chefbeezy

Interesting...

Our WR and DL rooms are just nuts. Completely overflowing with talent.

I'll admit, I'm not the most knowledgeable, so if I missed something or you disagree please feel free to stick it to me. We are nearly through Summer. While they are staggered, we have gotten through much of the off-season for Football, Basketball and Baseball. In each of these, we've seemingly had astounding success, albeit slightly differently in their approach. Basketball: A+ Portal: Major attention, major gains (247 4t, on3 2nd) Recruiting: Less attention, standout additions (Spears Jr.) Retention: Very little, but we only really needed Vokietaitis For the experts, have we ever put a team this talented on the hardwood? I don't think we could've had a better off season for Basketball. Football: A Portal: Moderate amount (most in portal history so far), major wins relative to their necessity (247 3rd, on3 10th) Recruiting: Consistently amazing Retention: Moderate amount in tandem with portal needs With Meredith reclassifying, have we had back to back #1 classes? And, so far, steadily heading to seemingly another top 5 finish. It seems to me that Sark's team building skills have only been improving and that he is very good at adapting with the times in terms of juggling portal, recruiting and retention. Of course he then needs to prove it on the field with this caliber of team, but this is still extremely underrated aspect from a coach and is largely overlooked when evaluating coaches currently. We have not hit the portal as hard as this, and while it didn't fill out the team relative to Basketball, it seems like it will have great ROI regardless in terms of evaluation and need. Baseball: A- (?) Portal: Few additions, great success Recruiting: Personally uninitiated to this Retention: Major Less bombshells from the Baseball side of things with the portal. Although now with Lugo and previously with Armstrong, we have added fantastic talent onto a team we pretty much retained from last season who finished top 5. It isn't in my wheelhouse, but it seems we've done similarly great on baseball if not better than what I've estimated. Each sport attacked this off season differently. Basketball went portal heavily, Baseball retained a lot, Football balanced the two in between. Regardless, it seems that each sport will be set up to be at least top 10 preseason nationally based on talent alone. Of course, we must prove this talent on the field. But man, has there been a better outlook for the next year? Seemingly, each of these teams have reasonable paths to see hardware. Whether that is achieved, I'm sure they will all have damn good seasons anyhow. CDC has got us rockin, all that's left to do is get it done. Hook'em!

I remember watching the 3rd and Longhorn interview with Lance Jackson and one of his immediate answers involved Muschamp specifically as the "head coach of the defense." Going to the open practice this Spring, Muschamp was one of the first coaches on the field and was fired up immediately. The defense showed high levels of teamsmanship, they wanted to win as a unit no matter who it was against. I was slightly concerned with Muschamp coming off his head coaching career and his more laid back role with Georgia (I assumed I don't actually know what his role was) but I'm loving everything I've seen from him this off season, think this was a home run hire. Lance Jackson also mentioned how he thinks we got the best edge room in the country. I'd agree. I think we actually just have maybe the best DL in the country and it's not being talked about enough. I like a lot of these answers. Either from Muschamp about aggression, man coverage, havoc and winning at the line of scrimmage or from Sark about getting the team older (yes!), the 5 for 5 rule, recruiting and character. Great stuff!

You can still judge these things individually. The Sorsby case was absolutely insane, even the Trinidad case doesn't sit right with me. However, this is very benign. If Hutson enrolled even one year earlier in 2021 he cannot make this argument. It's totally reasonable for him to ask to be grandfathered in to a rule change that happened this off season. Or the Heinecke thing with OU. Obviously hate OU but that guy should be playing football, him being barred for playing lacrosse is dumb.

Yeah "vibes based" means absolutely dick. And its a "60%" vibes based prediction. What does that even mean? Complete nothing burger.

Steve said it was a "vibes based" prediction. Royal hasn't been talking to him. He isn't omniscient. It's July. There's no use worrying about this. Again, he might flip, he might not, he could always flip back. Just handle business this season like we should and he'll be signing here. Just makes me want us to thump those tigers on their head in November even more.

Hutson seems like cheap, experienced depth where we would have added no one else otherwise. Also, more competition and leadership in the room too. Seems like an absolute no brainer to take him and round out our two deep. To me this is actually huge, I think it significantly diminishes depth questions that I had at OL. Very true. I doubt he makes that mistake ever again and I think the philosophy behind his roster management has changed dramatically following the Michigan game. The NCAA becoming a toothless organization that cannot enforce rules against extreme cases of misconduct is really bad, but this seems to be more concerned about the changing of their eligibility requirements and the transition period they outlined themselves would come along with it.

Think we just gotta handle business this season and he'll hang around. Especially against Florida and LSU lol.

- I agree with us and Georgia being 1 and 2. People will want to punch themselves in the nuts and rank Georgia above us because of the last two seasons, but it's a new season with a new roster and new staff. The difference in our WR rooms alone is pretty stark. - Unfortunately I also agree in thinking Oklahoma will be good this year and better than last year. There is still some questions on their offense but I don't see regression. Their defense will win them a lot of games. Shootout this year will be important. It's fun when they don't score touchdowns on us, but I actually like when they're good. The Shootout is best when it's a Shootout. I like when the games intense. Hopefully I can snag a cheap ticket day of. - LSU is a complete toss up. They overhaul everything. They could be good, they could be bad, they could be mid, they could be all over the place throughout the season. I wouldn't count out any of those scenarios. It sucks we get them late in the season, though, because they'll probably have a lot of kinks shaken off and will be at their best in a night game at home. Kiffin coached well at Ole Miss and convinced LSU boosters to buy him a ton of talent year 1 so there's the makings of good team, but there's a lot more to it then just buying a good coach and players. - I think there is then a tier of 6 teams that are good but not great and it's the ones you have. I think Ole Miss will be the best of them because of known quantity Trinidad, that alone has to anchor your teams success significantly. I would then put Missouri if Ahmad Hardy has a full miraculous recovery around the start of the season. I then have Florida because of their skill positions, but they need the QB and OL to work out. I think Sumrall's a good coach though so I wouldn't put it past them. I then have A&M. I don't see a position they are as good or better than last year except WR. They don't have many crazy top tier players either, maybe Craver and Ratcliffe. I'm not sure about their coordinator promotions. But I think they are generally good everywhere at the same time. I think Elko is a good coach and their OL coach is as well, so I don't see them replicating what they did last season but they will still find success. Next would be Alabama, I think DeBoer is a good coach but might be a poor cultural fit in Tuscaloosa. They got a QB battle, they lost a ton of returning production and their run game still looks like a major flaw. I think Bama might continue to slide under DeBo and I don't like their outlook this season. I'd then put Missouri if Hardy is out for a large part of the season. Finally, I agree with Tennessee not being that threatening. Of course like with LSU, we play them at an unfortunate time. Early in the season in Knoxville will have them fighting for their playoff hopes. But they also have a QB battle and whoever starts with zero experience will not be at their best four games in. Without Chaz Coleman, their DL also looks unintimidating. - With the 9 game SEC schedule and all of these teams having various boons and weaknesses I can see this tier of schools in the SEC cannibalizing each other. They are being rated highly by media, but I think at minimum one or two of them won't be as good as they are projected. Maybe a question they have gets a poor answer. In general I think they will probably all take games off each other. We play most of them so I think a big part of it is realizing that they are not all on Ohio State or Georgia's level and that we need to be consistent in thumping them. Especially on that four game death march from Tennessee through October. - Auburn is essentially fielding a USF team in the SEC, I'm really not as high on them but they'll be better than the dregs of the conference at least. South Carolina has a really high ceiling with the talent on their roster including a LaNorris Sellers. They also have a lower floor and they have Shane Beamer as their coach. - Of the general dregs, Vanderbilt was the best the last two years but I think they'll have a far tougher go of it this season. Diego Pavia might not be a good fit in the NFL, but as a QB his style works incredibly well for CFB. Replacing him and Stowers will be tough, especially with a true freshman QB. I think Kentucky will actually be the best of the four this year. I've said it on other sites multiple times, but Bo Barnes was the one guy I didn't like leaving this last off season. Stein can portal and he can croot. If he can coach as well as he can do those things Kentucky will actually be dangerous this year in my opinion. However, they have a really tough schedule, so while I think they will be at least the best of the bottom four, I don't know if their record will reflect it. I honestly don't really know about Miss. St. which I think says something and I agree Arkansas will be the worst SEC team. This is a good list and I pretty much agree with everything. I think our schedule is tough but I don't think it's the schedule of doom like some are saying precisely because I don't think there will be 12 SEC teams in the top 25 by the end of the season. A lot of these teams in the top half are all being ranked highly because they could turn out up there, but some of them are bound to have a few of their questions answered poorly. We have questions too, but I don't think it's anything like Bama's RB situation, or A&Ms OL situation, or Florida's QB situation. I think every team on this schedule is beatable, the problem is chaining them in a row (Tenn through Ole Miss) or multiple things coming together (like late season LSU in BR at night, or, Missouri having the makings of an extremely trappy trap game). Of course there is the doom scenario where all of these teams are actually around that good, but because of 9 game cannibalism their records don't reflect it which means we are actually playing a grueling schedule while our SOS doesn't appear so. But, there's no use thinking like that and, like I said, I think we have to think of them all beneath us. Not from an underrating standpoint but from a confidence one. Does Alabama drop that game to FSU from last season at the end knowing how their records turned out? We need to beat OSU and then carry that confidence through the rest of the season. Hook'Em