Tight race for second place

Nick Saban said yesterday that he thinks “there’s a lot of parity in our league”.

If he doesn’t include Alabama, he’s right.

Workin’ for the man isn’t really a job.

Greg Sankey can be such a card.

Greg Sankey knew the exact amount of time between the end of the College World Series and the beginning of Southeastern Conference media days.

He knows because he was there in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 27 when Florida beat LSU to win the national championship. He knows because he was there, too, on Monday, stepping to the microphone to begin media days.

“We used to sing ‘Twelve Days of Christmas,’ ” Sankey joked in his opening address to reporters. “We’re working on ‘Twelve Days of Summer’ as a new song. It does go quickly.”

Chuckle, chuckle.

Remember, this is coming from the guy who said this week that the SEC is following the discussion on expanding the college football season an additional week, with its attendant price of shortening the period between the end of summer school and the start of fall camp.

Then again, Sankey’s joviality may stem from the reality that there ain’t really that much time now, anyway.

More than half of the league is beginning preseason camp in July, according to tentative dates that emerged this week.

The NCAA Division I Council abolished two-a-days this spring, a ruling that resulted in the addition of an extra week of camp. Schools can start seven days earlier than in previous years.

Some are using it. Others are not.

Practices are beginning as early as July 25 at Mississippi State and as late as Aug. 3 at Alabama…

… The Bulldogs don’t complete the second term of summer classes until Aug. 2-3, a week after camp is scheduled to start. LSU will have a short break — just two days — from the time summer school ends (July 27) to its reporting date of July 30. Drills begin July 31.

Coach Ed Orgeron purposely planned the schedule to allow his players to potentially return home before the grueling weeks of camp begin.

“I couldn’t push it any farther back,” he said. “Got to give the guys a couple of days off. We cannot push it back another week. That’s going to dig into our summer school time. We’re starting as early as we can.”

Two whole days to spend with the family.  Ed, you’re a real prince.

For Mullen, even starting as early as possible isn’t enough.  It seems the NCAA has left too much slack in the players’ schedule for his comfort.

The NCAA has made it mandatory that players receive one full day off per week during drills. Complete off days were not mandatory and were somewhat of a rarity in previous years.

Mullen, a previous member of the NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee, is against a full day off. He’d like to see the policy tweaked to allow coaches to, say, teach a non-football class on players’ off days.

“Instead of sitting around a hotel on their back for the entire day, bring them in and have two hours of life skills,” he said.

Lazy sumbitches, sitting on their backs.  Good thing the coaches don’t treat them like they’re on a job.