TUPELO - The SEC's 12 head football coaches will gather this week in Hoover, Ala., and there will be three new faces in their number.

From Mississippi State, Dan Mullen. From Auburn, Gene Chizik. From Tennessee, Monte Kiffin's kid, Lane.

All three have one thing in common - they are there because their schools had losing seasons in 2008.

Four SEC coaches failed to hit at least .500 last season and three of them got whacked. The fourth, Bobby Petrino, was in his first season at Arkansas.

It's likely at least one of the coaches standing before the press this week won't be back next season.

Since 2001, when Georgia's Mark Richt stepped to the podium as the Bulldogs' rookie coach, every other team in the league has changed coaches at least once. Only twice, in 2004 and 2006, has the lineup been unchanged from one year to the next.

Three teams, at least, figure to have losing seasons this fall. The three new coaches have nothing to worry about - right? - and Kentucky's Rich Brooks and Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson have built up enough goodwill the last couple of seasons to shake off a bad season ... if it's not too bad.

Brooks turns 68 in late August, though. Win or lose this fall, you wonder if he hasn't already done more than anyone might have expected with the Wildcats' job, including three consecutive bowl victories. And UK has already designated its coach-in-waiting, Wildcats assistant Joker Phillips.

In Nashville, Johnson can probably be Coach for Life after getting his Commodores to only their fourth bowl ever - and their first bowl victory since 1955. After playing in the Music City Bowl, Vandy can aim higher - like maybe an out-of-town bowl next time.

Could anyone else might get disinvited to the Hoover party before 2010?

Don't look now, but the Ol' Ball Coach has turned into ... an old ball coach. Steve Spurrier turned 64 in April, is a surprisingly ordinary 13-12 the last two seasons. And that whole thing about how he's never had a losing season - this could be the year.

Besides, he can now say he's outlasted his old pal at Tennessee, Phil Fulmer.

The other guys - Richt, Houston Nutt of Ole Miss, Alabama's Nick Saban, LSU's Les Miles and Florida's Urban Meyer - will all be back unless they chose to be elsewhere.

Meyer vowed last week that he'll never coach at Notre Dame, but didn't say anything about the NFL. On the other hand, he's building a pretty good pro franchise in Gainesville as it is.

Richt's teams have averaged 10.6 wins over the last seven seasons. His body of work may get overshadowed by the potential of a coming decade of Meyer-Saban wars for the SEC title, but he's surely in the right league to eventually claim that national title that has so far eluded him.

Miles is the other wild card in all this. On paper, he's got a better team than last year's 8-5 squad. A span of eight days this fall - an Oct. 3 trip to Georgia and a home game with Florida the week after that - will set the table for a November that boasts trips to Tuscaloosa and Oxford.

The Bayou Bengals lost all four of those games last season. As they say on TV, of course, "past results are no guarantee of future performance."

Would that 2007 BCS Championship give Miles enough equity to survive another five-loss season?

Maybe. But if that happens, he'll find a very hot seat awaiting him in Hoover this time next year.

John L. Pitts (john.pitts@djournal.com) is sports editor of the Daily Journal. He's more of an old bald coach.