-Originally published 8/7/20-

The SEC West was already home to coaching stars Nick Saban at Alabama, Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M and newly certified superstar Ed Orgeron at LSU after his 2019 championship season. A trio that embodies winning and personality, but when Mississippi and Mississippi State cleaned out their coaching staffs after 2019 arguably the two biggest personalities in college football rolled into the division. Mississippi brought in Lane Kiffin who has spent the past few years of his career at Florida Atlantic gathering the left over recruiting scraps of Miami, Florida, Florida State, and Central Florida and rolling through Conference USA competition (26-13, 20-6 Conference play – two 11-win seasons). Kiffin is known for working up the ranks as a position coach at USC before getting hired at 31 years-old as coach of the Raiders in 2007. His time was short and he spend 1 year at Tennessee, returning to USC for several forgetful years, and ending up on Saban’s staff at Alabama for a few seasons before getting fired again. He’s still only 45 and should continue to make headlines as he’s stirred controversy everywhere he’s gone, loves to tweet (@Lane_Kiffin), and won’t be afraid to poke fun at coaches like former employer Saban or his new rival Mike Leach.

Leach, formerly of Washington State, is an interesting case. If not for allegations that he locked a player in a shed back in his Texas Tech days, I would say he is a national treasure. Leach is known for his press conferences, including an in-depth discussion over which Pac-12 mascot would win in a fight, hilarious tweets @MikeLeach82, and enjoyable pass-happy offense on the field. The gift of Saban, Fisher, Orgeron, Kiffin and Leech on in the same division, all playing each over this will provide awesome Game Day signs and storylines each week of the season.

Actual football play could be interesting too. Jimbo Fisher and A&M had a tough schedule last season, but third year starting QB Kellen Mond could potentially pilot the team to 9-1 or 10-0 with the last two games on the schedule @Alabama and home against LSU. The Tigers at LSU will be breaking in a new QB but ‘Bama, LSU, and A&M should keep things interesting and Guz Malzahn will have the Auburn Tigers in line to be competitive behind true sophomore QB Bo Nix. Leach and Kiffin probably won’t be competitive year 1 (or realistically ever) but watching Leach’s air raid offense perform and seeing what Kiffin can do in a major program will be interesting. Both Ole Miss and Mississippi were top-10 nationally in rushing yards-per-game last season, and Leach is about to flip the script.