re: how would you rank coaches recruiting abilities?

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were you not a witness to the decade dumpster fire that was Texas a&m?

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No, i dont give a shite about teams outside my conference.

But if you could gladly back it up with stats, that'd be great. Until then, I stand by what i said. UT was in a worse position pre-Butch than AM was pre-sumlin

UT:

2000: 8-4
2001: 11-2
2002: 8-5
2003: 10-3
2004: 10-3
2005: 5-6
2006: 9-4
2007: 10-4
2008: 5-7
2009: 7-6

With 3 bowl wins and multiple SEC title games

To show how a&m had a terrible fricking decade prior to sumlin and UT didn't.

Hey whatever man, you can believe whatever the frick you want but you're crazy if you really think pre Butch UT was worse than pre sumlin a&m

I don't know what this argument is over, but I think a litmus test is where Alabama was from 2000-2006. Though 7 years doesn't seem like a long time to be down (SEC title in 1999), it was a lifetime for recruits near the end of that period. Couple that with coaching changes, NCAA penalties in 2002, and Auburn and LSU having their best seasons in over a decade and you a recipe for disaster.

When Saban arrived at Alabama in January of 2007, there was an immediate impact to recruiting. You couple his recruiting prowess with a historical program and its dynamite. But there were challenges. Those first two classes were the best in-state talent in years, but Alabama's problems from 2000-2006 had eroded its regional influence. A national influence was long gone at that point. Those influences are what Saban has rebuilt since 2009 for Alabama recruiting.

We will see if Butch Jones and Tennessee can do the same. They too had a similar "above normal" in-state crop for his first full cycle recruiting class.

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Not really a fair comparison

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Why do you say that? Honest question. I made the analogy because both programs are the dominant football team in talent-rich states (neither lost a single top 10 player to an in-state program, at least in the years I listed) and both are bordered by talent rich states (Florida/Alabama and Texas/Mississippi), which should, in theory, diffuse some of the demand from nearby programs.

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But look at the numbers. In 2014, seven of the top ten Georgia recruits left the state. In 2013, it was eight. Seven again in 2012. In 2011, they managed to hang onto five, so that's something. Back to losing seven in 2010.

I know Georgia is a talent-rich state that can't possibly hang on to every top recruit. But regularly losing 70% of your absolute elite recruits to raids from other states is pretty rough. Compare to LSU, which tends to retain around that percentage in Louisiana rather than lose it.

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Won't get too much into this, but there is one common thread through those seasons...Grantham. He was a good closer on OLB prospects, but was piss poor in recruiting other than that. Whole defensive staff outside of Wilson was that way.

As for the LA/GA comparison, the sheer numbers of prospects plus the transient nature of the state, plus the presence of so many more recruiting powers to the borders of the state make that comparison a bigger stretch than you seem to think.

However, I don't care what Willie and Todd did. I care about what Pruitt will do and I expect much bigger things in recruiting than either of the previous two ever produced. CJP is a much more proven recruiter than anyone we've had on the defensive staff since at least '09, IMO closer to '05. Wilson is the sole exception.

Pruitt is right up there with Kirby and other DCs who are elite recruiters. Some of us expect to have a top 3 rated 2015 class.

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No problem, Nicolae touched on it a bit. The biggest difference is our population has exploded in the past 20 years. While that's been great for football it's brought a ton of outsiders who grew up being fans of other schools or parents who went somewhere else unlike Louisiana who has a much more stagnant population and people who grew up LSU fans. Also, I can't remember the exact amount but there are a lot more BSC schools within 300 miles of Ga than La, like almost double.

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Okay, gotcha. I knew Atlanta has been booming (and not always for the better, in my experience) but I wasn't really up on the state as a whole. And now that I've literally paused this reply to Google...yep, Georgia, she's a-boomin'. Most of the South is, really, but the Eastern Seaboard is getting it particularly hard.

As far as future recruiting goes, y'all hit the jackpot with Pruitt. I have no idea how he'll do as a DC, but he's unquestionably a top-notch recruiter (though I have family in the Birmingham area that absolutely loathes Pruitt's kinfolks. They're not very clear on the whys and wherefores, mind you, but they've hated his family since well before he left Bama, so it least they're consistent.)


(Also, I admire you for finding a reasonably polite way to call LSU fans a bunch of inbred provincial hicks )

Not to mention we lost to a division II team and remember the whole Fresno Stare debacle.

Not to mention we got thrashed in bowl games for a decade.