The latter part is true. The first part is not. The coaches did not utilize the available talent to its potential. And no... it isn't that complicated.
What potential? What potential does a team have when every single recruiting class leading up to it has been torn to shreds?
By the second qtr, UF no longer held a talent advantage. They had lost an OL, 3 or 4 DB's, and their starting QB.
Similarly, UGA's roster was pretty well decimated between prior injuries and those that occurred during the game.[/QUOTE]
That's great. They still had more talent than UT, even after those injuries.
You can look at the data that Daj brings if it suits you.
Do you have a link to it?
Those rosters even factoring in attrition were pretty closely matched. Spurrier has been there longer and played a much easier schedule though. That win really should not have been surprising to anyone. It was an accurate reflection of how closely matched those teams were talent wise AND the match up advantages UT had.
Did you seriously type that with a straight face? It's not even
close.
Nope. They know and play their system... and to date, Pinkel has proven himself to be the better coach. Mizzou is NOT a team that won because of overwhelming talent. They won in spite of a lack of it. Their schedule also laid out very nice.
What makes you assume that it was the "system", and not the coach's ability to evaluate talent? Missouri has brought quite a few great players into the fold over the years - ones with great
talent that were overlooked during the recruiting process. The same obviously cant be said for Tennessee's recent recruiting classes.
That's interesting. Just looked at the CBS draft rankings. Mizzou and UT both had six player predicted to be drafted... as does USCe. Auburn has 6 as well. UGA only has 4. Oregon has 7.
First of all, you have an odd definition of "predicted to be drafted". The draft only has 255 picks, and you're including two prospects that are ranked about 60 spots behind.
Now, the premise of college talent being directly correlated to NFL draft status is highly inaccurate to begin with (hence why a fantastic player like Connor Shaw is ranked 229th), since there are so many players with skill sets that are a great fit for college but not so great for the NFL. But anyway, here are the projection for players who fit inside the top 255.
Tennessee: 49, 99, 109, 195
Missouri: 11, 67, 102, 158, 209
South Carolina: 2, 70, 78, 83, 229
Auburn: 4, 48, 60, 135, 137
Georgia: 132, 172
Oregon: 91, 100, 186, 218
Florida: 57, 68, 81, 116, 151, 188
Missouri, SC, Florida and Auburn have a pretty clear edge. Georgia and Oregon don't, but Oregon makes up for it with a wealth of solid players who weren't quite projected to be drafted. If you look at the overall list and see the context of where the players are ranked, everyone but Georgia has a clear edge.
But why are you only looking at 2014 projections? That's pretty shallow and far from an overall indicator of a team's talent level. What about 2015 and 2016? All Tennessee has in those classes, according to CBS, are the following:
2015 (rising seniors): #14 RB, #18 TE, #16 OG, #3 ILB, #19 OLB, #25 CB
2016 (rising juniors): #28 WR, #3 FS, #7 SS
If we applied those positional rankings to where they would rank overall in 2014, only two would be drafted: Johnson (87th, though he was getting 2nd round talk this year), Coleman (170th), Lane(177th) and Maggitt (204th). Since Maggitt didn't play a down last year, that's three juniors last year who are projected to be drafted and only one who even approaches the top ten at his position. Not good.
In 2016, McNeil and Randolph rank highly at their positions...but that's pretty much it. Along with Howard, they're not just the only ones who are projected to be drafted, but only one other player is projected in the top 25 at his position (Mack Crowder, who would rank in the 500s if this was projected to 2014). Also not good.
It might not look so bad if you
just look at the projected 2014 draftees, but there's obviously much more to it than that. The future draft projections go to show that.
There's simply no way to determine that based on what we have "seen" from the QB's. The receiver play was so poor that it would be impossible to call any of the QB's who played "failures".
Oh, so we had bad receivers too.
It is NOT BS or even close to it. All four of those guys have talent and were recruited by good programs in addition to UT.
It is most definitely BS when you apply it to the context of the 2013 SEC, which was especially loaded with great quarterbacks. Which SEC quarterbacks from last year do you consider Worley or Dobbs (as a freshman) to be better than?
You assume that the coaching was on par with those other 13 schools. I don't. I am looking for PROOF that they can coach at the SEC level. So far, they have for two games- USCe and UGA.
I don't assume it was on par. I don't assume anything. That's why I've always considered it "Year Zero". The Vols of future seasons are going to be so fundamentally different from the 2013 team that any attempt to draw any kind of conclusion or "hunch" about Jones based on the 2013 team's performance is an exercise in futility.
