| Good Saturday morning everyone. Well, I have to admit that after the flood of content we had for you coming from the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the past week, site of both SEC Media Days and major league baseball's All-Star Game, today's news brings you a comparative trickle. But often it's quality over quantity. That's what we have today with news of Friday's release of the preseason SEC media poll and the preseason All-SEC team. The votes, cast by over 200 media members attending media days, puts LSU fifth in the new 16-team SEC heading into the season. There are, of course, also a number of LSU players on the preseason All-SEC first, second and third teams. In my view, considering all the questions about the Tigers going into this season — new quarterback, bad defense last year, two new cooordinators plus an entirely new defensive staff — LSU being picked fifth is a fair measure of respect. It's a ranking that says LSU can be a contender for also newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. Now, the Tigers have to go out and earn it. Speaking of earning it, former LSU All-American Angel Reese has well earned her nod as a WNBA all-star in her rookie season. She will make her all-star debut on a team of WNBA players facing the U.S. Olympic national team in Phoenix at 7:30 p.m. on ABC. Well, like I said, folks, short and sweet, though at the bottom of today's newsletter I have included something of a greatest hits list of LSU and SEC stories from this past week. Hope you have a great sports weekend. On a personal note, this will be my last LSU newsletter for about a month or so. I'm heading across the Atlantic to cover the Paris Olympics, and the contingent of 35 LSU/Louisiana athletes who will represent the United States and 18 other countries. It's my second Olympics (I attended several competitions in 1996 in Atlanta) but my first time to cover the Games. As I am sure you can imagine, I'm beyond excited. Please follow all of our coverage of the Summer Olympics in The Advocate, The Times-Picayune, at TheAdvocate.com and NOLA.com. Also please, if you would, send out your best wishes that my airline gets through this huge software crash to get me there on time. Au revoir for now, Scott Rabalais | 
