There’s dew still in the grass next to the tailgate closing up shop.

Today is more of a sprint than a marathon whether you like it or not.

Good morning, as the Jefferson Pilot Sports intro music plays, it’s already time for football.

It’s a begrudging SEC tradition dating back to the days of the Three Daves and pre-HD television with camcorder-grade views back home.

The 11 a.m. CT kickoff has long been a punchline or the perceived insult for those picked to play as far from primetime as possible. “Breakfast with the Barn”, is the gag in Tuscaloosa for the perceived high number of pre-noon kicks for Auburn.

But is Auburn really the leader in morning football participation? Not even close, according to our meticulous inspection of every SEC kickoff time since 2013. First, some background.

The Jefferson Pilot Sports days of syndicated kickoffs airing off the beaten path was the birthplace of this perceived indignity. With Dave Neal, Dave Rowe and Dave Archer on the call and often mediocrity on the field, the early kick became a conference-wide punchline.

On the rare occasion there was magic, take the 2002 Bluegrass Miracle for example. Nick Saban-coach LSU stunned Kentucky with a Hail Mary that’s preserved with Zapruder-level footage.

The SEC Network inherited that slice of the television dial when it launched in 2014.

In reality, there are three main windows for SEC games to begin. There’s the 11 a.m. CT slot on the SEC Network or one of the ESPN properties. Auburn, for example, followed College GameDay headgear reveal this past Saturday with its 11 a.m. CT game on ESPN. Kentucky and Vanderbilt began at the same time on the SEC Network.

Then, for this final season, the 2:30 p.m. CT CBS game gets the first pick of each week’s matchups. A 3 p.m. CT SEC Network game is followed by the rest spreading out among the ESPN properties — cable or streaming.

So, who has the earliest kicks in the past 11 years? The answer may surprise you.

It’s Georgia.

The Bulldogs have 39 games in that early timeslot followed by Florida with 38.

Auburn is tied for ninth most with 26.

LSU’s had the fewest with 11 with Alabama next at 15.

The Bulldogs’ number is padded by the fact the last eight regular-season finales with Georgia Tech began at 11 a.m. CT or noon in Georgia.

Missouri, however, has been an 11 a.m. darling when looking at just the last few seasons. It’s played 12 times before noon since the 2021 season began — once than LSU’s total from the past 11 years.

“Our fans will do whatever they need to do to be here,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said, “but it’s not quite as advantageous but the more concern for me is the night road games because we’re the furthest north-playing team in our league and the travel has been horrendous from that end and that’s not great for student-athlete well-being.”

Kentucky’s Mark Stoops took another approach when asked about his level of concern with home fans showing up for this Saturday’s noon ET game with Florida.

“I have great confidence in the people of Kentucky that can get up very early and pound some beers,” Stoops said to laughter Monday in Lexington.

As a whole, SEC coaches didn’t seem all that opposed to playing the early game on the road.

“It’s hard to have as loud a crowd at 11:00 a.m. as it is to have it in the evening when they get all ready to go during the day,” Arkansas’ Sam Pittman said making the point of early games neutralizing what can be the most hostile stadiums in the nation.

“I love early kicks on the road,” Auburn’s Hugh Freeze said the Monday before heading to Texas A&M where the Tigers beat soundly, 27-10.

The Tigers are 6-5 in early games played on the road since 2013 and 16-10 overall in that span. Of those, 11 were conference home games.

Alabama, meanwhile, had just one SEC home game begin at 11 a.m., in the past 11 years. The Tide is 15-0 in those early kicks with four road games — two at Mississippi State and one each at Texas and Arkansas — with the other 10 being Group of 5 or FCS visitors to Tuscaloosa.

The 20-19 win at Texas in 2022 was the only close one in the bunch with a 65-31 win at Arkansas in 2018 being the only other non-snoozer.

To date, the only 2023 Alabama game set for an early start is the Nov. 18 visit from Chattanooga of the FCS.

Florida, meanwhile, is set for its 39th since 2013 when Kentucky visits Sept. 30. The Gators have had no fewer than four of these early time slots every year since 2017.

Second-year coach Billy Napier is 3-1 in the 11 a.m. CT game and served up the brutal honesty of the whole deal.

“TV, I mean, drives the ship,” Napier said, “partly because of the popularity of the game and revenue the game creates and sometimes you don’t get the quote-unquote prime spot.”

The truth of it all.

“But it doesn’t change anything on our end,” he continued, “and we don’t want to make too much of a big deal of it to be a really good example for our players in terms of our attitude and approach.”

The fact that Florida and Georgia are the two most frequent early risers would fly in the face of the early-game insult.

Vanderbilt, with its 36.3 winning percentage since 2013, tied for the fifth most with 34.

Mississippi State had the third least (23) with an overall 58.8 winning percentage.

So, bottom line, the correlation between lousy records and early alarm clocks isn’t one-to-one. There are outliers, but it’s also not surprising to see Alabama and LSU aren’t frequent early risers or that Missouri isn’t a primetime draw.

In some conferences, the first window is an honor, or less of a perceived slight. They call it Big Noon Saturday with high-value games from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 going reverse primetime on Fox. Ohio State-Michigan is always in that time slot. Even Colorado-USC is set for a 10 a.m. local kickoff on Sept. 30.

But in the SEC, the money games are played in the middle of the afternoon or under the lights.

Anything else is somewhat insulting.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.