HOOVER, Ala. --- The mild-mannered, pokerfaced Mark Richt of the past won't be back patrolling Georgia's sidelines this season.

The Bulldogs coach said Thursday at Southeastern Conference media days that he will stick with the more fiery and emotional sideline demeanor unveiled late last season, when he waved his arms to fire up the crowd, flung his headset to the ground and dressed all in black with his players against Auburn.

"Now, how am I going to be this year?" Richt said. "I'll probably be very much like I was from midseason on."

Now, if only his team follows suit after undergoing a transformation that coincided with Richt's own change, riding a late-season surge to a No. 2 final ranking.

One thing Richt said he wouldn't repeat: That bench-clearing end zone celebration after an early touchdown against rival Florida that got his team fired up and, of course, drew an excessive celebration penalty. Richt had ordered his players to get flagged if they scored early.

"In hindsight, I shouldn't have done it," said Richt, who apologized to the SEC and Gators coach Urban Meyer . "I won't do anything like that again."

FULMER SUBPOENA: Lawyers for a former Alabama football booster said they staked out the annual Southeastern Conference media days and served Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer with a subpoena to testify about a lawsuit against the NCAA.

Fulmer repeatedly denied seeing a subpoena. But the scene was much like the one he tried to avoid four years ago when he refused to come to the event in suburban Birmingham and spoke only by phone, incurring a $10,000 fine from the league.

A process server hired by lawyers for Wendell Smith , of Chattanooga, Tenn., approached Fulmer as he stepped out of an SUV outside the suburban hotel where SEC media days was held, said Brandon Blankenship , an attorney for Smith.

"He said, 'Coach Fulmer, I've got something for you,' and gave it to him," said Blankenship, of Birmingham.

Fulmer denied it.

"I have not seen a subpoena," he said. "This is not the place for that kind of thing.

NUTT'S SWITCH: Houston Nutt insists it didn't feel weird to be introduced at SEC media days as Mississippi's head coach after a decade of pulling the same duty for Arkansas.

"It feels like I've been here a long time," Nutt said of his new home. "It's the way I feel right now, I think because of the transition, it's been so smooth."

Nutt, who resigned from Arkansas, didn't exactly take over a program that most expect to contend for SEC titles immediately. The Rebels were winless in the league under Ed Orgeron last season, after all.

COMFORT ZONE: Alabama coach Nick Saban is still waging a battle with expectations and hype.

For a change, he is facing more questions about the nation's top-rated recruiting class and how some of those highly touted players can handle it. Last year, it was about the talk that Saban would instantly turn around a struggling Crimson Tide program.

"You guys use that word 'expectations' a lot," Saban told reporters.

"I try to minimize it a lot, because I think it's dangerous. We're trying to focus on what we can do to make our team the best it can be."