SEC MEDIA DAYS REPORT: Gus Malzahn has praise for Chad Morris

NCAA college football head coach Gus Malzahn of Auburn speaks during the Southeastern Conference Media Days at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Thursday, July 19, 2018. (AP Photo/John Amis)

ATLANTA -- Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn had warm words for first-year Arkansas Coach Chad Morris, whom he met during his final year as head coach at Shiloh Christian in Springdale.

Morris brought his high school staff up to study from Malzahn the following year in 2001, Malzahn's first at Springdale High School.

"I'm very proud of Chad coming from a high school coach and being a head coach in this league," Malzahn said. "Chad is one of the smarter coaches I've ever been around. He's one of the hardest workers that I've ever been around. I consider him a true friend."

Malzahn said Morris cold-called him some time after Malzahn's Shiloh team won back-to-back state championships in 1998-99 and the two formed a quick bond that led to consecutive years of summer offensive chalk talk.

"He did a super job at Tulsa," Malzahn said. "Obviously when he was at Clemson he really got that thing going. When he got to Clemson, there was a little bit of instability. I think he was the guy that put them over the top to get them where they're at right now.

"Then you're talking about a guy that goes to SMU and he took over a very, very tough situation, and to get those guys to a bowl last year was big. Now he's in our league. He'll be very successful. He's a great coach, but he's an even better person."

Maybe brothers?

Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason is clearly fired up about hiring defensive coordinator Jason Tarver, who also will handle the outside linebackers.

Mason had served as the Commodores' head coach and defensive coordinator each of the last three seasons.

"I'm happy to relinquish the title of defensive coordinator," Mason said. "For me, it's important to get the right guy. It has been almost three years in the making, two years in the chase, but I finally got my guy, Jason Tarver, who came from the San Francisco 49ers, was with me at Stanford, same pedigree.

"We're the same guy, probably grew up in the same household. We just look a little different."

Back in Starkville

Florida Coach Dan Mullen, who led Mississippi State to a 69-46 record in nine seasons, will return to Starkville, Miss., with the Gators on Sept. 29.

"I might be the first coach in the SEC that's coached at one school for as many years as I did, left to another school and had to play on the road at that school the following year," Mullen said. "You know it's going to be tough.

"Look at any coach that's went from one school to another in the league, it always becomes a big game. I don't know if anybody's done it the first year after leaving. That's going to make it a little bit different."

Mullen won't be the first coach to do it.

Houston Nutt returned to Fayetteville in his first season at Ole Miss in 2008 after coaching the Razorbacks to a 75-48 record in 10 seasons. The Rebels won 23-21 in Nutt's return.

Mullen is one of four current SEC coaches who have led two programs in the conference along with Alabama's Nick Saban (previously at LSU), LSU's Ed Orgeron (Ole Miss) and South Carolina's Will Muschamp (Florida).

Mullen is the only one of the four who went directly from one SEC head coaching position to another in consecutive years.

J.B.'s back

Auburn Coach Gus Malzhan hired J.B. Grimes -- a Clarendon native who played at Henderson State -- as the Tigers' offensive line coach for a second time in January.

Grimes, a former assistant at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and Arkansas State University, returned to Auburn when Herb Hand left for Texas.

Grimes was Auburn's offensive line coach from 2013-15.

"A super teacher, probably the best teacher of offensive line coaches that I've been around," Malzahn said. "Very successful when he was here before."

Grimes left Auburn for Cincinnati, where he was on the same staff with his son, Nick, who was a graduate assistant for the Bearcats.

When Tommy Tuberville, a Camden native, resigned as Cincinnati's coach after a 4-8 finish in 2016, J.B. Grimes moved on to Connecticut for a season.

"He left to go coach with his son, got an opportunity to do that at Cincinnati," Malzahn said. "And so when we had our offensive line coaching job come open, it took me about 30 minutes to make that call, because he's the guy that we wanted."

Rag-tag crew?

South Carolina Coach Will Muschamp took a light-hearted jab at the media during his opening remarks as the final coach at SEC media days.

"Barry Odom said it was the fourth quarter yesterday, so now we're in overtime," Muschamp said. "You guys look rough."

Muschamp went on to say he was appearing on the final day of the event for the third year in a row and next year he expected to "hit for the cycle" and go on the fourth day for the fourth year in a row.

Muschamp was not scheduled for the final day in 2017 but agreed to a switch with his buddy, Georgia Coach Kirby Smart.

"Kirby wanted more vacation, maybe work on his basketball game because he never beet me at Valdosta State," Muschamp said. "So I switched with him, just trying to be a good teammate."

Egg laying

Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn did not spend a lot of time Thursday talking about his team's 34-27 loss to No. 10 Central Florida in last year's Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.

"The bowl loss, we didn't get it done," Malzahn said. "We laid an egg. Not taking anything away from our opponent."

Malzahn was asked later if he had an opinion on UCF's claim as being national champion with a 14-0 record.

"I really don't have an opinion on that, other than they got after us," he said. "They played extremely well that day and they had a very talented team. ... I don't get into that [national championship] debate."

Summer trip

Gus Malzahn and his wife Kristi made a vacation trip to Israel earlier this summer.

"Kristi's been wanting to go to Israel probably for about the last five years, and it was our 30th wedding anniversary, and then it just so happened this year most of the month of July is a dead period, and so [we] went ahead and made plans."

Malzahn, who formerly was a high school head coach at Shiloh Christian and Springdale and offensive coordinator with the Arkansas Razorbacks, said they made the trip with Ronnie Floyd, his former pastor at Cross Church in Rogers.

"It was an unbelievable experience," Malzahn said. "Gone nine days, which was a little bit out of my comfort zone, gone that long. But it was well worth it. I would encourage everybody, if they haven't been, to go."

No sandwich audible

New Missouri offensive coordinator Derek Dooley took exception to quarterback Drew Lock wanting to make changes to a sandwich -- hold the tomatoes and onions -- he was ordering at the team complex after a position meeting.

"He yelled at me one time for changing how my sandwich was ordered," Lock said when asked the craziest thing Dooley had said to him. "He said, 'The reason they're putting it on the menu is because they've made it that way, and that's exactly how they think it should be eaten. So don't change it. Order things the way that they're on the menu.'"

So Lock can't call an audible on a sandwich?

"I can't audible on the sandwich, but hopefully he's going to let me audible a little bit on the field," Lock said with a laugh. "If he's trying to restrain me one way or the other I'm glad it's food rather than on the field."

No eyes on Irish

Vanderbilt will play at Notre Dame on Sept. 15 as the second SEC East team to face the Irish in South Bend, Ind., the last two years. Commodores Coach Derek Mason isn't worried about it in July.

"We play in the SEC, I don't worry about going to South Bend," Mason said. "You want to stay in the moment. We'll worry about Notre Dame when that game comes."

Georgia gave the No. 24 Fighting Irish a 20-19 loss in week two last year.

9 in a row

Auburn will carry a streak of nine consecutive years with a 1,000-yard rusher into 2018 after Kerryon Johnson led the SEC with 1,391 rushing yards. The nine-year term is an SEC record.

"I feel very strongly that streak will continue," Coach Gus Malzahn said, referencing the running back situation where Kam Martin, JaTarvious Whitlow and Devan Barrett are expected to take the bulk of the reps.

Tigers have bite

Missouri quarterback Drew Lock took offense when asked by a reporter about Florida's horrible offense when the Tigers rolled up 455 yards in a 45-16 victory last season.

"It's like any time the Mizzou Tigers do something good it's because of how bad someone else is," Lock said. "It's not because maybe the Mizzou Tigers were good that year. We scored a lot of points on a lot of defenses."

Missouri averaged an SEC-best 37.5 points last season.

All-SEC

The media's projections for the league and division champions, the order of finish and All-SEC players are scheduled to be released today. The conference once released those items on the final day of media days but changed the format a few years ago.

Sports on 07/20/2018