SEC Football Q&A: Which First-Year Head Coach Will Have Most Success in 2016?
Three coaches will don the headsets for the first time with new programs in the SEC in 2016, as former Florida head coach Will Muschamp will take over at South Carolina, former Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart and former Memphis defensive coordinator Barry Odom will take over at Missouri—where he played and worked as an assistant under former head coach Gary Pinkel.
Which one is set up for the most success in Year 1?
That question and more are answered in this week's edition of SEC Q&A.
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Monday on Bleacher Report, this year's edition of "Optimistic, Pessimistic and Realistic" expectations went up, and the three new head coaches don't exactly have groundbreaking, realistic predictions. I have Georgia at 9-3, Missouri at 3-9 and South Carolina at 5-7.
Based on expectations, I wouldn't define any of those hypothetical seasons as overly "successful." However, the path that I think Smart will take to get to 9-3 will be the most impressive of the three.
Let's be real: 9-3 at Georgia isn't great. In fact, 9-3 regular seasons in back-to-back years got former head coach Mark Richt fired. But Smart can use the grace period associated with being a new head coach, reach 9-3 and set the tone for the future of the program.
The future is true-freshman early-enrollee quarterback Jacob Eason, who I think will start from the moment toe meets leather in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game against North Carolina. In that prediction piece linked above, I have Georgia winning in the Georgia Dome in the opener and springing an upset at home vs. Tennessee.
If Georgia posts a 9-3 record with Eason at the helm with those two signature wins, that'd be a pretty solid inaugural campaign for Smart.
However, Muschamp isn't out of this battle.
I have South Carolina at 5-7 at this point of the offseason. But if Muschamp can find another win in there somewhere and reach a bowl game, I would consider that a more successful season than Georgia's 9-3 relative to expectations, based on the massive talent gap that exists on the rosters of the two border rivals.
It depends on how you look at it.
Is LSU 9.5 points better than Wisconsin? I don't think so.
Sure, some great defensive players like linebacker Kendell Beckwith, cornerback Tre'Davious White and defensive lineman Lewis Neal chose to return to college and play for new defensive coordinator Dave Aranda. Plus, star running back Leonard Fournette is back for his third (and likely final) season in Baton Rouge.
But LSU still runs a painfully conservative offense under head coach Les Miles, offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and quarterback Brandon Harris, and it doesn't seem to have the capability to get into and win shootouts consistently.
Harris is 2-3 as a starter on the road during his two years at LSU, and there undoubtedly will be a home-field advantage for Wisconsin in the home of the Green Bay Packers. LSU will probably win, but as Odds Shark noted in its predicted score of 38.3-35.5, grabbing those points and taking the Badgers is rather tempting.
But LSU is getting a ton of hype this offseason nationally, including from ESPN.com's Football Power Index, which ranks the Tigers No. 2 in the nation behind Florida State.
The job of oddsmakers is to get an equal amount of money on both sides, so setting a line at 9.5 seems to make sense considering the public thinks very highly of the Tigers.
It is a sucker bet, though.
Not very likely (Muschamp's one good year was actually his second year at Florida, when he went 11-2 and made the Sugar Bowl).
Unlike Muschamp, Jim McElwain has made good decisions on both sides of the ball in the coaching offices, which should give him much more staying power.
Muschamp came to Gainesville in 2011, and his big coaching hire was Charlie Weis. Charlie Weis.
Are you kidding me?
Two years of Brent Pease didn't do much to spark the offense either, and by the time he found Kurt Roper in 2014, it was far too late for Muschamp to save his job.
McElwain is an offensive wizard who has found success wherever he has gone and lured Geoff Collins away from Mississippi State prior to last season to run his defense. Collins made Mississippi State's defense one of the best situational defenses in the country (first in red-zone scoring defense, seventh in red-zone touchdown percentage and 21st in third-down defense in 2014 according to CFBStats.com).
What's more, he lured Torrian Gray from Virginia Tech this offseason to run the defensive backfield after Gray posted the second-best pass defense in the country over a 10-year span, according to Florida's release.
Muschamp neglected the side of the ball that he was less familiar with. McElwain has paid closer attention to it than he has his own side.
Because of that, he'll be around Gainesville for a long time.
The only reason I can fathom is because he plays for Mississippi State, and Mississippi State always gets overlooked.
If you discount South Carolina's Skai Moore—who's out for the year with a neck injury—Richie Brown is the SEC's leading returning tackler at the linebacker position (109) and third-most prolific overall.
That's more than Tennessee's Jalen Reeves-Maybin (105), Vanderbilt's Zach Cunningham (103), Arkansas' Brooks Ellis (102) and Florida's Jarrad Davis (98).
A legitimate case can (and should) be made for Brown to be a preseason All-SEC First Team linebacker when we vote at SEC media days in Hoover, Alabama, next month, but I would be floored if he even makes the second team.
That's a shame.
He was a monster in big road wins for the Bulldogs last year against Auburn and Arkansas, when he notched double-digit tackles in each and totaled 4.5 tackles for loss.
Head coach Dan Mullen replaced his entire on-field defensive coaching staff this offseason, which could have led to tumultuous times in Starkville if there was no leader in place. Luckily for Mullen, Brown is that leader and should help ease the transition.
Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Statistics courtesy of CFBStats.com unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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