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SEC spring meetings are being held today in Sandestin, Fla. and up at the podium first was Arkansas coach Bret Bielema, who kicked things off with a shocking comment.
He said he and Auburn coach Gus Malzahn actually agree on something for once. Bielema wants underclassmen to be better evaluated before entering the NFL draft, which Malzahn has publicly advocated.
Bielema on allowing underclassmen return after declaring for NFL early: "It's the first thing Gus and I agreed upon since being here."
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) May 31, 2016
Bielema thinks an underclassmen combine the weekend after the title game is a great proposal
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
In essence, Bielema says a good remedy for the players leaving early could be to create an underclassmen combine, which would provide them a much better idea (i.e. a draft evaluation) of where they might be selected.
Bielema also said he’s an advocate for an SEC-Big Ten or SEC-ACC football challenge much like basketball.
“I think one of the greatest things — and I was in it on the other side — when I was in the Big Ten (at Wisconsin), they had the Big Ten-ACC Challenge in basketball, and I thought it was just so cool to see crossover games at the beginning of the year,” Bielema said Tuesday.
“I’d love to see it with the Big Ten, but I think the ACC, with 14 teams, we’ve got the same number of teams,” Bielema said to the media. “You look at a four-year window and you reserve the second and third weeks and you play one through 14. Let the commissioners come together and decide who’s playing, or an outside source, and just have the Big Ten and the SEC go together on two different weekends.”
Below we will continue to provide updates from Bielema’s time in front of the mic:
Bielema says his team is as close to a 3.0 GPA as it has ever been. “I was never that close.”
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema says that he wants his team to be “a little more Curry and a little less LeBron” when it comes to being team players.
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema jokes that coaches going into other coaches recruiting territories with satellite camps went over like a “lump of coal.”
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema says that the one thing that he’d change about recruiting is an early signing period.
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema also joked that he doesn’t watch basketball and he probably shouldn’t be using that analogy.
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema says that Slive once fined him $20,000 for talking negatively about another SEC school after being warned.
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Bielema calls coaches using broadcast tape instead of coaches tape at HT “one of the biggest game-changers in CFB history.”
— Barrett Sallee ?? (@BarrettSallee) May 31, 2016
Tyler Waddell is a member of the Saturday Down South news team. He brings over five years of professional journalism experience and is closing in on a Bachelor's in sports management. Follow him on Twitter (@Tyler_Waddell).
