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O’Gara: Why the SEC Coach of the Year race is down to 3 and will be decided in the next 2 weeks
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I’m not willing to bet the farm on much.
Also, I don’t own a farm. My in-laws do, but I wouldn’t feel right betting their land on anything, much less something completely subjective like SEC Coach of the Year.
But if I had a farm of my own to bet, I’d bet it on SEC Coach of the Year being down to 3 candidates.
Shane Beamer, Mike Elko and Clark Lea should all be in consideration for the honor. None has ever earned that honor, so we’ll have a 1st-time winner unless we get a surprise decision of Kirby Smart, who won the 3 times his team was en route to the national championship game. (I believe the voting takes place immediately following the regular season, and it’s announced after conference championship weekend.)
I don’t expect that. After all, I’m betting my hypothetical farm on those 3 to sweep the AP and Coaches choices for SEC Coach of the Year. Perhaps it will be a split decision, as we had 2 years ago when Smart won the AP honor and Josh Heupel took home the award in the coaches’ voting.
Even if it is split, I’d expect these 3 coaches to have a chance at earning at least 1 share of SEC Coach of the Year:
The case for Shane Beamer
South Carolina is sitting at 7-3, having beaten 3 consecutive AP Top 25 teams for the 1st time in program history. Need I say more? OK, even the Gamecocks’ losses are good. They lost an extremely controversial game against LSU that went down to the wire, and they nearly pulled off a miracle comeback to stun Alabama.
South Carolina is amid unprecedented success in the post-Steve Spurrier era. Not only did the Gamecocks end the 5-year Mizzou losing streak and win a battle of AP Top 25 teams for the 1st time since 2014, but they’re now ranked No. 18 in the Playoff poll. That’s the highest CFP ranking in program history.
For a team that was picked to finish 13th in the SEC after a 5-win season, there’s no denying that Beamer has wildly exceeded expectations. He did so even though he kept both coordinators and bet on redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers being the best option to replace NFL-bound Spencer Rattler. On top of that, this was a team that started 1-3 in SEC play and weathered the storm.
Oh, and the other case for Beamer is obvious. He went 2-0 against Lea and Elko, with a pair of 3-score victories. It’s hard to argue against that.
How does he win it?
If Beamer wins against Wofford and, more importantly, against Clemson in Death Valley, he’ll be 9-3 and likely in the top 15 in the final Playoff rankings. Four of his wins would have come against teams who were ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time of the matchup. That’s impressive. But fair or not, he’d probably need A&M to miss out on an SEC Championship berth, as well as Vandy going 0-2 in its final 2 regular-season games as an underdog.
Speaking of A&M …
The case for Mike Elko
How can you not be impressed with the job that Elko has done this year? He somehow turned a quarterback controversy into a changeup that caught opposing teams off-balance, and he did so en route to a 5-1 start in SEC play. The Aggies were the last remaining SEC team that was unbeaten in conference play, which only happened because Elko was present enough to make the substitution of the year by bringing in Marcel Reed when down 10 in the middle of the 3rd quarter against LSU.
This is the type of year that many assumed would become the norm under Jimbo Fisher. And yet, even after Elko’s roster was exposed to the 30-day transfer portal window — he also did a tremendous job with imports such as Nic Scourton and Jabre Barber — he led the Aggies to Playoff relevance in late November. That took shaking off a deflating Notre Dame loss to open the season and winning 7 in a row, 2 of which were against teams that were ranked in the top 10 of the AP Poll at the time of the matchup.
Sure, the Aggies might not have as deep of a resume as other 2-loss teams in the SEC, but that’s a good problem for a program that was 20-17 the past 3 seasons. Elko has been everything that A&M could’ve hoped for.
How does he win it?
Win these next 2 games, including the all-important showdown against Texas, and get to Atlanta. That’s something A&M didn’t do when it had Johnny Manziel, nor could it ever accomplish that feat when it wrote Fisher a blank check. Shoot, A&M hasn’t played in a conference title game since 1998.
Historical significance would work in Elko’s favor. Even though he lost the head-to-head with Beamer, he’s the only candidate remaining who has a path to the SEC Championship. That’s a trump card to at least earn a share of the award.
The case for Clark Lea
Where do we start? How about the fact that Vandy clinched bowl eligibility earlier than it ever has in program history? What about the fact that Vandy has as many SEC wins (3) as it had in the past 5 years combined?
Oh, wait. I buried the lede.
HOW ABOUT THE FACT THAT VANDY BEAT NO. 1 ALABAMA?!?!?
OK, all caps was intense. Then again, if there was ever a time to bust out all caps, it was for Vandy beating Alabama in a game of organized football. Lea led Vandy to its 1st win vs. a top-5 program ever. He did that to end Vandy’s SEC losing streak, which dated back to November 2022. Wild.
But it wasn’t just that, and honestly, it’s not just that Vandy owns the state of Alabama after Diego Pavia beat Hugh Freeze for the 3rd time. Lea’s radical offseason approach deserves national praise. He became his own defensive coordinator and imported all the best parts of New Mexico State’s 10-win team, including Pavia, elite tight end Eli Stowers, offensive coordinator Tim Beck and senior offensive adviser Jerry Kill, who has helped with the day-to-day duties.
Lea didn’t just save his job following a winless season in SEC play. He earned himself a raise and showed he could do previously unthinkable things at his alma mater.
How does he win it?
This might not be fair to Beamer and Elko, both of whom could still have a path beyond this week, but I’m convinced that Lea will earn at least a share of the award if he beats LSU in Death Valley at night on Saturday. Free fall or not, the Tigers had a 3-year winning streak in home night games before Alabama rolled in on Nov. 9.
If Lea can’t accomplish that feat, ending Tennessee’s Playoff hopes by beating the Vols in Nashville would be quite the closing argument. My guess is that Lea isn’t winning the award by finishing the regular season at 6-6, but beating either of Vandy’s next 2 opponents could move him into the obvious choice for the honor.
So who wins it?
Lea.
This weekend, he beats LSU in Death Valley for Vandy’s 7th win, Pavia finds fake Mike the Tiger and rides him all the way back to Nashville while Brian Kelly is left wondering how in the world he just let Vandy beat him in that atmosphere to guarantee a higher finish in the final conference standings. For the 1st time since 2008, Vandy earns an SEC Coach of the Year honor.
That might not be all-caps worthy, but that’ll matter a ton to the Commodores’ faithful.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
