DALLAS — Expectations can weigh heavy on a college football team. How they respond to adversity, however, is the key to it all.
SEC Media Days began Monday at the Omni Hotel in Dallas, signaling the near-start of one of the most anticipated seasons in Ole Miss history. The Rebels won 11 games for the first time in program history last season and return stars on both sides of the ball — headlined by quarterback Jaxson Dart — and added talent via the transfer portal. The Rebels will likely begin the 2024 season ranked in the AP top-10 for the first time since 2009 and are a popular pick to make the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
A pair of teams who shared Monday’s spotlight with Ole Miss — LSU and South Carolina — began last season with lofty expectations. The results certainly varied.
LSU began the 2023 season ranked No. 5 but lost its season opener to a highly-ranked Florida State team. The Tigers lost a heartbreaking 55-49 game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to Ole Miss and a two-touchdown game at Alabama. LSU rallied to win at least its next three games after each of its losses behind Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Jayden Daniels, however, including its last four to end the season 10-3.
“Just being where your feet are and approach every week like a new week and don’t hold yourself up on the past,” LSU junior tight end Mason Taylor said. “Because losses sometimes do happen, and that’s college football. And I think as long as we overcome them and we learn from our lessons and from those mistakes that we’ll be a great football team.”
South Carolina ended its 2022 season ranked No. 23 in the final AP Poll, securing its first season with at least eight wins since 2017. The Gamecocks returned star quarterback Spencer Rattler in 2023 but lost their opener and suffered a four-game losing streak in the middle of the season, finishing with a losing record and without a bowl berth.
South Carolina senior all-purpose player Luke Doty said missing out on a bowl game last season has been all the motivation the Gamecocks need to get back to their standards.
“I think the biggest thing for us is just taking everything week by week, game by game. Never getting too high, never getting too low,” Doty said. “Obviously last season wasn’t what we wanted. And it wasn’t what our expectation is, but I think everybody returned in January kind of with a bitter taste in their mouth, because … I don’t think anybody wants to sit at home for a whole month and not be able to continue to be around their teammates and coaches and go to a bowl game and play ball again.”
LSU head coach Brian Kelly was asked about the expectations his teams have faced coming into each of his first two seasons and the forthcoming 2024 campaign. The Tigers were unranked coming into Kelly’s first season but finished 10-4 and ranked No. 12 in the AP Poll. That springboarded into LSU’s lofty expectations in 2023.
“I don’t deal in expectations. I deal within a process of how we do things on a day-to-day basis,” Kelly said. “ … We don’t deal on a day-to-day basis with those expectations as much as are we doing the things necessary that allows us to stick with our process. Because we’re not about the results as much as are we making progress towards our ultimate goals.”
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