It's Saturday afternoon at Beaver Stadium. A room full of reporters waits as Joe Paterno steps to the podium, a cluster of voice recorders and microphones in front of him.

It's far from the most exciting 20 minutes of questions and answers, but Paterno sits back and critiques his team and offers a few entertaining quips, all while talking about the opponent with respect.

Elsewhere, with a pair of big egos in the SEC, the latter seems like a foreign concept.

It's Sunday in Gainesville, Fla.

Florida coach Urban Meyer fields questions from reporters.

Like Paterno, he shows his concern with the flu impacting his team and offers his analysis on the Gators' 23-13 win over rival Tennessee.

But unlike JoePa, Meyer starts pointing fingers at his opponent, saying the Volunteers' run-first strategy late in the game showed a lack of desire to win.

And we're off.

It's Monday in Knoxville, Tenn.

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin takes his place in front of microphones.

The 34-year-old Kiffin explains his strategy, saying running the ball gave Tennessee its best chance at closing the gap.

But he couldn't stop himself from going further.

He points out that SEC commissioner Mike Slive said he wanted the verbal wars between the two coaches to come to an end.

This from Kiffin, who, with a career college coaching record now at 1-2, spent an entire offseason talking and talking and talking, calling out Meyer and making himself the center of attention before even coaching a game in Knoxville.

And when asked about his own team potentially dealing with the flu at some point this season, Kiffin couldn't resist going back after Meyer.

"I don't know," Kiffin told reporters. "I guess we'll wait, and after we're not excited about a performance, we'll tell you everybody was sick."

Entertaining? Absolutely.

Childish bickering? Yeah, that too.

It's Tuesday afternoon, back at Beaver Stadium.

Again, Paterno fields questions, not always providing meaningful details about the team, but joking with reporters, talking about his team's areas of concern and addressing the upcoming game with Iowa while putting his team above himself.

This is Paterno, the 82-year-old coach who is more than old enough to be Meyer or Kiffin's father.

And at this point, what those two could use is some fatherly advice, showing them how to handle themselves more like Paterno when the cameras are rolling.

The advice is simple: Get over the feud, stop the childish name-calling and let the players play the game.

Sure, Meyer-Kiffin made Florida-Tennessee much more relevant nationally. But that doesn't make it right -- the focus should stay on the field with the people who the game is really about.

Their egos are already big enough.