Florida confident passing game
will be improved
HOOVER, Ala. - Florida won 10 games and advanced to the Southeastern Conference title game despite a sputtering passing offense that fell apart during the season's most important games.
Thanks to four new quarterbacks - including two transfers and two freshmen - coach Jim McElwain is confident he'll find somebody who can fling the ball downfield.
"Here's the good thing - we've really got good arm talent," McElwain said. "I'm excited about being able to stretch the field vertically. Should be a lot of fun."
Junior Luke Del Rio appears to be the leading candidate at quarterback after an impressive spring game, though McElwain has not made a final decision. Austin Appleby, a graduate transfer from Purdue, and freshmen Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask are also in the mix.
Del Rio is the son of Oakland Raiders' coach Jack Del Rio. The 6-foot-1 quarterback was at Alabama and Oregon State before transferring to Florida in 2015. He sat out last season per NCAA transfer rules.
"He is a good guy and a great quarterback," Florida junior offensive lineman David Sharpe said. "He's a great leader - a vocal leader."
Florida hopes an infusion of better quarterback play can help the Gators avoid a collapse similar to last year, when they lost three straight lopsided games against Florida State, Alabama and Michigan to end the season.
"Very disappointed in how we finished," McElwain said. "Not something that we're proud of, and not something that, you know, I take very lightly. Yet, at the same time, it was an opportunity for us to kind of learn."
The SEC Eastern Division race appears wide open with Florida trying to fend off an improved Tennessee program. Georgia, South Carolina and Missouri all have new coaches while Kentucky and Vanderbilt haven't shown much reason for optimism.
Maybe that's why McElwain is so optimistic despite returning just 10 starters from last season.
"Things are good at the University of Florida," McElwain said. "And that's the way it should be."
Auburn's Malzahn changing approach
Auburn coach Gus Malzahn wants to get back to what he does best, focusing on X's and O's and trying to rev up his normally fast-paced offense again.
He figured change was necessary after the Tigers lost 11 games in two seasons since playing for a national championship. They entered Southeastern Conference media days Monday getting scant mention as contenders a year after being a trendy pick both in the league and nationally.
They wound up 7-6 thanks largely to poor quarterback play.
Malzahn is still seeking a starting quarterback but he has called an audible on his own approach.
"After you get done with the season and you're not as successful as you'd like, you evaluate things," said Malzahn, who built his reputation on prolific up-tempo offenses. "One thing that really hit me pretty hard is that I've got to be more active with the daily X's and O's and coaching that goes with that.
"And that's what I look at as my strength. I'm looking forward to getting back in the middle of things and enjoying the actual coaching on the field."
The Tigers' offense fizzled last season, when quarterback Jeremy Johnson quickly lost his starting job after coming in being widely mentioned as a leading Heisman Trophy candidate. The result was two league wins and five SEC games in which Auburn failed to top 21 points.
It wasn't nearly good enough to remain competitive in the loaded Western Division.
Johnson and Sean White both had iffy performances as starters last season. Junior college transfer John Franklin III brings more of the athleticism that helped Nick Marshall lead the Tigers to the 2013 SEC title in his debut. It appears to be a dead heat.
"I've got a very open mind about that," Malzahn said. "I don't have a whole lot of preconceived ideas as far as who is going to be our starter. We're going to open it up like we did in 2013."
He did settle one question in saying Monday that four players arrested in May on misdemeanor drug charges - starting cornerback Carlton Davis, defensive end Byron Cowart, wide receiver Ryan Davis and cornerback Jeremiah Dinson - have all served their punishment.
He said they won't miss any playing time.
Vanderbilt hoping
to take step forward
The Vanderbilt Commodores took a small step forward overall last season and a bigger one defensively.
Sure, they lost four games by single-digit margins and improved on defense with coach Derek Mason pulling double duty as coordinator. But they still went 4-8, just one win better than in Mason's debut season.
"This football team knows how to compete. Okay?" Mason said Monday at Southeastern Conference media days. "It's not about competing anymore, it's about winning. We had the great fortune to win one more game. For some in here, that's not monumental enough. That's OK. For us, we saw how we let some games slide. We missed some opportunities, OK, and that has not gone unnoticed by this football team."
The Commodores don't want that to be considered normal for a program that had back-to-back 9-4 seasons before coach James Franklin left for Penn State.
They've got some talent, like All-SEC linebacker Zach Cunningham and workhorse running back Ralph Webb. And Kyle Shurmur has already been anointed the starting quarterback going into his sophomore season.
Vandy finished in the top half of the league in the four major defensive categories after ranking last in points allowed per game.
Mason has gone 7-17 in his first two seasons but has 16 returning starters and more than 40 upperclassmen coming back. He also has six new assistants in a second straight year of high staff turnover.