SEC Football: What to expect during 2019 SEC Media Days

SEC Football is finally here as SEC Media Days begin July 15th. What storylines are we expecting to come out of Hoover, Alabama?

The SEC Media Days extravaganza is always seen as the start of the SEC football season. Every team brings their head coach and three star players to talk to the media, and storylines will be formed for the 2019 season. From position battles to outfit choices, everything will be discussed.

What key storylines should you expect to hear at the end of the week?

Position battles

Many teams are in the middle of a position battle. Whether it is Alabama with some defensive players or Auburn with the quarterbacks, every team has a question mark or two in terms of depth chart. I doubt you will get any information on who has a lead in these battles, but maybe Gus Malzahn will give a hint as to how close Bo Nix is to stealing the starting role from Joey Gatewood.

Staff signings

As expected, Alabama will carry most of the coverage in Hoover. A big thing to talk about will be his new offensive and defensive coordinators, along with some other key assistant coaches. Expect there to be plenty of questions as to how they are doing in new roles. However, every coach will speak of their assistants with high praise this early in the year. Even if someone is struggling in new roles, don’t expect that to come out at SEC Media Days.

Transfer portal

There were a lot of teams in the SEC that either benefitted from or were hurt by the transfer portal after last season. One key beneficiary was Missouri, who landed their quarterback for this year. Kelly Bryant transferred from Clemson to Missouri, and he will be attending SEC Media Days. I expect him to answer many questions about transferring.

Alabama and Georgia also lost their backup quarterbacks to the transfer portal, so they will be asked about that as well. Alabama recently had Kedrick James enter the portal, so Nick Saban will receive plenty of questions about it. He might end up offering an entirely new set of rules for the portal, as he likes to do at events like this.

Nick Saban will control the headlines

This is certainly not Saban’s first rodeo. He will walk up to the podium with something he wants to talk about. Whether he is bringing up something that matters to him or just deflecting from attention being brought to other topics, he will take the first opportunity to talk about what he wants the writers to publish.

In the past, he has talked about everything from satellite camps to how many SEC games should be played every year. It is hard to predict what the topic will be this year, but expect it to include some type of change to rules. It could be anything from the transfer portal to the fair catch rule on kickoffs that was implemented last season. I would also expect some comment about how healthy he is coming off a hip replacement surgery to help the recruiting trail.

This might as well be Saban’s event, and he will bring up his own topics as he sees fit.