Retiring soon? How long should you wait to take social security? What accounts should you pull from first? Already retired? Should you consider ROTH Conversions? These are some of the questions that can only be answered with a personalized retirement income plan. Andrew Sego with Sego Wealth Management specializes in helping folks just like you come up with their retirement gameplan. Whether you meet at his office in Collierville or prefer Zoom from anywhere, schedule a free discovery meeting and see what we can do for you. www.rebelsretire.com. Stress out about the Rebels, not your money. www.rebelsretire.com
1. Southeastern Conference Football Media Days wrapped up on Thursday in Dallas. The league released media voting on Friday, and as expected, Georgia has been predicted to win the 2024 SEC Championship.
The Bulldogs received 165 votes to be crowned SEC Champion on Dec. 7 in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, with Texas being picked to be the Bulldogs’ opponent in the Longhorns’ first season in the league. Texas received 27 votes to win the SEC Championship.
This will mark the first season since 1991 with no divisions in SEC Football. The participants of the game will be determined during the eight-game regular-season conference schedule as the teams with the two best overall SEC winning percentages.
Only nine times since 1992 (32 years) has the predicted champion prior to the season at SEC Media Days proceeded to win the SEC Championship Game.
Ole Miss was predicted to finish fourth, while six Rebels were selected to the Preseason All-SEC team.
Representing Ole Miss on the media's All-SEC team are senior wide receiver Tre Harris (first-team), senior tight end Caden Prieskorn (first-team), junior defensive tackle Walter Nolen (first-team), senior defensive end Jared Ivey (second-team), senior running back Ulysses Bentley IV (third-team) and senior defensive end Princely Umanmielen (third-team).
2. Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart didn’t make any of the three All-SEC teams, as Carson Beck, Quinn Ewers and Jalen Milroe finished with more votes among a star-studded quarterback group.
Was that a snub? I mean, I think so. I would’ve ad Dart second or third had I submitted a ballot. I have no qualms whatsoever with Beck getting first-team, as he’s a candidate to go 1-1 in the NFL Draft next spring.
Here’s the thing: Most media don’t bother to fill out a ballot. I thought about it Wednesday morning, but then I get busy. I spent about 20 minutes catching up with my good friend Kirk Sampson, the sports information director at Auburn. I was working on a notebook, taping podcast interviews and chatting with various sources about various topics. It’s a chance to touch base with people in a very informal setting. I also was a podcast guest on a couple of other podcasts. By the time I had a free moment, it was time to get to Love Field.
The point? On top of the fact that the preseason voting doesn’t matter, fans should understand that many — most, really — of the media members attending the event are too busy to take the time to fill out a ballot.
Ole Miss received plenty of respect. I’m not sure I talked to one media member during my three-plus days in Dallas who didn’t. Milroe did lead his team to a national semifinal game last season, one Alabama lost in overtime to eventual national champion Michigan.
So while I disagree with Dart’s being left off the ballot, it’s not egregious. More importantly, come late November, it won’t matter. Not even a little bit.
3. Dallas was a wonderful host for SEC Media Days. The event will move to Atlanta next year, and while the College Football Hall of Fame is a great host, it will have a difficult time living up to Dallas.
Dallas was convenient. The Omni Dallas was an amazing hotel for the event, complete with a variety of restaurants and amenities for media and participants alike. The SEC, as always, took great care of the media and made covering the event incredibly convenient.
A year ago, Nashville was an amazing venue. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey seemed to hint at wanting to have more events in Houston, so if you told me SEC Media Days began rotating among Atlanta, Nashville and Dallas, with an occasional stop in Houston, I’d be believe it. I think the days of having the event in Hoover, Ala., complete with the fan circus that always accompanied it there, are likely over.
Texas and Oklahoma are phenomenal fits for the SEC. They bring two huge brands, two storied programs and two dedicated fanbases. They fit perfectly.
Speaking of fit, there was a lot of talk about further expansion. From speaking to sources and other media, I remain steadfast in my opinion that the SEC has no interest in Florida State or Clemson. In a world where the ACC fell apart, however, I do believe the SEC and Big Ten would both move heaven and earth to bring North Carolina into their respective leagues.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I ran into no one who has any belief that the current state of college athletics is sustainable. Everyone is just trying to hang on year by year, wondering what’s next.
4. I left on Wednesday afternoon and spent Thursday on the road, so I didn’t provide any coverage on Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky or Texas A&M.
I obviously wrote a lot about Ole Miss and something about 11 other SEC teams. I’m not one to seek feedback all that much, but I do wonder if the readers here — at least 99 percent of whom, I’m guessing — are hear for Ole Miss-related content. Is that content you are interested in? Would you like more of it in future events that feature the entire league? Is it a waste of my time?
Anyway, since I’m who likes to complete a task, I’ll touch on the Razorbacks, Tigers, Wildcats and Aggies a bit in this space today.
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said Thursday he’s leaned heavily on former Razorbacks coach and current UA offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino since hiring him in January.
“It's been great,” Pittman said. “I mean, he's passionate. He likes to win, likes to win and score points. So it's been great. Again, I mentioned it before. I had Barry (Odom) before that I could bump some head coaching questions off. As I get older the questions aren't as many, but it's like a security blanket. I
“I got Bobby there. I had Barry there. I had Bobby there that I can run off things. Both of those guys are not, ‘Hey, we need to do this, this, this.’ I'll ask them a question and I want their opinion and they know it. We'll agree on it or won't, but we're both grown men. If we do, we do. If we don't, we don't. We move on down the road. That's been very beneficial to me, and I really like him and I have a lot of the respect for him.”
5. Texas A&M coach Mike Elko was asked about how recruiting changes — if at all — with Texas now in the SEC alongside the Aggies.
“I don't know,” said Elko, who is in Year 1 at Texas A&M after a successful stint at Duke. “I think each kid's gotta go through their process and kind of figure out what the right fit for them is. I don't know that a league gives you necessarily that leg up. I think we've got to build a program that people want to be part of. And I think it's no secret that recruiting in the state of Texas is extremely competitive. I think it's not only us and Texas. I think it's also a lot of other programs now coming in here. You see that in this cycle that we've got to fend off. And I think our focus isn't just on one school. I think our focus is on going out and identifying the kids that we think can help us win a national championship and trying to get them to Kyle Field and Texas A&M.
“I don't think that is a one-on-one situation anymore. I think this has changed a lot. I think there's a lot more schools involved in that now.”
Elko embraced the expectations of Aggie fans, saying he didn’t view Year 1 as one that would be accompanied by patience.
“I think in this era of college football you better speed that process up,” Elko said. “I don't think this is a very patient era. I don't think you come to a school like Texas A&M that has the ability to do what we're capable of doing and you want to talk about building for a future, but I think you've got to be careful that you don't skip steps along the way. I think you've got to establish a culture. You've got to establish identity. You've got to establish a way that you want to play football.
”I'm excited because I think our kids have embraced that. I think they've bought into what we want to be about. They've embraced the direction we want to go. And I'm really, really happy with the progress we've made in my first seven months on the job, and now we've got to go finish that and be successful this fall.”
6. Hugh Freeze admitted Thursday that he’s “not the greatest portal recruiter that there is.”
However, the second-year Auburn coach said he feels very comfortable building his program the old-fashioned way, meaning recruiting and development as the cornerstones.
“There's no question that's my comfort zone because that's the way I was raised,” Freeze said. “Me building genuine, authentic relationships is important to me that last the test of time. I don't think money can buy that. That is time and investing in people. Being a very imperfect person, but a person of faith, I believe that's what I'm called to do through this coaching profession.
“I don't know how to do that without those front porch conversations or them sitting on my back porch at our home in Auburn, them seeing how I interact with Jill and Ragan and Jordan and Madison, and now granddaughters in D.J. and Hudson, how I interact with our staff. That is my comfort zone. It is a family atmosphere at Auburn. I tell people all the time it's one of the, I think, last few public universities that has that true essence of faith and family running through it.
“Am I going to have to adjust and do the 24-hour recruiting more? I don't know. We'll see if relational coaching will withstand the onslaught of other opportunities these young men will have. …I’m much more comfortable recruiting a family and a young man and being able to work with them over the course of a few years so that he reaches his potential as a player and as a student and as a man.”
7. With Nick Saban having retired and moved on to a career in broadcasting, Kentucky’s Mark Stoops is now the dean of SEC coaches.
“As far as being the longest tenured coach in the SEC, I think it's an accomplishment by a lot of people,” Stoops said. "Our administration have been very supportive for a very long time. There's a lot of coaches that have come and gone, that have worked tirelessly to help put us in this position, and a lot of players that have dedicated a lot. I feel very fortunate, very blessed. I want to continue to succeed.
“Like I said, I don't look down on some of the things we've done. There's things at our fingertips that (media relations staff) give me on the way here, but the other thing is since 2018, there's only three other schools that have more wins than us. Again, that's not nothing. We want more, but the consistency that you have to have in this league, it's difficult. There's some great schools, some great programs that have been up and down, and we've been relatively stable.
“Again, not good enough. I'm not very excited about -- we had an opportunity last year or two to wrap up the season with two ranked wins, and we let one slip away in the bowl game against Clemson. No more ifs and buts; we lost. They made the plays and we didn't. That's the motivation to go find the ways to do that.”
Stoops confirmed he talked to Texas A&M during the offseason before deciding to remain at Kentucky.
“I was pursued pretty aggressively by them, and we'll leave it at that out of respect for everybody involved,” Stoops said. “There’s a lot of people over the years, a lot of interactions between people, but it was very brief. I was pursued. I had a job to do.”
8. This week, I’ll continue my sure-to-go-laughingly-wrong predictions of leagues around the country with my stab at how things will go in the ACC.
1. Florida State
2. Clemson
3. Miami
4. North Carolina State
5. Louisville
6. SMU
7. Virginia Tech
8. North Carolina
9. Georgia Tech
10. Syracuse
11. California
12. Boston College
13. Pittsburgh
14. Wake Forest
15. Duke
16. Virginia
17. Stanford
8b. I continue my weekly NFL predictions this week with my stab at the AFC South.
1. Houston Texans — The Texans emerged as media darlings last season, due primarily to the excellence of quarterback C.J. Stroud. I do worry a bit about a difficult schedule derailing Houston this season.
2. Indianapolis Colts — Anthony Richardson was brilliant last season — when he could stay on the field. The Colts quietly put together a very solid team around Richardson.
3. Jacksonville Jaguars — The Jags lost five of six down the stretch last season and looked awful doing it. At times, it looked like Trevor Lawrence had taken a step back.
4. Tennessee Titans — It’s rebuild time in Nashville. The Titans should point toward the future in a new state of the art stadium. They don’t appear close to playoff-caliber now.
9. It’s time to eat. Here’s our resident Parisian chef, Burton Webb, with Taste of the Place, Lesson 245 — Chiffon Cake with Fresh Sliced Peaches.
This delightful dessert is perfect for any occasion and will impress your guests with its elegant presentation and delicious flavor. After all the events in the last few weeks, it is time to relax with family and friends over some good food.
Tidbit #1: Ensure your egg whites are at room temperature for maximum volume when beaten.
Tidbit #2: Use ripe, juicy peaches for the best flavor. That is kind of the point, so go to the farmer’s market.
Tidbit #3: Allow the cake to cool completely before adding the icing and peaches. There is no skimping on this. If you want to cook the cake the day before, that way you are not in a rush.
Things you will need:
6 people
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Cooling time: 1 hour or overnight
Utensils needed:
Work surface and chef’s knife
Mixing bowls
Electric mixer
Sifter
Spatula
Tube cake pan (angel food cake pan)
Cooling rack
Ingredients needed:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
6 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
4 ripe peaches, thinly sliced
For the Simple Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Mise en Place:
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Do not grease the tube cake pan. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the cake flour, 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Step 1.2: In a separate bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla extract until well combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Mix until smooth.
Step 2: In another large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
Step 2,1: Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter in three additions, being careful not to deflate the mixture. Pour the batter into the tube cake pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Step 3: Invert the cake pan onto a cooling rack and let the cake cool completely in the pan.
Step 4: Once the cake is cool, run a knife around the edges of the pan to release the cake. Remove it from the pan and place it on a serving platter.
Final:
Step 5: Prepare the simple icing. Whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract in a small bowl until smooth. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake, allowing it to run down the sides. Arrange the fresh peach slices on top of the cake. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.
From the Mississippian in Paris, Bon Appétit!
10. We’ll have coverage of Ole Miss’ big recruiting event Friday, among other items, this week on RebelGrove.com. Until then, here are some links of interest to me — and hopefully, to you — for your reading pleasure:
Bears open training camp with patience for Caleb Williams but sense of urgency on offense
Ten leading NFL storylines as training camp season kicks off
In his new home with the Ravens, Derrick Henry is still competing against himself
Travis Bazzana's an Aussie schooled in cricket. Now he's the top pick in the 2024 MLB Draft
'The Godfather': An oral history of Adrián Beltré's Hall of Fame career
Cubs' Dansby Swanson hopes struggles are over: 'I've basically become better for it'
Hollinger: Biggest and best cap-nerd moves of the 2024 NBA offseason
Cavan Sullivan, 14, breaks Adu's MLS record with Union debut
The shocking story of Hwang Ui-jo: Secret sex-video charge, blackmail and a family deception
Sacked politicians, Chelsea in crisis and team-mates at war - the fallout from Argentina's chant
Thom Brennaman returning to broadcasting with The CW
‘Violence is not the way to go’; John Hinckley Jr. in recent social media post
The Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump | National Review
