1. Arkansas running back Knile Davis can bench press 430 pounds, squat 550 pounds and run a 40-yard dash in 4.29 seconds.

2. Expect a better running game from Tennessee this year.

3. John Adams on Tennessee sports: “What else can the NCAA do that won’t qualify as overkill.” Take solace, Vol fans, at least you’re not North Carolina.

4. Tennessee defensive end Malik Jackson has delivered some bulletin board material for SEC opponents.

5. Jadeveon Clowney: “I’m ready to have a big season…”

6. ESPN wants South Carolina and Vanderbilt to kick off the 2012 season.

7. Big expectations for LSU football this fall. Archie Manning noticed a big difference in Jordan Jefferson this summer.

8. Putting the Iron Bowl rivalry in perspective - from Afghanistan.

9. Beyond the quarterback competition, five key questions Alabama needs to answer as its roster continues to churn.

10. As an  overhauled Georgia football team starts practice this week, here are five key questions facing the team with practice starting Thursday.

11. A preseason view and ranking of the Bulldogs.

12, A Level 1 secondary violation for Georgia over an inadvertent text message.

13. Open practices this first week for Missisippi State and Ole Miss.

14. Don’t forget State’s Vick Ballard when discussing the conference’s running backs.

15. Want to win a national championship? It starts with the defensive line.

16. Will Muschamp says recruiting in Florida is tougher than Texas. The SEC is full of rivalries for the new Gators coach.

17. The city of Memphis is a SEC melting pot.

18. The genius of John Calipari was on display this week.

 Extra

19. What would you do?  Go to college or take $7.5 million?

South Carolina has received a commitment from linebacker Kaiwan Lewis from Saint Joseph High School in Hammonton, N.J.

“I’m solid, 100 percent,” Lewis told 247Sports.com about his commitment. “I’m not taking anymore visits. This is it. I’m going to South Carolina.”

Lewis chose South Carolina over offers from Florida, Arkansas, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida State and others.

“South Carolina is the school that is the best fit for me,” Lewis told 247Sports. “My family and my coach all agreed with that. I think it is the place that I can better myself as an athlete. I knew I was going to South Carolina after their Showcase Camp (last week).”

South Carolina has 18 commitments for the class of 2012.

1. Honest Opinion: Travis’ New Site Continues To Rip Into Bama Situation/ The T-Town Menswear Story Isn’t Going Away As Websites Keep Digging

2. Spurrier Sounds Off On Academics, Ohio State, Tennessee And More

3. Clemson QB  Chimes In On USC Mess Via Twitter

4. UT Has Competition For Top A.D.s; Shuler Not A Candidate / Alleva Stays At LSU, UT Keeps Looking

5. Apparently Tiring Of MSU Talk, Nutt Adds Fuel To Egg Bowl Fire 

1. Les Miles on using recruiting services: “We look for film and video anywhere we can find it.”

2. When it comes to schools using the services, the NCAA anticipated issues last year.

3. Jon Solomon: “When’s the last time Alabama or Auburn lost a football recruit to UAB?”

4. Auburn practice starts under the lights on Wednesday.

5. Steve Spurrier changes his mind on South Carolina’s first practice.

6. Arkansas will open practice on intramural fields.

7. Tennessee reports Monday for preseason camp and freshman Devrin Young is hoping to make his mark on special teams.

8. Replacing skill position players the big challenge at Kentucky.

9. Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson is ready for his close-up.

10. John Brantley is the fourth best college quarterback in the state of Florida.

11. Suspended Alabama wide receiver Keiwone Malone will transfer to the University of Memphis.

12. Derek Dooley to high school coaches -”don’t tear up our fields too  much.”

13. Could we be looking at an all-SEC national championship game?

14. Joe B. Hall will join John Calipari’s staff for an exhibition game.

15. Former Kentucky player DeAndre Liggins may head overseas during the NBA lockout.

16. The Mississippi State basketball team will play in Mau1 in 2012.

Defensive end Noah Spence from Bishop Mcdevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pa., is preparing to cut his list of schools to seven.

“Then he’ll be setting up the officials the first week of September, or at least we’ll be knocking it down to five,” Spence’s father, Greg, told 247Sports.com. “It’s a fluid situation right now, just because of the nature of college athletics right now, especially with the NCAA. Every day it’s something new.”

And it was something new this week with one school Noah Spence is considering – North Carolina. The Tar Heels fired head coach Butch Davis on Wednesday.

“We have a lot of respect and admiration for that institution, no question about it,” Greg Spence told 247Sports. “UNC is tremendous, we all know that, academically and you really couldn’t ask for more. The football program, unfortunately, is in shambles right now.”

Noah Spence, who’s ranked the nation’s No. 2 weakside defensive end by 247Sports, has offers from several SEC schools, including Auburn, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Auburn has received a commitment from defensive end Gimel President from Wando High School in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

President made the commitment after recent trips to Auburn, North Carolina and South Carolina.

“Auburn feels like family,” President told the Charleston Post and Courier. “The players made me feel like I was at home.”

President, who’s ranked the nation’s 40th-best defensive end by ESPN.com, received a total of 14 offers. He was in Chapel Hill on Wednesday when Butch Davis was fired as North Carolina’s head coach.

“That affected my decision a lot,” President said.

Defensive back Will Redmond from Memphis (Tenn.) East High School will announce his college decision on Monday.

Redmond will choose between Tennessee and Mississippi State and has an “has an idea” of where he will sign, according to Keith Niebuhr of Rivals.com.

Redmond is ranked the nation’s 30th-best athlete by Rivals. His teammate, running back Brian Kimbrow, announced his commitment to Vanderbilt on July 1.

Speaking to a booster club in Scottboro, Alabama last night, Crimson Tide athletic director Mal Moore addressed the T-Town Menswear story/scandal that doesn’t seem to be going away:


“The university has responded to this maybe six months ago.  Meeting with the store owner, his attorney, our players, everybody that we could find that was involved.  Our compliance people, Mike Ward, his people, have done an outstanding job with this.  It was responded to properly.

There are so many people so excited over college athletics, you have to school and coach your players regarding all this.  It’s just as important for our alumni and our fans to be knowledgeable (about) what they can and can’t do.”


Moore talks of response and schooling, but even if Alabama responded immediately and correctly and educated its players after-the-fact, the school could still face possible NCAA sanctions for any rule violations that led to said response and schooling.

Just as we at MrSEC.com aren’t going to look at a Facebook photo, assume someone’s sportcoat was a gift from a booster, and declare a program to be dirty because of it… we also aren’t going to accept Moore’s statement as fact without a bit more information with which to make a judgement. 

And we think the NCAA will probably take a similar approach.

Now, investigators might find evidence of wrongdoing or they might not.  But we will be surprised if NCAA officials don’t at least ask a couple of questions about what exactly Alabama compliance personnel found and why exactly they disassociated Tom Al Betar from their program.

In recent years, the SEC had done much to change its reputation as being a cheaters’ paradise.  Just a couple of years ago the only SEC program in NCAA hot water was Arkansas’ track team and, let’s face it, ESPN doesn’t dedicate a whole lot of airtime to track scandals.

But in the past 12 months all the progress once made has been erased.  The SEC is back to being the World of Outlaws.  So knowing that their league is rightly or wrongly viewed as the dirtiest league in the country, would SEC presidents still eye Oklahoma if expansion push comes to shove in the near future?

Last summer, Mike Slive watched the Big 12 teeter on the verge of extinction and worked to provide a cushy landing spot for Texas A&M and Oklahoma.  If that league were to implode today — and we think it’ll still take a while to cave in on itself — A&M would still be at the top of the SEC’s wish list.

The school would bring massive Texas television markets (which would please the SEC’s TV partners and drive up league revenue).  It would provide an inroad to fertile Texas recruiting ground.  And the Aggies have the facilities, budget and passionate fan support to fit right into the SEC family.

Oklahoma?  Well, they’re a name.  Tulsa and Oklahoma City aren’t big TV markets and Oklahoma isn’t a particularly rich recruiting zone.  The school would not bring the academic clout of, say, a Virginia or Georgia Tech to the East, either.

Their athletics, however, are excellent.  Oklahoma is a national brand.  Bring in Oklahoma and you bring in one of the top programs in the United States.  Except for one thing.

In case you missed it, the Sooners were back in the news yesterday falling on their swords before the NCAA.  In the past few seasons both basketball and football have run afoul of the rulebook, but this time it was once again the hoops program.  As The Tulsa World states:

“Because the latest infractions occurred within a five-year period of the Bomar/Big Red case, OU was subject to NCAA ‘repeat violator’ penalties.  Those include a one- to two-year suspension of the institution’s offending sport, in which games, coaching activities and scholarships are basically frozen.”

Layman’s terms: OU could face the death penalty in basketball.  While not likely to get hit with such a serious penalty, it should make Slive and the SEC presidents wonder just what kind of trouble the Sooners could get into if they break the rules yet again moving forward.

Not only would snarky columnists be able to write “Outlaw League Adds Another OUtlaw program,” but the Sooners could actually be weakened by NCAA sanctions.  If they join the SEC in the next three or four years and break the rules again, they could conceivably be devastated by NCAA penalties.

If the top reason for grabbing Oklahoma is Sooner athletics and Sooner athletics could be damaged…

We’re looking 15 steps down the road, of course, as the Big 12 continues to put on a semi-happy face for the national media.  But if things once again get froggy on the expansion front, one has to wonder if Oklahoma — with all its current baggage — would still be the SEC’s first choice to join Texas A&M on the league’s invitation list.

New offensive coordinator Steve Kragthorpe met with some LSU fans yesterday and he let it be known that he’s not a big fan of playing multiple quarterbacks.

Last year, Jordan Jefferson was sometimes relieved by Jarrett Lee.  Both return this year along with newcomer — and fan favorite — Zach Mettenberger.  But it sounds like Kragthorpe wants to have one man pulling the trigger, not two or three:


“I’m not opposed to a multiple-quarterback system.  But it’s hard to get more than one or two quarterbacks ready every week with this 20-hour rule.  If we had a 20-hour rule when I was playing, we would have played the games on Wednesday.”


The coach had nothing but praise for Jefferson, the incumbent who head coach Les Miles has been so very high on this offseason.