re: The Top 25 jobs in College Football

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Tennessee is the better job. The population is booming and high school talent is trending way up. We also don't have the competition for in state recruits like Auburn does with bama. Also very close to Carolina's , Viginia, and DC area for recruiting.

Not to mention, some of the best facilities in the country

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I had considered starting an honest discussion about whether UT would ever regain quite the prestige it once had, factoring in the changing climate of CFB, the influence of the internet, the shifting power bases amongst the conference (especially with regards to the media), the formalization of the camp system, etc, but I realized that it would quickly devolve into trolling, so I never did. Still, it's a discussion I'd love to be able to have at some point.

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This here is old-school thinking in a new-school world. ND is a small private school in a population-sparse part of the country.

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The conclusion I'd take from that is precisely the opposite. Not only does ND retain its national fan base and scope, in the new-school world, it's easier than ever to draw talent from distant areas. A kid in California that loved ND back in 1950 might never have even shown up on ND's radar back then. Now, it's next to impossible for a top-notch recruit to avoid being evaluated by ND coaches.

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We also don't have the competition for in state recruits like Auburn does with bama.

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Then you come with......

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Also very close to Carolina's , Virginia, and DC area for recruiting.

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It's either one or the other. The difference is......very few schools pull kids out of the State of Alabama, unless they aren't heavily recruited by Auburn or bama. Tenn., as a State, doesn't have the talent to support a team. Alabama doesn't either, but we can pull from Georgia and Florida, which are hotbeds for talent. You have to fight UNC, USCe, Va. and Va. Tech for a small pool of talent. Georgia and Florida has enough talent, and then some, to go around.

North Carolina is becoming a hotbed for talent. I wouldn't be surprised if they pass a few of the better SEC states soon. That's the real reason the SEC needs to expand there in the next round.

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Think about this: In the last decade the Tigers have fired two different coaches who went undefeated at the school. That's unheard of, even in the SEC.

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This is a very myopic approach that doesn't consider or elaborate upon Auburn's circumstances surrounding either coaches' firings.

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I actually things look better for the Vols in the future than in the past. The population explosion in middle Tennessee is a huge factor. Much closer than former hotbed Memphis. And Knoxville is geographically in the perfect spot to grab recruits from north and south.

With a good coach there's no reason Tennessee shouldn't field a top tier team year in and year out.

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Memphis was always an ugly place to recruit. It seemed like the talent there seemed to flame out far more often than not. So anything to shift the demographics away from there is a good thing.

My real concern -- and it's a concern as a Vandy fan as much as it would be for a UT fan -- is that the central location could work against recruiting as easily as for it. Sort of a "close to everywhere, not quite close enough to anywhere" sort of deal. In times past, Tennessee's (though not Vandy's) reputation could pull them in, but I'm not sure that's still the case in the new SEC. With the right coach, of course, that's a non-issue. I'm just not sure -- and I swear to God I'm not trolling -- that Butch is the coach to do that. He's bringing in lots of good talent so far, granted, but I'm not sure he'll ever really compete with Bama and LSU and Florida in the long run.

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There's really minimal difference between auburn and Tennessee.

People will say oh Tennessee isn't the same. People also said Alabama would never come back to what it used to be

Both have great facilities. Tenn has the edge in history, auburn in recruiting ground

It's a push at the end of the day IMO

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Bama was always going to come back. They fell due to sanctions and a couple awful coaches. But Shula -- Shula -- was actually able to perform competently there. Just not competently enough to meet the fanbase's and administration's expectations. Tennessee's problems are a bit more nebulous and harder to pinpoint. If BigOrangeBri is correct, though, it could all be fixed with the right coach, just as Bama's could. I'm not sure what to make of Auburn. They're practically schizophrenic, reaching incredible highs and devastating lows on a regular cyclic basis.

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As for Butch I think he's proving he can do it. We have been shite lately and he's killed it in state. He signed 10 Tennessee kids last year and 9 of the top 11 in state. He's also got some of the top Tennessee players coming in the 2015 class

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There's no question he's done well in-state. Three years ago, Bama, Georgia, Auburn would have poached half of them. It all comes down to the changing demographics you mentioned before and whether they'll lead to sustained top talent. He's still going to need to go out of state frequently -- every state that isn't one of the big 5 (Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana) goes through cycles. Alabama, for instance, has had some spectacular years for talent...and some pretty meh years.

"An ACC Network would help them, but it would still be a sizable gap"

That's one reason I feel like Jimbo Fisher will eventually take over at Alabama when Saban leaves. If Urban can leave an elite job at a high point with every resource you could ever need like Florida then I could definitely see Fisher leaving a lesser program despite being at a high point due to these financial issues. Fisher has ties to the State of Alabama in similar ways to Urban with Ohio.

It's a cliche but it really is mostly cyclical, at least until this point. Most of the schools with great history and fan support end up being successful again one way or another. There are outliers like all the Florida schools who burst onto the scene in the 80's and 90's due to external influences, theirs being major population growth in the state. Oregon is another example, but they also have a different set external influences that will stimulate their growth as a program.

Traditionally, college football has been dominated by a few select programs that possessed all the necessary tools to be successful. However, college football is more popular as a whole than it has ever been, and I think more outliers will emerge as a result of the sport's massive growth. I know the SEC gets a vast share of the best recruits, but I think eventually there will be much more parity than before, especially with the inevitable expansion of the playoff system in the next few years.