The Most Entertaining Personalities from College Football Media Days
Preseason training camps are about to start across the country in the next week or so, moving us ever closer to the 2016 college football season after months and months of down time. The sport's long offseason has been creeping along at a snail's pace but recently picked up the tempo with each FBS conference holding its media days at various locales.
The ultimate goal of these media days is to enable reporters from various outlets to collect information for features and preview stories, with the coaches and players who attend getting a chance to promote themselves and their teams. Stock answers, coach speak and ambition are in ample supply.
Thankfully, some media-day participants manage to stand out from the pack thanks to their personalities. Some do it through humor, be it dry or pointed, while others exude confidence in a way that might come off as cocky but is more a product of their belief in themselves and their teams.
All five power conferences have finished up their media days, while the non-power leagues will wrap up early next week. Here's our look at the biggest and most memorable personalities to this point in what's often referred to as "talking season."
Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema
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With the retirement of "Head Ball Coach" Steve Spurrier, the SEC went into this year's media days with a noticeable void in the one-liner department. Years of the South Carolina coach throwing out barbs and zingers with the greatest of ease went with him when he hung up the visor and headset, but thankfully Bret Bielema stepped up to take the throne.
Heading into his fourth season at Arkansas, with each year better than the one prior, Bielema has become more and more comfortable in front of the massive throng of media in Hoover, Alabama. His 2016 performance was his best—and sexiest—yet, thanks to the many variations of “sexy” he used in describing his Razorbacks.
"At Arkansas, we're not built very sexy; we're just kind of a work in progress," he said, referring to his team's lack of flashy play. "We need a lot of time in the bathroom to get ready and come out and look great. But when we do, we'll stop time."
Bielema also used that term to take a shot at the recently canceled Arkansas-Michigan series: "I understand how the Michigan-Notre Dame thing sounds sexy to everybody else, but I think Michigan and Arkansas sounds sexy."
This is a theme Bielema began in 2015, when he described taking a knee at the end of the Texas Bowl win over Texas as "borderline erotic."
Coastal Carolina Coach Joe Moglia
2 of 8Coastal Carolina doesn't officially join the FBS ranks until 2017, but the Sun Belt Conference still invited coach Joe Moglia to its media day on Monday in New Orleans last week so he could preview what to expect from his program a year from now. If the Chanticleers play anything like their coach talks, it's going to be tons of fun.
"For me, I'm pretty much an open book," said the 67-year-old Moglia, who first coached football in the 1960s but for nearly a quarter century was a corporate executive, including seven years as CEO of TD Ameritrade. "There isn't anything out of bounds."
He admitted to not being "a big football fan" but someone who enjoys the sport for its competition and strategy. "It's like advanced masters chess with 22 people functioning at once," Moglia said. He also offered his take on the acquisition of Yahoo by Verizon.
And he made sure to throw out a recruiting pitch to players interested in coming to Coastal Carolina, where there's only one rule: There are no rules.
"We're the only program in the nation with zero rules but one standard," Moglia said. "We ask our guys and our coaches, and this is the way we recruit: Stand on your own two feet and take responsibility for yourself, you treat others with dignity and respect, and you live with the consequences of your actions."
Coastal Carolina, playing an independent FCS schedule this season, makes its FBS debut on Sept. 2, 2017 against Massachusetts.
Louisville QB Lamar Jackson
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Lamar Jackson was a relative unknown heading into the 2015 season—a true freshman who was a 3-star dual-threat prospect but not one who came to Louisville with much fanfare, since coach Bobby Petrino was more known to favor pro-style passers.
He started for the Cardinals in their opening loss to Auburn, throwing an interception on the first play of the game and getting picked off two more times the next week. With Louisville starting 0-3, the national interest in his play waned considerably.
Then Louisville rattled off six wins in seven games to end the season, with Jackson retaking the starting job and turning into a major weapon when he became just the third player to rush and pass for 200-plus yards in a bowl game. But it wasn't until ACC media days that most people got to hear from the player himself, and he made the most of the occasion.
"I think you guys are going to see a whole lot of everything from me," Jackson said last week in Charlotte, North Carolina.
There was a noticeable level of confidence in his answers, something he attributed to "having a lot of training on my interviews" after being told he was going to represent Louisville. "At first I was like, media day, I don't want to do this, coach. I'm growing, so I have to do what I have to do."
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LSU Coach Les Miles
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Remember that old TV commercial for brokerage firm E.F. Hutton, made famous by its memorable "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen" tagline? Yeah, that's Les Miles at SEC media days. Actually, it's any time Miles has a microphone or tape recorder in front of him because you never know what's going to be on the docket for that day.
His opening statement each year in Hoover is appointment viewing/listening, and the 2016 version was no different. It was also a possible record-setter, lasting 21 minutes and 40 seconds and hitting on topics ranging from his offseason travels—what he refers to as "Miles' summer update"—to an almost position-by-position breakdown of his talented roster.
He also doesn't shy away from social issues, weighing in on the tragic police shootings in Baton Rouge and equating it to what he strives to do with his football team.
"The reality of it is just hope to put them in the position to allow them to have the greatest possible impact, because they're our future," Miles said.
Now the longest-tenured SEC coach, heading into his 12th season at LSU, Miles suggested his role as "dean" of the league's coaches should come with a special outfit.
"I should probably get like a robe, right, and maybe a hat that maybe sits to the side and maybe my hanging cloth could be, you know, kind of dressed up some," Miles said. "That would be nice."
Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh
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If any other coach were to show up at his conference's media days wearing a ball cap with his suit, it might turn some heads. With Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, it came off as completely normal for a coach who has managed to create a persona simply through his wardrobe choices.
Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer noted this latest ensemble, because he "hadn't had a haircut in five weeks," fits right in with "Jim Harbaugh the Entertainer—the goofy program CEO who sells tickets and writes headlines with ease. The one who recently tucked in his Allen Iverson jersey during one of his camps, much like your father would."
It's also the guy who didn't hesitate to autograph a Wolverines fan's bicep in the hallway.
The hat-suit combo didn't distract from an entertaining Q&A session, during which Harbaugh used the word “meritocracy” several times in response to a question about playing freshmen and then asked if that was a "real word or did I make it up?" On his appearance in a rap video, he said the “cool people liked it” and later said that "uptight white people" were the only critics, according to Sports Illustrated's Brian Hamilton.
Maybe the only surprising thing about Harbaugh's time at Big Ten media days in Chicago was the fact he didn't manage to shoot off a few choice tweets along the way.
Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield
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It shouldn't be surprising to hear that Baker Mayfield felt right at home in front of droves of cameras and microphones at Big 12 media days in Dallas. It's the same way he looks when on the football field: ready and willing to shine in the spotlight.
"Mayfield had more reporters gathered to hear what he had to say than gathered around the table to hear Sooners coach Bob Stoops a few tables to Mayfield's left," Ryan Aber of the Oklahoman wrote. "The total package of Mayfield—his backstory, success last season, personality and, yes, his looks—made him the unquestioned star of the event among players."
His introduction from Fox Sports Southwest's set included the statement that Mayfield was "here to entertain" the viewers, though he wasn't able to show off the dance moves he's displayed during his time with the Sooners.
Oklahoma's standout quarterback was so popular over the two days at the Omni Hotel that he was a topic of discussion for more than just when the Sooners were on the dais. That's due to the Big 12's recent implementation of what's been dubbed the “Baker Mayfield rule,” which no longer causes a non-scholarship player who transfers within the conference to lose a year of eligibility. Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury—Mayfield's coach before transferring to Oklahoma—and others were asked about the rule and about Mayfield.
"I cheered for him in every game except one, and it's been fun to see the success he's had," Kingsbury said.
Syracuse Coach Dino Babers
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One of four new coaches in the ACC this year, Dino Babers is going through his third "introductory" period with a conference's media horde after spending two years at FCS Eastern Illinois and two more at Bowling Green. That previous experience enabled him to come off as a seasoned veteran in Charlotte when asked about how he plans to turn around Syracuse's foundering program.
"Since I've arrived at Syracuse University, I felt that we've been on a daunting journey for correctness and righteousness," he said during his opening statement. Later, when asked about the uptempo system he's brought with him—which averaged 42.2 points per game last year at Bowling Green—he gave what Bleacher Report's Justin Ferguson called "perhaps the line of the event" in describing what the first practice each spring resembles.
"When you put this style of football in ... it always ends the exact same way: with a bunch of big guys over trash cans not saying much shaking their heads," Babers said. "When they get done with that, so that I can speak to them, I look them dead in the eye, I tell them, 'That's the slowest practice we're ever going to have, and we'll never be that slow again.'"
Babers and his staff have taken to using the slogan "orange is the new fast" to describe Syracuse's system, he said on ESPNU. That and "dome dudes" because of their status as the only power-conference team that plays indoors.
Washington State Coach Mike Leach
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No list of entertaining media-days personalities is complete without a recap of Mike Leach's wide-ranging thoughts, opinions and ramblings. The eccentric Washington State coach has built a cottage industry out of his unique takes, and the list of topics is ever-changing.
A year after providing reporters in Los Angeles with dating advice, this time around, Leach gave his thoughts on subjects such as Brexit, Pokemon Go, non-North American football and the overreliance on texting to communicate.
"Nobody talks to people anymore," he said. "I mean, there's people (who) won't even talk face to face. They'll go across the room and text each other. I think it's actually kind of disturbing. I think the days before cell phones, when it was dirt clod wars at construction sites, was a lot more wholesome and productive to be honest."
And that was after a very Leach-like opening statement: "All right, any questions?"
When asked his thoughts on the Heisman Trophy, he said "I'm in favor of it." He advocated for a 16-team playoff, saying it would be "settled on the field" instead of via a selection process. And he also suggested that recently retired coach Steve Spurrier is a "fidgeter" who hasn't figured out how to sit back and relax now that he's done with football.
All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports, unless otherwise noted. All statistics provided by CFBStats, unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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