DawginSC

I'd say UGA might be first.

UGA has a couple of things going for it.

1 - They give their coaches a LONG time to succeed. Donnan got 5 years. Goff got 6 with the last 3 being 5-6, 6-4-1 and 6-6. Those are the shortest UGA terms since 1964.

2 - Unless you believe GT is "back", they're effectively the only team of note in a very talent rich state.

3 - They have plenty of money.

4 - They are located in Athens, a city so nice that every UGA head coach since 1964 who's retired has moved back there to live.

5 - They have a ton of name recognition, especially after the latest two NC's.

UGA is effectively a place that is about as easy to win at as Bama with less expectations and a better talent base.

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Didn't think I'd upvote a Gator in this thread, but this perspective is 100% the right one. I'm proud that Richt came back to Athens and feels welcome with the team.

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Every UGA head coach from Vince Dooley on has moved back to Athens when they've retired. Dooley, Goff, Donnan and Richt.

I think PSU, Oklahoma, A&M, ND and Clemson belong on the list.

The reality is Clemson and PSU have the talent base needed. Yeah, they suck this year but they have the recruiting base to still succeed. It's especially true for Clemson who under Dabo doesn't want to use the transfer portal.

Beside each team is their composite talent rankings for the last 4 seasons


Alabama - 2, 1, 1, 1 = 5
Georgia - 1, 2, 2, 2 = 7
Ohio State - 3, 3, 3, 3 = 12
Texas - 4, 4, 6, 6 = 20
Clemson - 7, 5, 5, 5 = 22
A&M - 8, 10, 4, 4 = 26
Oregon - 5, 6, 10, 7 = 28
LSU - 6, 8, 7, 8 = 29
ND - 9, 9, 11, 10 = 39
OU - 14, 7, 9, 9 = 39
PSU - 10, 11, 13, 15 = 49
USC - 17, 15, 8, 11 = 51
Florida - 12, 12, 15, 14 = 53
Miami - 15, 14, 12, 12 = 53
Michigan - 11, 16, 14, 13 = 54


Auburn - 13, 18, 18, 18 = 67
Tennessee - 16, 17, 16, 19 = 68
FSU - 19, 13, 20, 17 = 69

It's about consistent talent. I don't think AU, UTk and FSU have that year after year enough to be one of the teams where you can realistically believe you can win a national title.

So I'll go with 15 teams.

That's a lot of numbers... but it's missing a lot of context.

Week 10 and 11 were the only two weeks of gameday that didn't have any teams from the SEC or Big 10.

Week 11 was BYU vs TT. (20.6)
Week 10 was Cincy and Utah. (22.5)

Only one other week had ONE team from a conference other than the Big 10 or SEC. That was Week 4 where Florida played Miami (ACC). (22.3)


Instead of looking at some youtube dispute as the cause... maybe it's simpler to just look at the fact that people don't care as much about CFB in weeks where the "best game" is not involving two teams from the SEC and Big 10.

If Lane doesn't think Ole Miss is a program capable of winning a national title he may leave.

If he does that this year, what are his options?

LSU?

Positives - Have pretty good talent base (6th in talent composite) and have won titles recently (2019 is more recent than all but Bama, UGA, Michigan and OSU).

Negatives - They have no patience and may not be close enough for that lack of patience. They just fired a coach who was 5-3 and who's worst completed season had 9 wins.

Florida?

Positives - Have adequate talent base (12th in composite), have won titles with good coaches in the past (Spurrier and Meyer) and are more paitent than LSU.

Negatives - More of a step back from OM right now in terms of how close they are even if ceiling is much higher.

Auburn?

Positives - Adequate talent (13th in composite).

Negatives - Little brother in their state and don't really lead in recruiting any particular area. Perhaps are no longer as good a job as they were in the past.


In my mind, UF is the easy choice if Lane wants to leave Ole Miss right now. But it also wouldn't be crazy for him to hang around and wait for a truly elite job to open up. Bama, Michigan, OSU or Texas for example. Texas in particular could be somewhere Lane sees as potentially opening up in the near future and a better spot than any currently open.

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It will definitely make coaching more important than it has ever been

Mediocre coaches have won national championships with teams that were loaded with five star talent in the past

That will be much tougher in the future

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Kind of.

But elite QB's have also carried teams with a bit less talent then the loaded teams have to championships many times as well... and notching those QB's is still a factor of recruiting.

Trevor Lawrence, Deshaun Watson, Joe Burrow, Cam Newton... these guys were all on teams with good talent... but not truly elite overall talent. They were just so good they could elevate their team to the point that a team with elite overall talent without an elite QB (mostly Bama) wouldn't be able to defeat them.

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UGA is definitely beatable and so is Alabama

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The new state of CFB with NIL and unrestricted transfers is that every team is beatable by almost any team with half a pulse. The "good" teams are the ones that have to have a bigger off day to be beat so week to week they accumulate fewer losses.

The days of Juggernaut teams who can still win against top 25 opponents even if they play poorly simply due to their team being that much better are over.

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And throughout history. Teams are who they are when you play them and have been forever.

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Eh... no. Schools are who the are at the moment a conversation is happening, not when you played them.

Not sure where you get this idea.

Otherwise two teams can play the same opponent and one can talk about them as being ranked because they played them when they were over ranked early and the other can't because they beat them after everyone realized they sucked.

Do you seriously think you get credit for beating a ranked team when beating LSU where Bama doesn't considering they beat the same team? In what universe does that make sense.

Both A&M and Bama beat LSU. LSU is not currently ranked.

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Maybe Kirby is starting his own coaching rehabilitation program

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Not really. Kirby just realizes that because a guy sucked as a head coach, doesn't mean he can't coach a position or the offense/defense.

Muschamp is not a good head coach. But he's a great coach for any position group on the defensive side of the ball and a great DC. Having guys like that on your bench in "analyst" roles isn't a bad thing.

I'm not sure I think Napier would be a good OC or offensive position coach. But I don't think Bobo is a great OC either... so whatever. If Kirby wants him as an option, that's fine I guess.

When you are a top 10 type team, the way to look at schedules is really just looking at ranked teams they play. Once you get outside the top 25 teams, if you're a national championship contender the quality of the opponents shouldn't matter. Beating Auburn vs Arkansas vs Charlotte... they aren't differentiating games.

Texas A&M as of this week has 2 ranked teams (right now) that they'll play. Texas and ND.

Bama has 4.
Georgia has 5.
Texas has 5.
Oklahoma has 5.
Vandy has 3.


A&M's schedule is more like Ole Miss who also has 2. Both had easy draws IC. A&M's was easier since they only have one conference ranked opponent... but OM was wimpier OOC.