There have been several articles printed about our recruiting success so far under the new coaching staff. We are #3 in the country and on the rise. At the other end of the spectrum is Tennessee. The best record they can expect is 6-5; the offensive coordinator was fired/demoted during the season and now the recruiting class has only seven commitments. They will be in worse shape than if they had gone on probation. No team in the conference, with the possible exception of Arkansas, is headed down the tubes so dramatically.
Tenn will have good teams for at least 3 years to come because they always have top ten recruiting classes. It will be interesting to see how many recruits Spurrier steals from them.
Rivals.com shows that of the 20 top in-state recruits in Tennessee, only 3 have committed to the Vols; 2 have committed to Vanderbilt and 2 to Ole Miss. If Tennessee is fighting to hold its own in state against those two schools, the future does not look bright.
Arkansas just got a commitment from one of the top qb's in the country. Couple that with McFadden and Ark is going to be at least solid on offense. I would look for Tenn. to take more of a tumble
Go look at UT's roster of schollarship players. You will find that they never have a lot of in state guys as Tenn. is not a hotbed of talent. They don't offer most of the in-state player that the Vandy's, Memphis' and Ole Miss' do. They are really recruiting about 5 players in the entire state. Also, there 7 commits average rating is 3.71 right now and they are in the mix for many, many 4 and 5 star players. This latest fiasco and the way their season is going may hurt this class some, but don't think it won't still be a good one. Last year at this time they had about the same number of commits and ended up with a top 3 class.
Couldn't agree more. In the past 5 years, Georgia, Florida and now S. Carolina have/are being re-energized thanks to talented coaches who are aggressive recruiters. Also, the controveries that seemingly swirl around the Vols program non-stop---the arrests, Phat Phil and Bama, etc.---have to make recruits a bit uneasy about the place, too. They're heading for a fall, no question. As for Arky, they'll be back. They're better positioned to be the occasional top 3 or 4 team in the West better than Ole Miss or Miss St, to be that perennial 6-5 or 7-4 type that occasionally goes 9-2...you know, kind of what Tennessee will be for the better part of the next decade or so.
I wouldn't say Tennessee is going to drop off the edge of the earth, but they are heading towards a decline IMO. Things could change around, but if they continue going the way they are then there's no way that the Tennessee program doesn't become a mediocre program. The SEC is going under a crazy redifining period right now...
It's going to be interesting with LSU too..........We're losing a bunch after this year and some people who have not had too much experience....or have not had to carry the whole load will have to step in in key spots. We're losing our defensive tackles Wroten and Williams, one end Oliver, our best and most reliable runningback Addai, Niswanger, Whitworth, McGill, Livings, our linebackers, Hollis, Vaughn, Steltz, Kuale, corner Prude, corner Stephenson, Skylar, David Jones, Brazell.........that's nearly our whole defensive and offensive fronts and other key people. I don't think we've had to make wholesale changes like this in the last 5 years or so. After 2003 we lost Lavalois, and Hill but still had Spears and Williams. Couple that with playing Tenn, Florida, Auburn on the road and think it's going to be our most challenging year in a long while.
I'll believe UT is going to become a mediocre program when I see it for a few years. They've had these same issues(w/o the OC being demoted) for several years and it has not hurt them one iota in the recruiting game. None of these problems have just cropped up, heck they've been flaming the OC since the day Cutcliffe left. But they keep bringing in top of the line recruting classes every year. Last year was one of the worse UT could have hoped for as far as bad pub with the Bama thing, Phil not showing up at the SEC meetings, losing to Notre Dame on the Nortre Dame Network, having a TE run around campus half naked and going nuts, getting beat by AU twice, etc and they still pulled in the top class in the country. Will they have more comptetition in the East, yes, but that will have more to do with what Spurrier does at SC than UT falling off much, if at all.
Does anyone else think that Mark Richt's days in the SEC are numbered? I've heard a lot of talk about him replacing Bowden at FSU if he ever decides to leave. I know he served as DC for the 'Noles before coaching UGA. Not sure what other ties he has to FSU, like if he played there or whatever.
