Recruiting Forum Football Talk III

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#209,952
#209,952
Bassmaster_Vol said:
Behold my tl/dr dissertation

No one thought we were a low talent team going into the GA game last year. In fact, Brent Hubbs on a podcast leading up to the GA game, said that we had the talent to finally compete with the GA's of the conference. We certainly believed that we had the talent in the first half, and we played like we had the talent as well. It wasn't until JG came out and immediately gave the game away with 3 straight turnovers that things changed. That is not an indictment of the talent on this team.

The next week against KY, that wasn't about talent either. JG threw 2 pick sixes, another interception, and a fumble in the first half. The team quit. They quit on JG and they quit on the coaching staff because they continued to trot JG out there. That isn't an indictment on the talent, but on the culture and the failures of the previous coaching staff.

I argue that we still are not a low talent team. We are not GA, Fl, or Alabama, but nobody is arguing that. We are still the 3rd most talented team in the east, and quite possibly more talented than any team we will face this year outside of the big 3. Nothing has changed.

Now, some will say, "but we had all those players leave in the transfer portal!" Okay? How many difference makers did we have leave? Of the guys in the portal, 8 were walk ons. Of the scholarship players, there was Jordan Allen, JJ Peterson, Sean Brown, Jackson Lowe, Martavoius French, Baylen Buchannan (who may never play football again and didn't play last year), and Savion Williams. What impact were those guys going to make? Some never played, and if they did, they played a few snaps here and there, none at a high level. That hurts some depth, but it isn't even quality depth.

Still more, we have Shrout and Kasim Hill in the portal, 2 kickers in the portal, and of course, JG is in the portal. We upgraded in talent with him leaving the team. 2 others are Isaac Washington and Kaidon Salter who never played here.

So you tell me, did we lose a ton of talent and difference makers to the portal? Not at all. There are some who we lost that were difference makers. We lost Eric Gray who is a good player, but he's not Kamara folks. We lost Henry, who still has elite potential, but was horrible last year. Will be interested to see what Bama can do with him. I'd love to have him still. He's the one I wish we still had the most. We lost Wanya, who was a 5 star, but was playing jumbo TE last year. We lost Jahmir Johnson who would have helped, but he had more penalties against him than successful reps. And we lost Key Lawrence who looked really good on paper, but only played a handful of snaps last year. Time will tell if he's a big loss or not. We lost Crouch who was a great recruit, but a terrible linebacker. TY Chandler who was the definition of mediocre. We also lost head case Middleton who was a below average player, and we lost Emerson who wasn't good either.

And we also brought in 10 players to replace many of those guys.

We brought in Tremblay and Terry to replace Middleton and Emerson. Upgrade.
We brought in Milton and Hooker to replace JG. A potato would have been an upgrade there. Upgrade.
We brought in Wright and Evans to replace Gray and Chandler. Time will tell if that's an upgrade.
We brought in Turnage to replace Key. Neither have played much, one has been in Bama's system for the past year and a half. At worst that's a wash. Time will tell. We also added Hammon as a DB as well.
We replaced our kicker in the portal.
We added another pass rusher in the portal who was recruited by our LB coach who knows him.
We added Mitchell to replace Henry. Stats are similar as Henry wasn't good last year. On paper, it's a wash, though Henry probably has more potential. We'll see.
And we added Payton to the receiving room.

I would argue that all we are missing is depth. We didn't lose a bunch of talent. We lost a few good players, no elite players with the exception of maybe Henry and Gray. Maybe, as I'm not sure those guys are elite. We also replaced many of those transfers with players that are as good as them or better.

Long story short, we are not a low talent team just like we weren't a low talent team last year. I think you can also argue that we will be better this year as well on the DL, at QB, at Wide Receiver, at RB, and probably at DB, considering the only player we lost there was BT, and we upgraded coaches there. We'll see what McDonald does this year and what Turnage brings. This is why all that talk about going 4-8 is pretty foolish. This is a 7-9 win team. The difference will be whether or not we can get quality QB play. It certainly won't be worse QB play than we had last year, that's for sure. Defense will be better than last year if for no other reason than we actually have coaches at DL and LB as well as some upgraded talent there as seen above.
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Preach! 👏👏👏👏👏
 
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#209,962
#209,962
BigOrangeGoose said:
Danny White:

Baseball ✅

Well done! Hopefully we turn into an elite baseball program. I have never been one to watch baseball, but this year was fun! GBO🍊
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This x 10. Underestimated how massive a job that took keeping him from LSU and others. It's a dang miracle and DW deserves a ton praise.
 
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#209,964
#209,964
Devo182 said:
Don't really care about how much he's getting paid, that was never an issue. The campus upgrades or downtown stadium is the real interest, seems that was the grinding point all along...how much were we willing to invest there.
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You’re going to have to wait. Per people in the know, with contracts and approved permits being involved, that stuff isn’t KNOWN by anybody. Obviously Vitello was satisfied with the path that was put in place.
 
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#209,969
#209,969
Looking for some ticket advice here. Planning to bring my son down to the Georgia game for his first game day Neyland experience. Would it be wise to grab whatever tickets I can get today through UT or will the secondary market be reasonable in a few months?

Still ironing out the details so having a little time before securing the tickets would be nice but also don't want to be paying twice face value if that's where things are going. Granted, if we're 9-0 heading into that game I'll gladly pay.

Thanks in advance.
 
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