Ray Glier: The SEC is Goliath

Note from Rick Cleveland: Ray Glier, the hardest working sports journalist I know, will sign his book How the SEC Became Goliath Wednesday afternoon beginning at 5 p.m. at Lemuria. I've read it. SEC football fans will love it. I asked Ray to write a short essay from the book for our website and it follows....

By Ray Glier

Archie Manning knew the right question to ask Hugh Freeze in the interview process for the Ole Miss football coach. It wasn’t just what kind of offense you are going to run. It wasn’t who is going to be the offensive coordinator and how are you are going to keep players inside the state of Mississippi.

Ray Glier

The committee, Manning said, asked Freeze, “Who is going to be you strength and conditioning coach?”

“A Tommy Moffitt guy,” Freeze said.

“Which one,” the committee asked.

“Any of them,” Freeze said.

Freeze hired Paul Jackson, who worked for Moffitt at LSU, as his strength and conditioning coach.

This is all in the book, How The SEC Became Goliath. I am signing it at Lemuria at 5 on Wednesday. The chapter is called “Muscle Matters” and it is important because the SEC has won national championships from the inside out, tackle to tackle. The SEC is a line of scrimmage league. Big people beat up little people.

Moffitt makes $300,000 a year. Scott Cochran, the Alabama strength coach, makes a tick more than that. It’s important. Just look on the field before the game. Look at the personnel groups of Bama and LSU. NFL-ready bodies.

The NFL scouts even marvel at the muscle of the kickers in the SEC.

There are some other interesting chapters in the book, if I do say so myself. Alabama’s theories on recruiting are detailed in a 7,000-word chapter. There is the tale of Lane Kiffin at Tennessee and a chapter on defensive linemen. I get into the rebuilding of LSU by you know you and how one coach begged off on the LSU job in 1999 allowing Saban to be hired.

The book is built around the six national championships, but it also looks at the population quake in the south and culture and money.

I’ll talk about it with anyone on Wednesday at Lemuria.