re: Gat damn, I love this roster McMahon has put together.

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How'd he do this from scratch in two months?

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The doomsday predictors in the wake of Wade's firing simply didn't understand how quickly rosters can be overturned with the one free transfer rule.

First, it helped that McMahon coached one of the best mid-major teams last season. While you hate it if you are a Murry St. fan, their roster was a rich feeder for LSU's roster.

He did an excellent job of convincing three LSU players to stay. I figured Wilkinson would be the best candidate to stick around. But getting both Williams and Miller to stay (guys who really had no strong connection to LSU other than Wade and his staff) was tremendous. I also think keeping Taz on staff was a nice bridge to help keep those guys on board.

The non-Murray St. transfers aren't big names, but it was a good job finding guys who either wanted to get out of terrible programs (Coleman) or had become undervalued at their current programs.

The unexpected aspect was the HS recruiting success. I think a big assist goes to McMahon's assistant coach hires. The did a tremendous job landing three of the (relatively) few great HS prospects that we left in the flurry of coaching changes following the season.

On paper, I think this roster puts LSU in at least the top 8 of the SEC going into next season with a chance to be better. Right now it looks like there are 4 teams who should be good (Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn); two teams that could be good (A&M and Alabama) and two teams with new HC's with what appear to have solid rosters (Florida and LSU). Given that a little over 6 weeks ago LSU theoretically didn't have a single scholarship player on next year's team, I'd say McMahon has done a pretty good job since he's been in Baton Rouge.