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SEC Media Days delivered several quotes worth repeating in July, but it was later revealed that league coaches were just getting warmed up. Here are a few of the SEC’s best quotes during the 2014 football season (we know we’ve missed a few, so remind us):
Nick Saban was particularly sharp at times, especially following the Crimson Tide’s 14-13 win over Arkansas when Alabama fans weren’t satisfied with the final score:
“Everybody’s got such a high expectation of what our team should be. I was just happy to see our players be happy about playing the game and winning,” Sabana said. “It really, sort of, if you want to know the truth about it, pisses me off when I talk to people that have this expectation like they are disappointed that we only won the game 14-13 and in the way we played. Really, that’s frustrating. You want to talk about something that’s frustrating, that’s frustrating, to me, for our players, who play with a lot of heart in the game.”
Steve Spurrier was his vintage self this season during South Carolina’s unfortunate 7-6 campaign and amid a tailspin in November, he delivered this gem referencing a Taylor Swift smash hit:
“I was telling our coaching staff, I think Taylor Swift’s got a song called ‘Shake it Off.’ Ugh. That’s what we’re trying to do, shake it off and get ready for the Florida Gators next week,” Spurrier said in an interview with The State newspaper. “That’s what we’re going to try to do, see if we can regroup and try to win a close game. You know we’ve had our share of close ones, though we’ve struggled on defense and so forth.”
In September, Spurrier sent out a jab at Texas A&M’s soft schedule which was returned in his direction by Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin who humiliated the Gamecocks and their 18-game home winning streak a few weeks prior in the opener:
Sumlin: Keep hearing people think we haven’t played anybody. I think they forgot about the first week.
— Kate Hairopoulos (@khairopoulos) September 23, 2014
A few days prior to upsetting unbeaten Alabama in October with College Gameday (and notably Katy Perry) in Oxford, Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze gave an emotional, personal message to non-believers that the Rebels were prepared for greatness:
“In this room, we expect to compete Saturday,” Freeze said. “We expect to have a chance to win it. I know our kids feel that way, and our coaches feel that way. I don’t know that we will. I have no idea what the scoreboard will say at the end, but I expect our kids to go and compete and have fun and do a good job.”
After stealing the show in July during SEC Media Days, Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason put foot in mouth during his inaugural season in the nation’s most competitive league. After his team’s seventh SEC loss, a 51-0 drubbing at Mississippi State, he assured anyone who would listen he was still in control:
“We were abysmal in the first half, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost the team,” Mason said. “There are no 21-point plays for when you get behind like we did. We lost our cool. We should have played with purpose. We didn’t play with poise.”
