re: How is Bielema not a terrible hire...?

Borrowing this-

The idea that it is harder to win in the SEC is False. Everyone keeps spouting this off as if it's some sort of universal truth. The fact of the matter is that it's not true and there are ample recent examples of HCs from other programs that came into the SEC and had more success here than they had outside the SEC:

Saban (Big 10)
Miles (Big 12)
Nutt (Big Sky, I think)
Chizik (Big 12)
Meyer (Mountain West)

Then there are a few other coaches that pretty evenly matched their success from outside the SEC:

Petrino (C-USA/Big East)
Dooley (WAC)
Sumlin (C-USA)

The point is that in almost every case (Vandy and Kentucky being perhaps the most obvious exceptions), everything positive is elevated in the SEC along with the potential negative of the elevated competition. A coach outside the SEC that has been successful (or not) will almost certainly stay at that level or even become better with the increased resources at their disposal.

Coach Bielema will do fine here if he can get halfway decent recruiting classes. We will rely on redshirts, and well coached players unlike at LSU. The fact that our players this year coached by JLS looked a lot more talented on the field than LSUs just shows that the talent difference is not as big as many of you think it is.