BowlBrother85
1 star recruit
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Spurrier left UF, UGA/LSU got better. Tennessee hasn't won the SEC since.
Meyer left UF, South Carolina got much better, Tennessee hasn't made a bowl game since.
Missouri is improving, as is Texas A&M.
Florida having its issues hasn't helped UT at all recently.
Maybe Butch Jones changes all that, but there's nothing you can point to to say when UF is down, UT takes advantage.
In fact, recent history suggests when UT is good, UF is great and when UF is bad, UT is worse.
Florida being down, doesn't help Tennessee because we don't recruit the state of Florida much at all and aside from an occasional battle for a Charlotte player such as Marquez North, we don't recruit the same players at all. Having said that, one program going down while another gets better is mutually exclusive. Georgia and LSU didn't get better because Spurrier left. They got better because they swapped terrible coaches for a good one and a great one... Tennessee does recruit head to head with Georgia heavily so their improvement made it harder to get the players we needed...I doubt there will be many stretches when both Georgia and Tennessee are really good at the same time...but Florida's success or failure only impacts our ability to win one game...Finally, your line that when Florida was great, Tennessee was good makes it sound like you were much more successful than us during our prime. But were you? Between 1995-2001 when both programs were top 5 in the country, Florida won one National Championship and Tennessee won one National Championship...Florida won 3 SEC Championships and Tennessee won 2 SEC Championships...Florida won the SEC East 4 times...Tennessee won the SEC East 3 times. Not much difference at all.