Miscellaneous notes –
Kentucky brought back Liam Coen to revive its moribund offense from last year. When Coen was there in 2021 the Cats won 10 games. Coen was on a 2-yr contract at 750k per year with a built-in 25k raise for 2022. He left after that 2021 season (his contract called for him to pay UK 150k as a buyout) and returned to the LA Rams (who had just won the super bowl with the 9th best offense in the NFL). Kevin O’Connell, the previous Rams OC had just been hired as the HC for the Vikings. Under Coen’s direction the Rams offense fell to dead last in the NFL in his one year there. There were a lot of injuries and they lost of a lot from their super bowl team but falling to dead last in offense wasn’t exactly the expectation. jmo.
Against teams (2) that finished the season ranked by the AP in 2021, Coen’s Kentucky offense averaged 16.5 points per game. Against the 5 FBS teams Kentucky played in 2021 that finished the season with a winning record, Coen’s Cat offense averaged 21.6 points per game. By comparison, in 2021 we played 5 teams that finished ranked by the AP and averaged 29.2 points per game against those opponents. We played 7 FBS teams in 2021 that finished the season with a winning record and averaged 33.7 points per game against those opponents. Anyway, Stoops brought Coen back to Lexington, this time with a salary of 1.7 million per year and a 100k raise per year for a 3-year deal. If Coen chooses to leave early this time he doesn’t have to pay any buyout. Stoops was desperate. jmo.
I often try to qualify a team’s schedule for quality of opponents. Phil Steele used to only look at how teams performed against conference opponents and I use that sometimes but it doesn’t account for teams that are having down years. FBS teams that finished the season with a winning record is a bit more challenging and performance against teams that finish the season ranked by the AP is maybe the most challenging for comparison purposes. I read on the Kentucky message board that in his 10 years in Lexington Stoops has only beat 2 SEC teams that finished the season with a winning SEC record. Heupel did that last year alone (LSU & UA, both 6-2 SEC records) and also beat UK (5-3 SEC record) in 2021.
Regarding Colorado and the “give the coach time to flip the roster”, this is I think the last year where the 25-man signing limit (initial counters) is suspended so if you need to flip your roster you can do it in one year, but I think that only applies to this year and last year, as far as I know. Last year Colorado’s roster was ranked by 247 to be the 63rd best roster in the nation. In looking at the average recruit rating of the 59 commits they have so far it looks like they could end up with a top 25 roster this year, maybe top 20. Their average right now is 88.10. Our average last year was 87.77 and 247 rated our roster as 19th best in 2022. I think we move up maybe 2 or 3 or so spots in this year’s roster rankings. Colorado’s problem is they’ll have no returning production so no experience in their systems in any phase of the game. I think they have a good OC (Sean Lewis) and I’m not sure about Charles Kelly as the DC but he’s worked for us and Saban so he probably knows something. I think they’ll score some points but I don’t know how many games they’ll win in year one. The point is Colorado could end up with on paper the 3rd best roster in the Pac-12 this year. It may take a year or two for that to translate but it could work. jmo.
Speaking of performance against teams that finished the season ranked in the AP Top 25, since and including 2015, we have played 34 such teams and Georgia has played 37 such teams. I used 2015 as the start year because that is the year just prior to Kirby’s arrival at Georgia. There is some thinking that Georgia will fall somewhat back to earth this year, not that they don’t still have an excellent chance to get back to Atlanta and beyond, just that similar to Alabama, no matter how well you recruit, there will still be ups and downs, just not really big downs. Generally teams that recruit as well as Alabama and Georgia are likely to have a pretty high floor. Everybody has already declared that Georgia has a cakewalk of a schedule this year and there is only one team they’ll face that may be able to derail their delusions of a three-peat, the Tennessee Volunteers, on November 18th in Neyland Stadium.
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If you exclude the Georgia and South Carolina games from last year our rating would have been 13.5 vs teams that finished in the AP Top 25, essentially the same rating as Georgia’s 2021 national championship team. The point is for us to improve on last year’s performance we’ll have to show up for EVERY game, on both sides of the ball, and in every phase of the game. Just show up. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. jmo.
Heupel said on his stop here in Chattanooga with the Big Orange Caravan that Tennessee will be playing ELITE defense. He repeated that when the Caravan made its stop in the Tri-Cities. I don’t know when that’s going to happen but I think it starts with fixing our secondary. We have a lot more competition in the backend this year and presumably will be significantly more healthy. It may be a stretch to get to elite this year without more talent at Safety but I think it’s probably safe to anticipate marked improvement in our pass defense this season. jmo.
Regarding our schedule, a lot of people in college football are noting the issues with Florida’s offense and of course the questions at QB for Alabama, but I’ve been somewhat uneasy about the A&M game, owing to their talent and returning production. They return 10 starters on offense and 9 starters on defense. This much I can say, after watching the first half of their spring game, we may not have anything to worry about. To me they looked really lethargic but one thing that jumped out at me was Jimbo was standing behind the offense talking to the QBs in between plays. The big question some have about the Petrino hire is will Jimbo let go of the offense. Offense is his element and identity. Both he and Bobby are thought to have outsized egos so if I had to guess, I’d say they may be in for a bumpy ride and if the powers that be don't want Jimbo calling the shots anymore, well, I honestly don't think he'll be all that upset with his buyout. jmo.
In the spring of 2021 after the FPI & SP+ models came out and looking at the returning production numbers I said I thought we had 5 wins 4 toss-ups and 3 losses and if we could win 2 of the toss-ups that would be pretty good. That's what we did. Last spring I said my read on the models suggested we had 5 wins, 6 toss-ups, and 1 loss, and I thought we might be able to win 10+ games, which is also what we did. This year my read on the models suggest that we have 8 wins, 3 toss-ups, and 1 loss (barely). I've seen a number of fans expecting 8-4 or 9-3 this year and that may be the way things sort out but if we can remain relatively healthy, we still have a lot of older guys, so I won't be surprised if this year we finally get back to Atlanta. jmo.
gets it!
