The 2023 edition of SEC Media Days begins Monday in a first-time venue.

After mostly taking place in the Birmingham area for more than three decades and having ventured to Atlanta last year, the unofficial kickoff to SEC football season heads to the Grand Hyatt hotel in Nashville this year. In addition to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s annual “state of the conference” speech, the opening day of four will feature players and coaches from three SEC schools — LSU, Missouri and Texas A&M.

Here’s a quick guide for what to expect on Day 1 of SEC Media Days 2023:

1. Plenty of future schedule talk

The SEC kicked the can down the road at its Spring Meetings in May, extending the eight-game schedule format for another year after Texas and Oklahoma join the league with the idea of re-visiting prior to 2025. The debate will rage on at SEC Media Days, however, as Sankey and all 14 coaches (among others) will be asked to weigh in. On one side of the argument is protecting “secondary” rivalries such as Alabama-Tennessee, Auburn-Georgia and Ole Miss-Mississippi State, which would be impossible without a nine-game schedule given the desire for each team to “rotate” through the entire conference every four years. On the other is the messiness of undoing already scheduled non-conference games and the general fear that playing an additional conference game will hurt some SEC schools’ chances of enjoying a successful season.

2. Texas, Oklahoma aren’t here yet, but might as well be

We already know what the SEC will generally look like once the Longhorns and Sooners join the league in 2024 — a single, division-less conference that will send the teams with the two best records to the championship game. However, those two programs will definitely raise the level of competition in the league, both on the field and in recruiting (they already have in the latter category). There will be plenty of discussion in Nashville this week about the impending arrival of Texas and Oklahoma, who they should play when they get here and how they might upset the balance of power in both the SEC and college football in general.

3. LSU’s Brian Kelly will be feeling his oats

The Tigers won the SEC West and snapped a long losing streak against Alabama in Year 1 under Kelly. What will do they for an encore? That’s certainly among the major themes heading into the 2023 SEC season, and Kelly has never been one to shy away from high expectations. He’s been on a months-long offseason bragging tour about his team’s (admittedly gutsy) overtime win over the Crimson Tide and he’ll certainly be asked if LSU is the new “team to beat” in the SEC West. Kelly will no doubt answer in the affirmative, which should make for some interesting headlines.

4. Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher will talk really fast, but not say much

The Aggie Auctioneer (not his real nickname, but maybe it should be) will continue to set unofficial SEC records for words-per-minute during his appearance at Media Days, but won’t say much of substance. Like Steve Spurrier before him, Fisher saves his best barbs for the offseason banquet circuit and is generally more unhinged in front of his hometown media contingent rather than at the podium in front of national and regional reporters. And coming off a 5-7 finish in 2022 and a relatively quiet offseason, it’s probably best if Fisher plays it low-key in Nashville anyway.

5. Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz will say something controversial

Say this for Drinkwitz, he doesn’t let the fact he’s got a losing career record at Missouri keep him from voicing his opinions on any number of issues or even taking shots at various opponents while at the podium. He’s got a little Spurrier/Lane Kiffin in him in that way, and perhaps he’s realized that’s the best way to keep his team in the conversation despite limited success on the field and being at a bit of an outpost for the SEC. It’s very likely he’ll have something interesting/provocative to say during his time in Nashville about NIL, the transfer portal or whichever opponent he’s got in his sights.

Creg Stephenson is a sports writer for AL.com. He has covered college football for a variety of publications since 1994. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @CregStephenson.