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Since these meetings are often used by coaches to sell bravado and enthusiasm for the upcoming year, Bielema normally talks about how he "didn't come play in the SEC, but to win the SEC" and "all those teams have to play us too."
However, speaking at the Saline County Razorback Club in Benton this week, Bielema said something else to compare himself to Nick Saban, as quoted by David Hendrix Jr of Hootens.com and alluded to by Rex Crane of HogDatabase:
"The reason the SEC is talked about all the time is one team, because of their dominance. But I didn't come here to play Alabama. I came here to beat Alabama.
"You can take Saban's record when he was at Michigan State and when he was a coach in the Big Ten and put it against mine, and he can't compare."
I thought this was pretty funny. Yes, it's technically true, and I can totally see Bielema using this line on recruits, but it's still funny, because, you know, four national titles since joining the SEC and that sort of thing.
Of course, it remains to be seen how Bielema's SEC record will compare to Saban's SEC record, so open roads, blank pages, stairs go up, opportunities and whatnot.
Bielema has to have a good zinger response to those questions since he's asked them so often. Booster clubs eat that up. It could also end up on opponents' (probably one in particular) bulletin boards, so, oh well. Here we are.
Other than that, per those two linked articles Bielema discussed how excited he was to have a staff with the recruiting skills that he has, and described the previous staff's emphasis on "pretty boys" at skill positions and how it's caused a lack of depth of "big uglies" in the trenches. He hopes the strong haul of offensive lineman who signed with the Hogs this year will help restore that position quickly.
Oh, and he said he'd send Alex Collins' mom a Mother's Day card, which is nice.
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