar change necessarily between now and decision date for playoff size, but that needs to constantly be on our mind.
- [16:59]
Paul Feinbaum
Talking to the commissioner of the sec We're a couple minutes away from talking to Steve Sarkeesian and I'm curious about something because talking to. You talk to coaches a lot. You see them before games, you have meetings, but these guys are on different wavelength and the rest of us, normal people. But you're backstage at this event, you introduce every coach and I'm curious. I'm not asking to reveal confidences, but describe that experience. Couple of minutes at this event with those coaches. I'm sure a lot is said. Either, you know, how's your summer? Or hey, Commissioner, what about this?
- [17:38]
Greg Sankey
Yeah, both. I'll go back to February. We have a meeting in New Orleans. ADs and head football coaches joined together for a couple days. We had a the wave of new coaches. And so I'll generally try to reach them on the phone, but they're so busy, especially when they hit the ground running in a new role, that that in person conversation in New Orleans is the first time to connect. And, you know, that's, how's your family? How's the transition? What have you been focusing on? How's your staff hiring? We'll talk and that's a chance to get to know them. It was. It was interesting the amount of energy, as you can imagine, among the new coaches. You know, Lane moved, Pete stepped in, had coached a couple of games. And then you had the set of coaches moving for outside roles. In some conversations during the spring, I might see them in an event or two. Not much destined. There's so much happening for me that I'll be in a big room with them. I'll have a chance to say hello, you know, connected with. We talked about mutual acquaintances that I've learned, friends that we may have in common. How's your summer? A few times I ended up on the phone, like with Sark. I was like on the phone until it was 30 seconds, I think with Josh Hyple too. So a chance to say hello.
- [18:52]
Paul Feinbaum
Talking to senators.
- [18:54]
Greg Sankey
Talking. Yeah. And colleagues and colleagues and senators and athletics directors. I'll go to this point, though, I do have the privilege of coming to know our head coaches across the board and people will ask, like, what's one of the things that I really enjoy? And I have the privilege of coming to know people directly who most see sitting in the stands or watching on television. And they're these incredibly high performing individuals and there is so much to learn just by observing. And that's, you know, softball coaches, baseball coaches go down the list. So I need to name 20 more sports now. But, you know, you get the point. You come to know them as people, not simply as coaches. So when I have a conversation to the real point of your question, I like to just talk about what's on your mind. Who are you? You know, how's your family? Not because it's superficial. I'm generally interested in how they manage everything and how they do it really well.
- [19:55]
Paul Feinbaum
And on that, just to close up, it was less than a year ago, well, more than a year ago maybe, that you played golf with the president. Since then you've been at the White House countless times. You've been out of Senate. You spoke at the White House summit. I remember talking to you once. And maybe we can pick up on this a little bit later in our conversation, but just you got my attention there with listening and talking to people who have high achievement. I mean, in this last year, you've already always been in the Washington world, but now you are like almost in the unbreathable elevation of D.C. politics. How would you describe this experience unexpected from the.
- [20:38]
Greg Sankey
Well, and then there's these times like when, when I was designated as one of the folks who would speak up front at the White house gathering on March 6th. As you're trying to prepare comments, part of it goes back to the, like the old personal insecurities, like how did I get myself into this one? And then you really focus on how to communicate effectively. It is impressive, though, to spend time with people in leadership positions. They all come at it from different perspectives, Democrats and Republicans. There are so many who are just impressive and there's so much pulling at them. I think that's one of the realizations is, you know, I go from issue to issue, but that may be minor leagues given what's, what's on the plate of our House and Senate members, the leadership, the administration, the members of the administration. And yeah, you know, hey, I'm frustrated. I'd like to be at a finish line with legislation, but the credit for the care and the interest and you know, my commitment is to work to get this as right as we can. I don't know that we'll have it the way I would design it. But those high level leaders spending so much time and interest is a credit to how important college athletics is. And you know, to your point, I always try to walk in. So. Judy Sweet used to be the president of the NCAA when it was an elected position. She was the athletics director at UC University of California, San Diego. I heard her speak once and she was talking about the progression of her career. She said, early on I was in rooms where I probably didn't belong and I watched, I listened and I learned. And that is a mantra. And she was speaking in front of about 500 people and I was on a committee with her a few years ago or a few years, well, 20 years after. And I said, I don't know if you remember saying that, I don't know if anybody else heard that. But I watched, I listened and I learned. And it's been a great benefit to be around people, whether it's our head football coaches, our presidents and chancellors in this setting in my Southland Conference days or those in Wal Washington because you can pick up something every time you visit.
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Paul Feinbaum
We end here because five years ago I'll never forget sitting with you Birmingham and asking you about something that had happened but had not been publicly announced. That was the Oklahoma, Texas situation. This was a lot more fun.
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Greg Sankey
That was the day after the leak. Yeah, yeah. My blood pressure was higher that day than it is today.
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Paul Feinbaum
No, you look much healthier today in spite of breakaway mania.
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Greg Sankey
In fact, I think I left that interview to go to a president's call. Was a little bit turbulent but brought us together in a way too.
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Paul Feinbaum
Yeah, I vaguely remember one school somewhere who was upset, but there were a few.
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Greg Sankey
There were a few.
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Paul Feinbaum
That's right. There was a talk of a breakaway then just as you reflect back, it's just been pretty extraordinary period of time as I see Steve Sarkeesian walking over here.
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Greg Sankey
Well, as you asked the question five years ago, I was trying to think of what happened and I went to that was after the COVID year. And one of the things I asked our staff in a staff meeting in June of 21 is to think about this. This is about avoiding complacency. I asked in June of 21 what if last year was the easy year? And several who are in that room say wow, how did you know we were going to have all of this turmoil? And then when you brought up the media days experience, I do think we came together. Credit to everyone and I've said this on interviews, even those that weren't convinced it was the right Direction we thrive right now. Thirteen national championships, over a billion dollars of revenue. Great opportunities in the future. And I'll stop bragging so you can talk to Sark.
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Paul Feinbaum
No. Anyway, always.
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Greg Sankey
Yeah. You know, hard moments lead to achievement, and that's true in preparation for the season, like our football teams. And even now, as we work through some of the turbulence in college athletics.
- [24:48]
Paul Feinbaum
They described Lane Kiffin earlier as the Port King. You're the breakaway king this week in college sports. Commissioner, thank you. Thank you very much.
- [24:55]
Greg Sankey
I'm looking at the transcript. It wasn't that bad a call.
- [24:58]
Paul Feinbaum
It's available. Page 5. Steve Sarkeesian is next. That was great.
- [25:05]
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- [25:28]
Greg Sankey
Lock in.
- [25:29]
WNBA Announcer
It's the WNBA on ESPN all season long.
- [25:38]
Paul Feinbaum
You're listening to the Paul Fine Bomb show podcast
- [25:45]
and we've talked to a number of coaches and we're about to talk to the last one, as we may be the last people here. I may need a ride to the airport with coach because there's no one left. Everybody is unpacking, taking things down. They stave Coach Steve Starkesian as the last coach here, and we are delighted to say hello to him. Thank you for actually sticking around. You could already be. You could probably already be in the air if you wanted to.
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Steve Sarkeesian
There's nothing like hitting cleanup, you know, last guy up. But, yeah, it is. It's getting sparse in here, for sure.
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Paul Feinbaum
I need to ask you. I literally bumped into arch outside about 30 minutes ago. We talked for a couple of minutes, and he made the point, said, this is so much different than last year. And last year, I said, yeah, last year when you walked in, it was like they were escorting Taylor Swift in. I mean, there were more security people than media people. This year just feels normal.
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Steve Sarkeesian
You know, it's interesting is that's how he's been. You know, as much as he's working at his craft, he's been a great teammate, he's been a great leader. He feels on a regular, daily basis a lot more calm. And ultimately, I think we saw that in his play the second half of the season. As the season went on, he became more and more calm. There were moments of. Of intensity. He's a lot more calm. And through calm and relaxed, he became more dangerous. And I think that he saw the value in that. And I think from a fundamental standpoint, from a thinking standpoint. And so kind of who you're seeing off the field is kind of who we're seeing on the field at the same time.
- [27:27]
Paul Feinbaum
Yeah. No, I mean, again, he's your quarterback. I'm just some guy he ran into in the hallway. But it was. It was remarkable just to kind of hear him talk about it. In life, he's fairly. He seemed pretty happy. And it, of course, it was probably unfair for all of us, a couple in particular, like me, to put the pressure on him the way we all did, but it felt like that's who he is and you knew what he was capable of doing.
- [27:55]
Steve Sarkeesian
Yeah, I think so. And, you know, it was interesting. I've been, you know, I've been asked about that a lot, about what's the difference this year compared to last year and where he's at. And at the end, you know, whether yourself, you carry, you know, Paul Feinbaum says something, and other folks say Heisman winner, first pick of the draft. Dude, greatest player of all time. You know, all the stuff.
- [28:16]
Starbucks Advertiser
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- [28:16]
Steve Sarkeesian
That's unimportant. But. And then when we weren't playing very good as a team, he wasn't playing great. And it was almost like not yourself, but there were some media members almost like they were going to criticize him and demean him for letting them down because they made. They made so many grand predictions. And there were some that gloated in his failure because they wanted to prove themselves. Right. But I don't think through it all, I think a lot of kids, and you've been doing this enough to know Paul, a lot of kids would have melted under that.
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Paul Feinbaum
All.
- [28:48]
Steve Sarkeesian
He just kept being Arch, kept working hard, kept being a good teammate, and here he goes, and he kept getting better and better and better. And here we are in year two, and now it's like, okay, do I hedge my bet and do I go back in on Arch, or do I wait and say he's going to be pretty good and. Or not? And I don't think he gives a crap about it. I think he's just kind of like, hey, man, we got a good team. I'm fortunate. I'm surrounded by some good players. Let's go see how good we can be.
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Greg Sankey
Yeah.
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Paul Feinbaum
I mean, not that you need or care about what the media is saying, but they have moved on to another quarterback, fortunately. And I'm sticking with Arch, though.
- [29:26]
Steve Sarkeesian
Smart bet, smart bet, smart bet.
- [29:27]
Paul Feinbaum
And the reason I'm sticking with him has a lot to do with him, but it has more to do with what you've been able to acquire around him. And it's fairly enormous. I know you're pretty excited to see it.
- [29:40]
Steve Sarkeesian
You know, I think in this day and age of the portal and high school, you've got to have the ability to be strategic and to do, to make the moves we make. To bring in a Cam Coleman, to bring in a Hollywood Smothers, to bring in a Raleigh Brown, to bring in a Mike Massunas at tight end, well, we had to let DeAndre Moore go, we had to let Parker Livingstone go, we had to let Trey Wisner go, we had to let C.J. baxter go. I mean, so this wasn't like we just kept acquiring. We had to let some pretty good players leave to create the cap space to bring those guys in. And I think strategically, you know, there were some tough decisions to make, but we made them. And I think we all can agree we're probably, you know, we're better around Arch today than we were a year ago at this time. And not only at the skill position, but I think on the offensive line as well.
- [30:34]
Paul Feinbaum
And one more before, and not that he was just acquired, but when you have some of the defensive players that you have, including Colin Simmons, it seems like both sides of the ball are going to be pretty well fed.
- [30:46]
Steve Sarkeesian
Well, I think that was one of the keys, is we didn't want to be a one dimensional team. And when I assessed where we were in December, coming out of the regular season, you know, 103 is not good enough. It's not good enough. Not when you've been to the semifinals two years in a row and you've been inside the 10 yard line knocking on the door. Okay, so what are we going to do? We needed to increase our talent offensively and we needed to adjust some things. We made a decision to bring in Will Muschamp as a defensive coordinator and then it was okay. Now we need to supply him with the players that fit his scheme. So you go get a Rasheed Biles, you go get a Bo Masco. All right, you, you look at your younger players, the Lance Jacksons of the world, the Murad Watsons, you still have Jelani McDonald and Colin Simmons. And we feel like we've got a chance to be a really good defensive team. We feel like we got a chance to be a really good offensive team and we need that balance because as you know, Paul, in this league, you start going on the road, you don't know which side of the ball you're going to need on a Saturday night in Death Valley or a Saturday afternoon in Neyland, or a Saturday night or Friday night in Kyle Field against Mike Elko. Like, we're going to need all the football, and we're going to need it in the regular season. We're going to need it in the preseason, whether it's Texas State, Ohio State, utsa. Like, we needed to become a complete team that can hopefully be that team in December and January.
- [32:05]
Paul Feinbaum
And this is now the challenge for a lot of coaches. And I think you in particular, with 47 newcomers, 22 transfers, 25 freshmen. How. I'm really eager to hear the answer. How do you make it all work?
- [32:19]
Steve Sarkeesian
I had to change, and I had to do a real, in that December, a real assessment of myself, of just thinking the culture would reproduce itself every year. Because I'm so used to having players just grow up in our program. And you do the work in June and July and in August. I feel like I failed our team last year. We didn't do enough work on our culture because I assumed it would just carry over from one year to the next. And inevitably, I spent the first part of training camp and then early part of the season of recalibrating our culture and breaking down some of the silos that had been built. And I just felt like, man, what I did wasn't enough. So I started doing culture work in February. We started doing it February, March, April, because that's when all those guys were there anyway. I had 47 new guys. And I can't just assume they're just going to simulate right into our culture. We had to put our culture on them, and it paid off all the way. Until yesterday. We did a team scavenger hunt. And these guys are out there. And it came down to the end at the 50 yard line with Arch's team and Collins team, so sweating, yelling, competing, they both sent the picture in at 9:34. We still don't know who won, but they had a blast doing it. And I don't think I could have done that same event a year ago at this time because they didn't even know who each other were enough at this time. And so I had to adjust with the times. I had to adapt.
- [33:47]
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- [33:51]
Greg Sankey
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- [33:53]
Steve Sarkeesian
Well, yeah.
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- [34:33]
Paul Feinbaum
To self evaluate in. In that type of a moment, I don't know.
- [34:39]
WNBA Announcer
It's not tough.
- [34:40]
Steve Sarkeesian
I mean, I do it after every game. You know, I think that that's one way I'm okay with constructive criticism from the media because I'm harder on myself than anybody else. You know, we'll win a game. I'm hard on myself for the four calls that nobody's even talking about. Like that was a dumb call. Why did we do that? Or why did I go for it? People aren't talking about it because we won, but if we would have lost, people when talking about that go for it call that we didn't make it on. And so I self evaluate a ton. I think it's healthy. I think that I continually get better because of that. And so when it came to how we build our team and build our culture, I felt like that was a flaw of mine, that we needed to improve that. And I think it's paying dividends. We'll see, right? It's going to find out. We're going to find out in September if what we did was enough to be a better team early in the season because 3 and 2 wasn't very good last year coming out of Gainesville, Florida.
- [35:36]
Paul Feinbaum
Coach, it's always great to see you. Thank you.
- [35:37]
Steve Sarkeesian
Great to see you too.
- [35:38]
Paul Feinbaum
Steve Sarkeesian joining us as we head to the break live at SEC media days. Time is beginning to run out.
- [35:47]
You're listening to the Paul Feinbaum show podcast.
- [35:53]
We're back in Tampa. Final couple of hours of SEC media days. Don't see that very often at media days as we say hello to Chris Doring who lives in this state. I can understand why after spending five
- [36:05]
Chris Doring
days here, I hadn't seen the sun, let alone any sort of, you know, activity or beach in the last four days. So, yeah, it's great to be here, man. Home game for me. Got to drive. I know you're, you know, flying out later on, but the driving is the
- [36:16]
Paul Feinbaum
way to go there's too many things to recount in a very short period of time. I apologize, coach. I kept worrying coach needed to leave,
- [36:25]
Chris Doring
but he seemed no, take every minute there. You had the commissioner and one of the head coaches.
- [36:29]
Paul Feinbaum
So I'm not upset just today with Lane Kiffin. I know you've talked about it ad nauseam since you left, but what did you make out of it?
- [36:38]
Chris Doring
Yeah, I thought he did a good job of handling things and you know this better than anybody. He made the comment to us that he really enjoys change. He's comfortable doing the uncomfortable and even to the point of, you know, awkward pauses when you're talking to him. The way that he goes about stirring things up. I just, I think he made a comment that he walked right into Kyle Campbell in Trinidad Chambliss as he was getting off the plane. I said, how was that? He goes, it was fine. He's a different guy. And I think finally we're able to look forward now. I'm not buying necessarily that LSU is going to live up to all the expectation that people have. I just think there's too many variables to be able to think that they're going to get Sam Levitt, you know, up to speed in this office. He hadn't practiced a bit. How healthy is he? Are you going to get everybody to acclimate to the new culture, the new scheme they're running on offense? I just. The schedule's tough. I think there's a lot of things that can prevent them from getting to that nine win mark.
- [37:29]
Paul Feinbaum
You mentioned Ole Miss. A lot of people think they are going to pick up where they left off. Are you one of those?
- [37:33]
Chris Doring
I think second to the pressure that LSU and Lane Kiffin faces is what PG Ole Miss and Trinidad Chambliss faces. And I just, you know how it is. Every season is a new season in and of itself. Can you regain the hot streak you were on at the end of the season? I just don't know about that. We went to Oxford and sat down with Trinidad last week. He is a different guy. Cool, just unselfish. Handles all this stuff. Like, you know, a year, a year ago, his life was very different. It doesn't seem like he's changed a bit. So I think if anybody can handle it, I think he can. I actually got Ole Miss in Georgia playing in the SEC title game this year.
- [38:07]
Paul Feinbaum
Who else do you have making the playoffs?
- [38:08]
Chris Doring
I love Oklahoma. I think Oklahoma is going to be much better on offense. The defense is going to be salty again. You know, I look at Alabama as one. That's really Georgia and Alabama have been under the radar tremendously. I don't know if they're going to get back in again, but I like Texas A and M and I like the Bulldogs.
- [38:25]
Paul Feinbaum
Man, you just, I mean, I've run out of questions. You've only been here.
- [38:31]
Chris Doring
No, no. Yeah. Rapid recap of what's going on this week. But let me tell you about the new coaches too. I thought, you know, from the way that they handled this, this event for the first time, the first fits of each of these coaches. Summerall is tremendous for my Gators there. I love what Goelish does in terms of the physicality that he speaks to at Auburn. Will Stein, I've gotten a chance to know him pretty well the last couple months.
- [38:55]
Greg Sankey
Really.
- [38:56]
Chris Doring
Even Ryan Silverfield, like I knew nothing about him but have really fallen in love with the kind of coach that he is and the way the players talk about him and the relationship they have.
- [39:05]
Paul Feinbaum
Chris Doring, really great stuff and we appreciate it. We will see you during the season.
- [39:09]
Steve Sarkeesian
See you soon.
- [39:10]
Paul Feinbaum
We're getting close.
- [39:11]
Chris Doring
Yeah. Looking forward to it. Paul. Thanks for having me.
- [39:13]
Paul Feinbaum
Great to have you. Busy couple hours as we are off and running. We we talked to our last coach, but a lot of the important commentators have dropped by the commissioner for 30 minutes. It has been a very busy show. David Hale and Andrea Adelson will be with us next.
- [39:33]
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