No. And that's not a crack on Heupel and his staff. It's just that the SEC is WAYYYY more competitive than it was in the 90's.
In a league where you have Saban, Smart, Kelly, Freeze, Kiffin, Stoops, and you know Texas and Oklahoma will be tough, plus Florida won't be down for long. It's going to be damn hard to win in this league. I think we'll have success but that run in the 90's will be damn tough to replicate or surpass.
It's for sure harder now but I think some of the current guys are overrated a bit and we forget the 90s weren't completely a cakewalk:
Dinardo had a 2 year stretch where he won 19 games at LSU
Gene Stallings coached up until 1996 and won 70 games in 7 years
Terry Bowden was 47-17 at Auburn
Donnan won 19 over a two year period and went 40-19 overall
Spurrier won 102 games in the 90s
a look at some of today's coaches
Stoops has 60 wins....that's great at UK but it took him 10 years to get there. They've given him a long leash
Kiffin is 51-28 as a Power 5 coach, 1/3 of his P5 wins came the first 2 years at USC
Jimbo Fisher has been given an NFL budget to work with and has yet to have a 10 win season and is 39-21 overall
I don't know what to make of Napier....he looked lost at times last year but he's recruiting great
Again, I know it is a rough road today and the SEC is super top heavy with Nick and Kriby.
I just think sometimes we diminish the things we did in the 90s because Phil went out on such a sour note.
One example is that we always seem to lump Donnan in with Goff....but Donnan was a pretty good coach. Phil just had his number. In 1997 UGA went 10-2 with a win over #6 Florida....we beat them 38-13 that year.