Time for SEC to get its swag back

After allowing a full day for Razorbacks fans to process and mourn what happened at the College World Series, it's now time for them to join the ranks of the rest of the SEC outside the Arkansas-Louisiana boot.

Not only is today the first day of summer, it's the first day of football season for Hogs fans. Between John Calipari's first season as Arkansas basketball coach and the promise of Dave Van Horn finally getting his national championship in baseball, Sam Pittman's football team has been deep on the back burner for a good five and a half months now.

Razorbacks fans were in the non-football coma for so long that it's only 24 days until SEC Media Days kick off in Atlanta. However, before getting into what might go on there as coaches take turns letting everyone know they like their team while trying to avoid stirring up any drama, there might be minor value in a quick recap of where things left off.

The inaugural 12-team playoff didn't go well for the SEC as the conference with the most bluster when it came to complaining it deserved more spots sputtered at best. Only Texas, barely in the conference long enough to be considered a member, made any noise by squeaking into the national semifinals with a double-overtime win over Arizona State before getting doubled up by Ohio State.

In fact, it was a pretty gloomy postseason for the conference. Had it not been for Arkansas and Vanderbilt, two of only seven SEC teams to get a win during bowl season, in addition to a pair of wins by Texas, the nation's baddest conference would have finished with a losing record instead of narrowly squeezing out an 8-7 record.

The rest of the conference was an embarrassing 4-6, including Georgia and Tennessee getting beat by a combined 65-27 in their playoff openers. Overall, the conference was much improved as far as quality from the top to the very bottom with the improvements at Arkansas and Vanderbilt, but greatness at the top of the SEC greatly declined.

So that brings things back to the beginning of talking season. Commissioner Greg Sankey and his host of coaches will be tempted to talk up the position that the SEC automatically deserves four teams in the playoffs as the winds blow toward making 16 teams official.

However, it might be best to cool that for a little bit. After all, the conference came one play away from not having a team reach the semifinals last season, making football arguably the SEC's weakest sport.

Maybe it's time to go back to the days of the SEC focusing on each other at SEC Media Days rather than being nationally focused. Bring back a little fun to loosen things up a bit.

See if Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin can bring his Steve Spurrier persona that dominates his social media into the real world so he can pull off whatever his version of "You can't spell Citrus without UT" he's got in him.

Give Arkansas coach Sam Pittman a couple of cold beers before he takes the podium and see how freely he speaks on his thoughts about LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Texas and Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz. His always entertaining awe shucks personality might develop an edge as he reflects the frustrations of his fan base with his inhibitors turned down a tad.

Speaking of Drinkwitz, he's been in handcuffs for the past few years. Let the man be his overly weird self. Let him wander out in full cosplay and say whatever floats through that mind of his.

Free him to express his illogical hatred of Arkansas while showing off his Elon Musk on ketamine without the need of ketamine odd behavior and movements. It will be the most fun he has all season and it's bound to create a great deal of emotions from other fan bases.

For once, other schools will remember Missouri's part of the club. Lastly, let Kirby Smart speak unfiltered.

Does anyone even know who gets under his skin now that Nick Saban has left Alabama as a shell of itself? Texas and fellow Saban padawan Steve Sarkisian would seem the most likely to face whatever Smart might have to say, but, then again, the Longhorns didn't put a dent in the Georgia record books despite two shots at it, neither of which were in Athens.

Maybe after the conference loosens up a little bit and stops being such sticks in the mud, top tier teams will start to find the mojo that built SEC football into a power and the beacon sport for the league.

However, until then, these coaches have just under 70 days to figure out how they're going to make up becoming the darkest blemish on the proverbial roster to the rest of the SEC sports. If only it just meant more in football too.

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