HOOVER, Ala. -- Rich McKay, the president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Falcons, said Mercedes-Benz Stadium adjacent to the Georgia Dome will open as scheduled on Aug. 27. McKay showed a seven-minute film on the new stadium during his time at SEC football media days Tuesday afternoon.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta will host two preseason Chick-fil-A Kickoff games, Alabama vs. Florida State on Sept. 2 and Georgia Tech vs. Tennessee on Sept. 4, the week after it opens. The stadium will also host the Falcons, the SEC Championship Game and the Atlanta United of Major League soccer as long-term residents.
It will be the first facility to host the College Football Playoff championship game (2018), the Super Bowl (2019) and the Final Four (2020) in successive years.
"The Georgia Dome was a really good place to play," McKay said. "We didn't want to build a better Georgia Dome. We wanted to change the game for a long, long time."
McKay said the 83,000 square feet of LED lighting at the new stadium compares to the combined 4,300 square feet of the two end zone video boards in the Georgia Dome.
The stadium will also house the first 360 degree "halo" video board. McKay said if the halo board was laid end to end and stood straight up, "it's taller than the tallest building in Atlanta."
The Georgia Dome, which opened in 1992, will be imploded in November, McKay said.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which has an estimated cost of $1.6 billion, will have a retractable roof and will seat 71,000 for football, expandable to 83,000.
Papa Bret
Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen, asked Tuesday at SEC media days what advice he had for new father Bret Bielema, said the key thing Arkansas' coach will learn is keeping his life in balance.
"It's going to change him an awful lot," Mullen said. "The greatest thing you have, win or lose on a Saturday, you're going to come home to a family that loves you."
Jumping the shark meme
Florida Coach Jim McElwain was clearly no fan of the picture of a large nude man who resembled him on top of a shark on the deck of a boat, which went viral on the Internet this spring.
"You know, I love the humor in it, all right, and yet, you know what? What it did, that actually not only attacked the university, but attacked my family, when you know it's not you," McElwain said. "You know, I bust chops with the best of them now, and yet when it got personal ..."
McElwain, getting red in the face, left the final thought hanging for several moments as he scanned the room and finally said, "Anyone else?"
Key dates
Arkansas officials announced the annual Razorback Football Kickoff Luncheon will be held on Friday, Aug. 18, at the Holiday Inn & Convention Center Northwest Arkansas in Springdale. The doors will open at 11:30 a.m. and the program is scheduled to start at noon.
The event will feature Coach Bret Bielema and special introductions from members of the football team.
The Razorbacks will open training camp on Thursday, July 27, Bielema said. The earlier start date is due to Arkansas opening its season against Florida A&M on Thursday, Aug. 31, and because the NCAA has disallowed two-a-day practices with contact.
Check us out
Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason had fun Tuesday complimenting reporters on their clothes or their questions, and he began extending invitations to some of the media members to take a look at the Commodores.
When a reporter asked him about Vandy's victory over Tennessee last season, Mason said, "It took me to a different place," but he ended up discussing his program.
"We built something here on West End that we know is special," he said. "I'm not trying to convince anybody to get behind it. The movement's already started. We're here. We're moving in the right direction. If you want to see great football, if you want to have an opportunity to see a great team doing great things, come check us out."
Later, when asked by Jared Stillman of WPRT-FM in Nashville, about the "ceiling" for the Commodores, Mason went on to remark, "I feel the energy. I understand who they are. And they understand where they're at. To you, Jared, hopefully you get behind the movement because we need you. We want you. Come check us out on West End."
Hop farmer
Georgia tailback Nick Chubb said he has plans to get into farming after his playing days, but it won't be the traditional kind, according to Bulldogs Coach Kirby Smart.
"I was kidding him last night, and we were talking about it," Smart said. "I really didn't understand the difference in an econ major and ag econ major, and Nick basically told me he was going to start his own hop farm,. I had no idea what a hop farm was until I Googled it and looked at it."
Chubb said he didn't know about farming hops, a flavoring and stability agent in beer, until recently.
"I heard of it a week ago," Chubb said on the SEC Network. "I kind of read over it. It is for breweries, for beer. I know in the past, it was not as popular. Too many people had it. People backed up, but nowadays it is kind of popular again. The idea sounded good to me."
Gator bait?
The fact that LSU is the homecoming opponent for Florida this season has been big news at SEC media days.
Florida Coach Jim McElwain seemed to get a kick out of being asked about it. McElwain said he first found out about it when he got off the plane after a trip to his lake home in Montana.
"I have no choice in it, OK?" McElwain said. "It's a university choice. ... I've heard about this, obviously, all day long. The first I heard about it was yesterday. I'm loving the fact you think it's news."
Tae OK
Vanderbilt defensive backs Tae Daley and Frank Coppet are recovering and doing well, though they are still suspended from the team, after they were shot on June 26 while attempting to help teammate Donaven Tennyson recover a stolen cell phone. Tennyson is also serving an indefinite suspension due to the incident, Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason said.
According to media reports, Daley was shot in the leg and Coppet was shot in the arm after Coppet pulled a pellet pistol following a heated exchange outside a Target store.
"Right now, Frank and Tae are doing well," Mason said. "These young men are healing well. ... I'm just glad they're safe.
"I don't agree with the decision-making process of these young men all of the time. ... These guys are suspended indefinitely, but when you look at it, I'm just trying to get young men from where they are to where they need to be."
8 on list
Eight SEC centers, including Arkansas senior Frank Ragnow, were named to the Rimington Trophy watch list on Tuesday. Joining Ragnow on the list are Alabama's Bradley Bozeman, Auburn's Austin Golson, Florida's T.J. McCoy, LSU's Will Clapp, Ole Miss' Sean Rawlings, South Carolina's Alan Knott and Texas A&M's Colton Prater.
Walk-up tune
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has made it a point to introduce each head coach who comes to the podium in the print media ballroom at the Hyatt Regency.
After his introduction, Mississippi State Coach Dan Mullen remarked about the silent walk to the dais.
"It's quiet when you walk up," Mullen said. "We need to come up with walk-up music. We can sit around at the spring meetings and come up with walk-up music."
Sankey and Mullen had a brief discussion Tuesday, comparing U2 concerts they've seen, prompting Mullen to suggest his walk-up tune would be "Where the Streets Have No Name."
Short words
Georgia Coach Kirby Smart described running back Nick Chubb as "a man of few words," which made him an easy choice to bring to media days. Chubb lived up to the billing for most of his appearance in Hoover.
When a reporter asked how much he paid attention to other running backs in the league, Chubb's response was "None at all" with no elaboration.
He was also asked what made playing against Alabama's defense so difficult.
"I don't know," Chubb said. "They just play hard."
Replay check
Steve Shaw, the SEC supervisor of officials, said the conference made an 8 percent improvement in avoiding incorrect outcomes from reviewed officiating decisions.
Shaw said there were an average of 2.2 stops for reviews during games, 226 total stops in 103 games with an average review time of 1 minutes, 26 seconds.
"That is right on our two-year average," Shaw said. "We need to drive that time [of games] even lower, and that's one of the things we're going to work on this year."
Shaw said the game-time average was 3:26 last season, with two games lasting less than three hours and four games going for more than four hours, including two overtime games.
Shaw said the SEC had 26 targeting fouls in 2016, 5 of them initiated from the review booth, with 16 of the calls confirmed, 5 allowed to stand and 5 overturned.
Arkansas safety De'Andre Coley drew two of those calls, against Texas A&M and Ole Miss, and he was ejected for both.
Regarding rules
Steve Shaw also pointed out that 2017 is an off-year for rules changes except those regarding safety, and he brought up a couple of changes in that regard.
On kicking plays, defenders can no longer get a running start and leap over blockers in an attempt to block a kick, Shaw said.
Also, the horse collar rule has been expanded to penalize grabs in the nameplate area or upper back of the shoulder pads that lead to immediate snap-backs of the head. The rule does not apply to runners inside the tackle box.
Another point of emphasis is coaching conduct, Shaw said while discussing a new unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on head coaches if they come on to the playing field to protest officiating decisions.
"The goal is not to flag coaches. It is to change coaching behavior," Shaw said. "If they stay within the boundary, they'll have all the latitude they've had in the past."
Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema brought up the rule change Monday and referenced his unsportsmanlike conduct flag for protesting an offensive holding call that negated a Razorbacks touchdown against Alabama last season.
"I understand somebody called it the Bielema rule," he said. "I don't think the rule's for me. Obviously I got one in the 'Bama game, but I knew what I was doing before I took off. I knew where I was going and I knew what I was going to say and I knew what the repercussion was.
"I think the intent of the rule, to keep coaches off the field, is good in nature, especially when they start seeing some of the replay of really all conferences, all levels."
Shaw is scheduled to add the duty of NCAA secretary rules editor on Sept. 1.
Mac attack
Florida Coach Jim McElwain, the fourth coach at the podium Tuesday, noted the lack of enthusiasm in the big print media room.
"How's everybody doing?" McElwain asked with vigor. "I can see the energy in here is just ... It can't be that bad."
Sports on 07/12/2017