LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) --The first day of SEC Media Days usually feels like a stage — lights, logos, sound bites.
This year, it felt more like a locker room.
With LSU-Clemson looming in Week 1, South Carolina opening against Virginia Tech in Atlanta and Ole Miss heading to Kentucky in Week 2, Monday had the urgency of a team meeting, not a media event.
"There's no hiding from the fact we've lost the last five openers," LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier said. "That's something we've acknowledged and accepted. I think we've changed the way we think in order to make that correction."
His linebacker, Whit Weeks, didn't tiptoe into the challenge either.
"You don't want to lollygag into the season," Weeks said. "You want to get into a fistfight the first week."
If that's the mood in Baton Rouge, it's contagious. Throughout Monday's sessions, coaches and quarterbacks embraced the weight of expectations, the instability of the NIL era, and the pressure of delivering wins — now, not later.
Quarterbacks face Year 2 expectations
Monday's quarterbacks on the podium aren't new to the job. They've all started SEC games. Some of them have already started full seasons. But none of them have arrived just yet — and that's what makes 2025 so compelling.
LSU's Garrett Nussmeier threw for 4,052 yards and 29 touchdowns in 2024 — his first year as the Tigers' full-time starter — and still arrived in Atlanta talking about improvement. Turnovers were a focus. So was legacy.
"There's no hiding from turnovers," Nussmeier said. "... The ones I need to eliminate are the ones where I'm trying to do too much, the ones where I'm trying to make a play when I don't need to."
He knows the script in Baton Rouge. Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels both made massive leaps in their second seasons. But Nussmeier isn't interested in comparisons.
"Obviously, with the track record that LSU quarterbacks have in the past, it's not a thing of disrespect," Nussmeier said. "I have a lot of respect for Jayden, a lot of respect for Joe and what they were able to accomplish in their second years, and also respectively in their first years. ... But at the end of the day, I'm Garrett Nussmeier. I'm a son of Christ. I'm a follower of God. That's who I am."
South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers also returns after a breakout first season as the starter, one in which he accounted for more than 3,200 total yards and led the Gamecocks to a 9-4 finish — their best under Shane Beamer. They lost to LSU and Alabama by a combined five points and ended the season on a five-game win streak.
"We were four to five plays off," Sellers told the SEC Network. "That showed us we can make the playoff and make a run for the trophy."
With most of South Carolina's defense needing replacement, Sellers and the offense carry the expectations — but also, a good bit of belief.
"There's not a lot of time to grow and adjust," he said of his young receiving corps. "Everybody has to play."
Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia is perhaps the most experienced of the group — a former JUCO standout who led the Commodores to a bowl game last season and a headline-making win over Alabama.
He joked about his 3–0 record against Hugh Freeze-coached teams but showed serious perspective when discussing the bigger picture.
"Winning solves everything," Pavia said. "I feel like I'm a better player when I'm 100%. That's what I'm focused on."
Then there's Ole Miss, where redshirt sophomore Austin Simmons is tasked with replacing the most productive quarterback in program history.
Simmons played in nine games last year, including a brief cameo against Georgia and is no longer juggling football and baseball. The offense is his now.
"I'm really just focusing on building my own legacy," he said. "Not just focusing on the past."
Lane Kiffin said Simmons has elite tools — and the key will be letting him be Simmons, not Dart 2.0. His teammates already see it.
"We've seen him just take a tremendous jump," wideout Cayden Lee said. "We really trusted what he was going to do when he came in last year. Now we're ready for big things."
Culture, camaraderie and competition
While quarterbacks took most of the questions, the deeper themes came from elsewhere.
At LSU, players used the word "brotherhood" on repeat. Weeks and Nussmeier both spoke of team chemistry as a competitive edge, not just a vibe.
"This is the closest team I've ever been on at LSU," Nussmeier said. "The locker room is different."
Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea brought perhaps the most reflective voice to the stage. In a wide-ranging and philosophical monologue, Lea acknowledged that his program is on a knife's edge — as close to 2–10 as it is to 10–2, in his words — but still chasing the full catastrophe.
"I don't think I have to convince anyone in this room how hard it is to win. We played eight games last season to one possession, one score. We were 4-4 in those games," Lea said. "… So we can't just copy and paste our process from a year ago and expect to advance. To copy and paste is to remain the same. To remain the same is to abandon the mission, and our mission is winning."
Kiffin, Chaos and Taylor Swift
Ole Miss didn't lack entertainment, thanks to both Simmons and Lee, who pulled back the curtain on Lane Kiffin's Taylor Swift-fueled practices and social media hijinks.
"You know, if you're in Oxford, Mississippi, and we're over summer and it's raining outside and you just need something to laugh at, you go to Coach Kiffin's page, and you'll see him on a boat fishing, tagging Coach Freeze and it just gives you a laugh, like, why is he doing that?" Lee said.
But beneath the laughs was a focused team that feels its playoff window is now.
"If you want to see Coach Kiffin in his natural form, you'll come to practice, you'll be listening to Taylor Swift mid-practice and he'll be having coaches doing receiver drills, falling down and all type of stuff," Lee said. "It's just a really good environment. … But if you look at Ole Miss before he got here versus after he got here, I feel like it's a total change."
Opening Challenge
LSU coach Brian Kelly said having Clemson as an opening opponent has his players' full attention. And it has prompted a change in his way of doing things in the offseason.
"I know Dabo (Sweeney) very well. Respect him and his program and the accomplishments they've had," Kelly said. "We played against each other several times when I was at Notre Dame and just have a ton of respect. But we've also been 0-3 in openers at LSU under my watch. We needed to do some things differently this year. That is embrace this opener. Embracing it in a manner that this is a big game. It's a tangible goal for our football team to want to be 1-0. Not, 'Let's warm up into the season.' We want to be ready for this football game. So we're doing everything in our power to give our players the opportunity for that success."
Closing Thoughts: Pressure is the point
If there was a unifying message from Day 1, it wasn't confidence — it was confrontation. Coaches aren't sugarcoating the schedule. Quarterbacks aren't ducking expectations. Players are leaning into hard truths.
It's not a soft open. It's a sprint from the start.
There was a theme — the SEC is seeking midseason form in a hurry.
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