re: SEC Coaches Not As Likely To Move On

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Both are powerful recruiting tools but Vandy fans, and you evidently, forget a few key predicates and a couple of various overriding factors. 1 - No one in the SEC is sitting still waiting for Vandy to overtake them, especially not those Bama, LSU, UGA, Florida, South Carolina, Ole Miss, A&M, Tennessee and Arkansas. That's #1. 2 - The academic thing is a double-edged sword for Vandy. Preaching academics during recruiting can only take you so far and allows you to only recruit a select number of specific SEC level athletes. In other words, your pool of possible student athletes, from which to fill positions, is far smaller for Vandy, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, et al, than most other programs. 3 - Vandy is restricted, to some degree as all others are in the conference and the country, to a particular recruiting territory. And to recruit in that particular territory they will be recruiting against Bama, LSU, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, etc. And when they go national with no boundary limits to their recruiting territory they are recruiting against Stanford, Northwestern, Purdue, etc., who will be selling the identical same attributes without blinking an eye and while using whatever proof is necessary to sell their programs - all of them with a richer football tradition than Vandy. I could go on and on but you get the gist. You can sell academics and SEC football all you want, but to a limited, qualified, talent pool and in a limited area. Now, the SEC's main benefit for Vandy, IMHO, is the financial reward that is associated with being a member institution. Endowments be what they may, but most AD money is funded through shared revenue from the SEC and through booster support, which Vandy has never been accused of being super strong-in to the best of my knowledge. Whereas, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern and Purdue all have larger and richer booster organizations that support their football programs. In that regard Vandy benefits greatly from being in the SEC. All of us do naturally, but some of us also supplement SEC shared revenue with massive funds contributed from our booster organizations. Vandy is doing fine right now, and most of us are happy for them, but if one of the big boys came calling Franklin would bail on them in a heartbeat. Freeze, at Ole Miss, is not going anywhere anytime soon because he is born and bred Rebel and as long as he is winning and recruiting well Ole Miss will keep him. SCAR will be Spurrier's last NCAA coaching job. When he retires he is done and he will not look back. Saban will retire at Bama. He's going to be there for some time IMHO. Miles will retire at LSU. Richt - that's a tough one. I'm sure he wants to retire at UGA but if he had a couple of bad seasons they would cut him loose and, if it happened in the next few years he would land somewhere else IMHO. I have a feeling Muschamp is going to be at Florida for quite some time. I give the guy at Arkansas, whose name I can never spell or pronounce, six or seven years max - if that long. Mullen's days at Mississippi State are already numbered IMHO. Stoops at Kentucky could be just what they are looking for up there. They don't necessarily demand championships, but they do demand competitiveness and respectability and I think he is going to be able to provide that. Jones at Tennessee is an enigma. He's got some offensive skills, in terms of coaching - to the point where he might be able to make something outta of what was left for him to work-with. I'm not sure about his defenses for the next couple of years. He's going to have some pretty tough sledding for the next couple of years but who knows what happens after that. If he can stick around long enough to outlast Saban, Spurrier and Richt then he has a chance to do something up there. If those three stick around another four or five years it could make it tough on Jones to establish himself in the league. Plus I think Muschamp is just going to give Jones tee-total fits. Pinkel's days appear to already be numbered. I like the guy and he comes across as a big time football coach but I think he's in over his head in the SEC, plus Mizzou has recruiting troubles. Sumlin at A&M will be around awhile. A&M fans like him and he appears to be a helluva recruiter in a fertile area and he's surrounded himself with some solid assistants. I just don't see him leaving anytime soon because there is not a better job that might be presented to him anywhere. A&M has got to be his dream job. Anyways, it's all just MHO.

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You realize, of course, that you have over analyzed the the hell out of this topic, don't you? Academics is not a minus, it is a plus. If it diminishes recruiting, then how do you explain Vandy's last two stellar recruiting classes. Nashville may not be Paris France, but its a lot better than most SEC cities. As far as Franklin leaving, yes perhaps, but not for a few more years. By then the stadium will be expanded and the indoor practice facility long completed. The next coach will be paid just as much as Franklin, so you can bet he will be a good one. With the State of Tennessee nearing 7 million residents, you can bet the gap between our homegrown talent and other SEC States will narrow. So there you have it, Vandy's future has great potential.