Offensive lineman Cooper Mays may be returning to familiar stomping grounds this year; playing in Knoxville for his final season with the Vols. However, it’s not business as usual. Starting with the 2024 season, new changes are being implemented that will affect Tennessee, the SEC and all of college football as a whole.
On the latest installment of the Vol Report with Cooper Mays, Mays shared his thoughts on the restructuring of the SEC and the new playoff system.
As you know, the SEC expands this year to include Texas and Oklahoma. This addition could create new rivalries or even possibly rekindle old ones. How will playing in this “Super Conference” affect Mays and his team?
For one, it will potentially limit the number of lower-level teams Tennessee will play this season. While that begs to be more of a challenge for the Vols, Mays recognized that it’s just better to roll with the punches.
“It definitely would be a lot harder,” Mays pondered. “I don’t know what the solution would be or what would be changed.You never really know how the the landscape is going to change.”
“My dad (former Vol offensive lineman Kevin Mays) was like, ‘We used to do spring ball and have three (practices) every day and y’all are soft now. You never know how stuff’s going to change so quick.”
With the NCAA moving to a 12-team playoff, Tennessee is bound to be in the running for the National Championship sooner rather than later, but don’t tell that to Mays just yet. He’s not making any predictions.
“If you asked me two years ago when we were number one in the country, if we were going to be in the National Championship, I would have been like, ‘Hell yeah, We’re in the national championship.’ Are you kidding me? But you know how it goes.”
In that case, the South Carolina game happened. That’s in the rearview.
Mays’ laser focus for 2024 is only on his next opponent, not what could happen in the post-season nor what his or any other expectations might be lingering around the Vols.
“I would have the blinders on… that stuff doesn’t even matter,” Mays said. “It’s not even real. Until you’re in the playoffs, it’s all fake. Why are we even talking about it?”
“There’s no reason to look further than the next destination on your schedule. That sounds like coach-speak and like I am just being somebody who says what a coach would want me to say… but why would you look any further than the next person on your schedule?”
In other words, no repeating the South Carolina collapse in 2022.
It will be exciting to see how Mays and the Vols handle the new regular-season and playoff alterations. If you ask Mays, he’ll tell you this about his team, “We’re the new gladiators, man… We’re like the Roman Empire, but we’re just the new people inside of the Colosseum.”
