Recruiting Forum Football Talk [RIP 9.3.2019]

[Big Sun]

I’m waiting for the FBI to swarm in on the state of Alabama and prove they’ve colluded in a massive scheme to cheat and defraud the sport of football. Watch Saban be carried off to federal prison.

That might be what I need to restore my belief in college football. I’m becoming a little bored with it...

VN should spearhead a crowdfund.

 

[engineerVOL]

lol Butch gets a backhanded comment st the final whistle.

 

[Pepe_Silvia]

Well at least we scored some points against bama.

 

[31VFL]

LWS said this on VQ, FWIW:

after the last 10 years, there are far too many fans which just can't comprehend how poor this program has gotten...

Since we last participated in the SECCG in 2007...

Tennessee is 65-68....

Against SEC competition Tennessee is 27-58

Thanks to cupcakes like Charlotte, our OOC record is 38-10..

This is a very bad football program and no one is going to fix it very quickly. It will take someone that can bring in top talent and then develop that talent to compete. That will change the program.

I'm not going to concern myself with how this program played against this team today. I'm more concerned with if this staff is going to be able to "change the program". Its going to take a few years to answer that question...

JMO

 

[Rishvol]

Is Murray even 5'9"?

 

[vol2002]

The talk shows on the radio and sports programs on TV are a joke. Why even talk about any other team. It’s all academic and we all know who is going to win it. Everyone is playing for second this year. It’s going to be Bama at least every other year, if not every year, going forward and they act like others actually have a chance. Saban and whatever formula he is using has broken the sport. It’s very hard to believe that nobody else or any other program in the entire country cannot catch up to him without something shady going on.

And agreed, it’s boring. Having a dynasty and a great run is one thing, but this is ridiculous and not fun in the least for everybody else.

People think the answer is more teams in the playoff. But I think that favors Bama more. No one has the depth besides them to play that caliber of team for three straight games.

I say kill the playoff and go back to the old bowl system. Back in the day anyone could win it. BYU won a title. Georgia Tech. Those teams will never win in the playoff era.

 

[vol2002]

LWS said this on VQ, FWIW:

We’ve got to give someone we trust 6 or 7 years and just leave them alone to get it done. There is literally no quick fix.

 

[Skizer41]

There was a play where Charlotte had a huge gain but Tuttle was tackled in front of the ref and no holding call was made

I saw this too. Pretty sure it was the same play you're describing. QB scrambled right after the pocket collapsed and the QB ended up getting a first down.

 

[Aesius]

LWS said this on VQ, FWIW:

Nothing groundbreaking there. We all know how bad we've been.

Bottom-tier SEC wins since 2008:

South Carolina - 46
Mississippi State - 37
Arkansas - 30
Tennessee - 27
Kentucky - 26
Vandy - 23

 

[BruinVol]

Earlier during one of the games they showed the noon game, don't remember who, and the choice of 3:30 games, not us. That leaves 7 or 7:30 of the choices listed earlier in the week. Apparently 4:00 wasn't an option.

Thanks

 

[vol2002]

Who plays them in our place? We can’t drop them unless the SEC adds teams or gets rid of permanent cross division rivalry games. Or we somehow convince another SEC team to play them instead.

We let Auburn go to the east and Mizzou to the west. Auburn keeps Bama as a rival. Georgia can pick up Texas A&M. South Carolina can get Mizzou and we can take Arkansas.

Given where we are I honestly think that is much more of a competitive balance. Long term we would like that trade off very much.

Imagine in your mind’s eye us coming off that big win over Auburn to come home to play Arkansas... or 2016, us coming off that exciting road game at A&M to play Arkansas...

Instead we come home from games like that to get eviscerated by our one time rival in a game that shakes everyone’s confidence to the core and reduces us all to celebrating first downs on offense and forcing punts on defense like we’ve won the super bowl...

 

[Nashvegas31]

We’ve got to give someone we trust 6 or 7 years and just leave them alone to get it done. There is literally no quick fix.

No. With the resources at TN you will know by year 4 what you got. If butch can take what he took over and have us on the edge of breaking through then I have faith Pruitt will too. It will be up to Pruitt to get over the hump Butch couldn't

 

[LotteryPick]

LWS said this on VQ, FWIW:

He just says the same sh!t, like he he’s a voice of reason. It’s obnoxious.

 

[31VFL]

Nothing groundbreaking there. We all know how bad we've been.

Bottom-tier SEC wins since 2008:

South Carolina - 46
Mississippi State - 37
Arkansas - 30
Tennessee - 27
Kentucky - 26
Vandy - 23

Right. I know some people like to hear his opinion so I figured I would share. The SEC record was sobering for me.

 

[Aesius]

We let Auburn go to the east and Mizzou to the west. Auburn keeps Bama as a rival. Georgia can pick up Texas A&M. South Carolina can get Mizzou and we can take Arkansas.

Given where we are I honestly think that is much more of a competitive balance. Long term we would like that trade off very much.

Imagine in your mind’s eye us coming off that big win over Auburn to come home to play Arkansas... or 2016, us coming off that exciting road game at A&M to play Arkansas...

Instead we come home from games like that to get eviscerated by our one time rival in a game that shakes everyone’s confidence to the core and reduces us all to celebrating first downs on offense and forcing punts on defense like we’ve won the super bowl...

I get your point and I wish it could happen, but it's not going to. Tennessee "chickening out" of the Bama series, and that's what it would look like, isn't going to draw sympathy from other programs and ADs. And no one is going to mess with the divisions right now to help Tennessee.

 

[BleedorangeinGA]

We’ve got to give someone we trust 6 or 7 years and just leave them alone to get it done. There is literally no quick fix.

Butch won 9 games in year 3. It’s not going to take the amount of time LWS thinks.

If Pruitt is who we all hope he is, he will be competing for the east no later than year 4.

 

[vol2002]

No. With the resources at TN you will know by year 4 what you got. If butch can take what he took over and have us on the edge of breaking through then I have faith Pruitt will too. It will be up to Pruitt to get over the hump Butch couldn't

I disagree. We’ve got to accept that a return to relevance will not be a steady climb up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, with some 6 wins seasons and some 9 win seasons traded back and forth

Our fans create pressure and chaos at the first sign of slippage and we go back to the well, restarting a 3 to 4 year rebuild.

We were done with Dooley and Butch and they had failed so I’m not arguing that. But at some point you’ve got to pick your horse and ride with it through thick and thin

 

[vol2002]

I get your point and I wish it could happen, but it's not going to. Tennessee "chickening out" of the Bama series, and that's what it would look like, isn't going to draw sympathy from other programs and ADs. And no one is going to mess with the divisions right now to help Tennessee.

I know plenty of LSU, A&M and Auburn fans that would love it. They all think it would help their respective programs.

I think it’s Tennessee and Bama that hang on to it.

I don’t care about chickening out. Let them say what they want.

 

[#Vol4Life1991]

We’ve got to give someone we trust 6 or 7 years and just leave them alone to get it done. There is literally no quick fix.

Butch said this in one of his first interviews...

shouldn't take 6/7 years when it only takes 4 years to get a full recruiting recycle in.

 

[Aesius]

I know plenty of LSU, A&M and Auburn fans that would love it. They all think it would help their respective programs.

I think it’s Tennessee and Bama that hang on to it.

I don’t care about chickening out. Let them say what they want.

Well, it's not going to happen. Tennessee isn't going to appeal to the SEC office to get Auburn moved to the East and Mizzou moved to the West so that we don't have to play Bama anymore. The only hope is that the SEC adds two more teams and we move to conference "pods" where Bama is no longer a permanent opponent, but even then I imagine we would still play them because of historical reasons....or by that point Saban will have retired/died of old age on the sidelines and they won't be as dominant.

 

[Nashvegas31]

Even Kirby me Saban had their struggle in year 1. Saban lost to LA Monroe. Kirby lost to Vandy and almost lost to Nichols st.

We have loss to West Va who will be top 10 or close after their win.

Florida who has shown they were better off than we thought. Top 25 team

UGA/Bama - 2 top 5 teams after this wknd

South Carolina on the road - was projected #2 in East and could easily finish on high note if they beat Florida next wknd at home.

Not ideal but not unreasonable losses considering state of program

 

[engineerVOL]

Well you can flip a roster in 3 years. But I don’t believe it’s so cut and dry like that. Plenty of great coaches don’t show you that right away. It’s the first timers that it takes a looooong time. Sans Kirby “Ralph Wiggums” Smart. Pruitt is a first time head coach. He could change his philosophy a lot between now and his breakthrough year. And unfortunately I think the next team that gets Pruitt as a HC will get his best.

 

[InVOLuntary]

I think we should leave the SEC. We just can't compete. Maybe we should just go to the FCS. It would be so much easier.

 

[vol2002]

Butch said this in one of his first interviews...

shouldn't take 6/7 years when it only takes 4 years to get a full recruiting recycle in.

We assume every recruit will pan out, we will win all close games, there will never be key injuries, etc. The game has too many variables beyond a coach’s control.

Our best years came when we had coaching stability. That’s when our program works best. Need to give them time...

 

[Smokeytom]

LSU is still the same team it was under Les and it showed again today. They have the players to play with Bama, but they have absolutely no creativity on offense and can’t recruit the game changer at QB.

Concerning where we are right now - I agree with LWS.

Pruitt has an all star staff of coaches and recruiters. I think he deserves a full 6 years before we even think of making any moves. If we give him st least 6 years then I don’t see any way possible that the cupboards would be bare for the coach who would follow. That is NOT to say we can’t judge him harshly along the way, but the dude knows football and he knows what top talent looks like. Let him get his guys here and I think we’ll like what we see on the field.