GDW reports on 1st day of SEC football media days:
LSU, Ole Miss, So Carolina, Vandy address many media personnel:
GDW Analysis:
ATLANTA: LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt stepped into the center stage to open the 2025 SEC football media days from the College Football Hall of Fame/Omni Hotel Monday.
Gameday Weekly has quotes from the participating head coaches, plus a look back at their record in 2024 as well as their season opener and SEC opener.
LSU Tigers:
9 & 4, 5 & 3 in SEC 2024
Coach Brian Kelly:
"The expectations are always high. We've got some outstanding players. I think you start always with the quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier. I think when you look at Garrett, what he brings is a mindset of a coach's son. That is I'm always looking to improve. Every day he comes to workouts, every day I comes to practice, he's looking for areas to improve on. I would tell you that experience is going to be his best teacher in the SEC. Having played a year in the SEC and seeing what needs to happen on a consistent basis is most important.
"He brings the individual trait that coaches love because he wants to be taught, coached. He wants to be coached hard. He wants to be coached in a manner that gets him to be the best version of himself."
LSU opener at Clemson August 30
SEC opener vs. Florida September 13
Ole Miss Rebels:
10 & 3, 5 & 3 in SEC 2024
Coach Lane Kiffin:
"I think we've had really good players over that time; really good schematical coaches that have helped that. I think those usually are the key factors there of playing really well. This last season we led the SEC in scoring offense and defense. That's really unique to do.
"I think that to me shows how good that team was. We played 13 games; won ten of them double digits. Not one of those games was really close.
And then we went 0-3 in one-score games. That does to me show how far we've come as a program to be able to have games like the Georgia game or going to South Carolina and have a game like that."
Ole Miss opener vs. Georgia State August 30
SEC opener at Kentucky September 6
South Carolina Gamecocks:
9 & 4, 5 & 3 in SEC 2024.
Coach Shane Beamer:
"A lot of expectations for 2025, and there should be. We're built for years to come and are going to continue to be good at South Carolina. We are not going anywhere. There is a lot of young talent and there is more coming. It's a great place to recruit to when you talk about the academics, Columbia, the beautiful campus, a capital city, a fantastic place to live, the best fan base in all of America, the upcoming stadium improvements to Williams-Brice Stadium that are going to take place.
"We'll start on that after this upcoming season. We'll start on those improvements and that will be a three-year project to make what already is in my mind the best atmosphere in all of college football even better."
South Carolina opener vs. Virginia Tech September 1.
SEC opener vs. Vanderbilt September 13
Vanderbilt Commodores:
7 & 6, 3 & 5 in SEC 2024
Coach Clark Lea.
"This is what makes us special. Not our buildings or banners. It's our people. Our collective heartbeat relatedness is our edge. We must pay attention to the attitude of the team. We must cultivate the right mindset, and we've got to silence any narrative that suggests an arrival or assurance of progress. Anything that steals our attention from the present will keep us from playing to our identity and executing our strategy every time out.
When we fail to do those things we leave the mission to chance. Chasing progress extends to measurable ways we can play better football. We're a team that cannot afford to beat ourselves. We have to take pride in our performance in the areas that we control. This includes pre-snatch and post-whistle penalties, errors of execution. These self-imposed negatives combined with possession of the ball to be the foundation of winning football at Vanderbilt."
Vanderbilt opener vs. CSU August 30
SEC opener at South Carolina September 13
Tuesday schedule:
Georgia Bulldogs 10:05 a.m.
Auburn Tigers 12:15 p.m.
Tennessee Volunteers 1:30 p.m.
Texas Longhorns 3:15 p.m.
Photo of LSU football coach Brian Kelly and his Tigers during the 2024 season.
Photo courtesy of LSU football.
