re: Would everyone agree that this was CNS best coaching season?

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I actually think 2008 might have been his best because all the best talent on that team was incredibly young.

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He did more with less in 2008 than any other year. Isn't this a great discussion/argument to even be having? Most programs win a championship and it is unquestionably their coach's best coaching job. With Saban at Bama, he's got at least 5 years to argue about, 6 if you want to say 2008

I think most people would have looked at that stat line and taken it but I'm not sure if looking at this single half at the very end of the season where UGA wasn't ready for what hit them and saying "see we could have been getting that all year" is appropriate. It seems that a lot of time during bowl prep we find one or two young players who emerge and get some quality work in the post season. Maybe the combination of mop up duty + extended practice time where they aren't focusing on the next opponent allows these players to take that next step.

Tua got lots of mop up duty playing time this year as well as a large split of the bowl practice reps so its hard to say exactly when he sort of took that next step in his progression. He is a pure qb and has always had the arm, i never doubted that, the bigger concern obviously is the 2, 3 INT game territory as well as additional typical freshman mistakes, whatever they may be. So its hard to say exactly where Tua was at which point in the season, how other teams would have game planned for him with additional tape on him and with him being the focus, etc. - sort of like how Cardale Jones coming in and people not really knowing what to expect (certainly different situations but just the first example i thought of).

Point being in all of this, i'm not sure if i find the qb situation to be some clear frick up because its hard to pinpoint exactly where the switch would have been made and there is just no way to know how it would have played out.

I assume most people think Hurts should have started for the FSU opener - outside of that, essentially all the early season games Tua got lots of playing in mop up duty as our schedule didn't have a lot of good teams on it this year. IMO Hurts probably played his best game against a quality opponent at Miss State this year and it seems clear that Hurts and Daboll aren't a good fit - its a chicken or the egg call on did Daboll look bad because Hurts was so bad or did Hurts look so bad because Daboll couldn't call a game that highlighted his skill set - probably a combination of the two.

We all saw how it played out in the end, so the the discussion doesn't really matter, but I am curious when / where people think we should have started Tua out earlier.

I think its always a great coaching effort to win it all when your talent doesn't dwarf all the competition's. Ours didn't dwarf everyone's this year. I think the most frustrating mistake CNS made besides Tua is the WR rotation. No doubt, the FR trio will out produce this year's starters by a mile next year, even if Tua gets hurt.