Jumbo Package: LSU coach Brian Kelly speaks on Tommy Rees at SEC Media Days

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Alabama’s two most prominent SEC West opponents for 2023 kicked of SEC Media Days yesterday. Jimbo Fisher was asked about Bobby Petrino’s role in the scheme.

“I’m not going to get into what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. Again, I’m not trying to avoid anything. I just don’t want to create — you create advantages and narratives out there for what goes on,” Fisher said. “Bobby was hired for a reason. He’s a tremendous coach and tremendous guy and a tremendous football mind.”

Fisher later seemed to hint it will be more of a collaborative approach to calling the offense, with Petrino heavily involved.

“Hopefully, he’ll call the game. We’ll have suggestions on things we do, whether it’s offense or defense. Every coach is always involved,” Fisher said. “It’s a more collective thing than people want to give it room for, but when you get to calling and you get on a roll, you’ve got to have a guy that can do it. I think Bobby can definitely do that and does it as well as anybody in college football.”

It will be interesting to see how much Fisher overhauls the offense. His ball control efforts have failed miserably, and a lot of folks are high on QB Conner Weigman. In any case, Jimbo needs to keep Bobby away from the volleyball team. Considering the history, he probably shouldn’t leave his wife alone with Bobby either.

Brian Kelly was asked about competing with Tommy Rees.

“Well I think what I can share is the first thing is, we have a great relationship that we’ve kept since I recruited him, and he played for me. I think that, you know for him, he wanted to make sure that this was the right move in his career, and I felt like it was. I thought it was going to be a great move,” explained Kelly. “Now it was ultimately his decision, he didn’t make it because I told him to do it, he did it because he felt like it was right. But you don’t get a chance to work for Nick Saban very often, and when you do, good things generally happen. As a matter of fact, mostly all the time, so that’s not a hard track record to look at.

“So if you get a chance to work for Nick Saban, if you get a chance to work at a place like Alabama, that has the type of kind of obviously, unparalleled success, this would be a great opportunity. He felt the same way, and I’m happy for him. I’m going to be happy for him, except for one weekend. Or if there’s implications of a tie, or something.”

Kelly has always been complimentary of Saban. Kelly was also quite proud of the recruiting he’s done but, while they did finish sixth nationally in the 2023 cycle, that class is good for only 5th in what will be the new look SEC and the average recruit ranking lagged substantially behind Alabama and Georgia. He had to take eight three stars to fill out the class, landed only two five stars, and with 18 commitments in the 2024 cycle ranks only 13th nationally. Alabama, meanwhile, ranks fifth with only 14 commits.

SEC Network analyst Jordan Rodgers doesn’t seem to think that Jalen Milroe will be a major factor in the QB race.

“Ty is developing. He’s got a really high ceiling,” Rodgers said. “When you dive into the film of Buchner from Notre Dame, I was actually pleasantly surprised with some of the off-platform short game. … He’s not Bryce, but I was surprised by his flexibility and his arm talent in that right.”

Rodgers is also much higher on the receiving talent than many Alabama fans, it seems. Listen to the two minute clip below, or download the entire interview if you like.

Last, I’ll just let you read this from Jeremy Pruitt.

“Then you throw in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, OK, so you sit there as a white man and you see all of this going on and you can see these kids suffering … (It’s) pitiful when you sit in a room and you hear grown men, and I’m talking about our coaches too, when they talk about growing up and the circumstances that they’ve been under, because it’s hard for a white man to understand, right,” Pruitt said, according to the documents obtained by Knox News.

Oh, Jeremy. That’s a nice sentiment and all, but as a football coach who wants to compete and win games, cash inducements to players are self serving. I don’t think anyone is buying the altruism angle.

That’s about it for now. Have a great day.

Roll Tide.