re: Is Florida Entering A Tennessee-like Decline?

UT's decline can be blamed on many things, but one aspect that gets over looked is Tennessee can't maintain a program with in state talent alone. UT has historically needed to raid the surrounding states and sprinkle in some nation recruits as well. In the last decade West Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky (via Louisville) have all shut their borders to one degree or another hurting Tennessee. I believe it is fair to say that the influx of cable TV football games and errryboddy being on TV has hurt UT worse than any other program. They used to be able to sell playing Bama, Georgia, Florida and Auburn on TV to a lot of those talents in the surrounding states.

This is different than Florida. Who is as likely to win a national title this year as to have another season like last year.

UF looks to have some seriously good recruits lining up for the next two classes. They'll be fine, IMO.

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So wait, are some of your good years due to smoke and mirrors because the good offense covered for your bad defense? I love the twisting and turning around here.

Boom gets all the credit for 4-8 but not for 11-2??? Do I understand that correctly?

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I gave him credit when I said the defense bailed them out. Go back and look at the UF games that year and tell me again that UF was anywhere close to being able to win a national title that year. That is like a UGA fan saying that UGA was just a SECCG win away from going to the title game in 2011. Sure the record looked good, but the team was slightly above average.

Was that video of first team O against second team D? If not, your D best be working on tackling.

11 wins is a pretty great season....period. No matter who you won the games.

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UT's decline can be blamed on many things, but one aspect that gets over looked is Tennessee can't maintain a program with in state talent alone. UT has historically needed to raid the surrounding states and sprinkle in some nation recruits as well. In the last decade West Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky (via Louisville) have all shut their borders to one degree or another hurting Tennessee. I believe it is fair to say that the influx of cable TV football games and errryboddy being on TV has hurt UT worse than any other program. They used to be able to sell playing Bama, Georgia, Florida and Auburn on TV to a lot of those talents in the surrounding states.

This is different than Florida. Who is as likely to win a national title this year as to have another season like last year.

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This is a myth and one that's largely overblown. Sure, we have always recruited nationally and we will continue to do so but we've also traditionally locked down our state when we didn't was 1. when Fulmer started star-gazing too much and ignored a couple of in-state guys who turned out to be beasts elsewhere but the real damage came when 2. Kiffin class blowup followed by Dooley's hiring and Dooley constantly allowing major talent, including several 5*s to go out of state - one played in the BCS game this year for FSU, another would've had tOSU had a schedule to speak of or not gotten knocked off by Sparty.

For years, Bama, ND, tOSU, FSU, USCw, Clemson and every other place was allowed to pick off recruits. Ole Miss was allowed free range in the West post-Fulmer and that handler Devinner helped that along (his hatred for UT pushed tons of kids to OM and most recently pushed Rico McGraw to Bama or "to do what mama wants". Dooley gave no fricks and HS coaches despised him here.

We let Knoxville and Maryville kids go unoffered. Contrast that to Fulmer grabbing Little Man Stewart from Morristown (a little town just outside of Knoxville). Even the vaunted o-line we just lost had a great deal of Tennessee ties on it (most weren't recruited by Dooley though but were recruited by Fulmer and signed by Kiffin).

Now instate talent is booming - what do you think Vanderbilt feasted on when Franklin was pulling in decent classes? When his arse ran out on them Kiffin-style two of those recruits (good ones too) decommitted from Vandy and signed with us at the last moment.

Our class from last year that was so highly rated had a shite ton of Tennessee kids including our two highest rated recruits - Jalen Hurd and Josh Malone - both 5*s. BOTH would've gone to out of state programs under Dooley.

The simple explanation of what happened to us is that Mike Hamilton happened - he made two epically bad hires in Kiffin in Dooley.

Foley can't possibly be as dumb as Hamilton was.

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UT's decline can be blamed on many things, but one aspect that gets over looked is Tennessee can't maintain a program with in state talent alone. UT has historically needed to raid the surrounding states and sprinkle in some nation recruits as well. In the last decade West Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky (via Louisville) have all shut their borders to one degree or another hurting Tennessee. I believe it is fair to say that the influx of cable TV football games and errryboddy being on TV has hurt UT worse than any other program. They used to be able to sell playing Bama, Georgia, Florida and Auburn on TV to a lot of those talents in the surrounding states.

This is different than Florida. Who is as likely to win a national title this year as to have another season like last year.

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This has not been overlooked. It has been overstated. Tennessee has recruited just fine.

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Florida was a few plays against UGA from being undefeated against one of the most difficult schedules in the modern era. They were 4-2 against teams ranked in the final top 15...

But it was all smoke and mirrors...

bullshite. You don't beat 4 teams that good with "smoke and mirrors"

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Dang ..testy. Fine you are right, UF's 2012 squad was a paragon of football excellence. How could I have not seen it before? I guess smoke was in my eyes during those games against UL Laf and Bowling Green.

I didn't say UF 2012 was the best team ever.

But they were certainly good, and they proved it by beating other good teams.

And a lot of people like to conveniently forget that season ever happened. It doesn't fit the version of the future that they are hoping for.

Nah, I don't mind Florida being decent, as long as UGA keeps beating them. There is no glory in beating a squad that lost to Ga Southern.

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Culpepper the 3 time pro bowler and broke a league record in total yards... yeah just turrible. I'll let you add doug johnson, Kerwin bell, and Rex Grossman and my statement is still correct.

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Grossman got to a Super Bowl, and Tebow won a playoff game, and has a winning record as a starting QB.

Hell, even Doug Johnson looked good at times.