The mass exodus to the draft left a gap in talent that caught up to us last year. We had the players, they were just to young. This issue has been fixed in our recruiting philosophy I believe. Really we didn't decline much in 2012, we just got unlucky at the end of the Bama and Clemson games.

quote:
Talent has been there except at one position last season.

Wayyy too young on offense. Our Qb's were a true sophomore and true freshman. Our best RB was a true freshman. Our top 4 receivers were a sophomore, RS freshman, and two true freshman. These guys will be all-conference over the next two seasons, but last year they did about what we should have expected.

quote:
The "Talent" at Alabama is no better than at LSU, yet they win the SEC and/or NC with consistent regularity.

Completely false. LSU recruits at a very high level. Alabama recruits at an almost untouchable level. Seriously. Nick Saban gets the best talent on a yearly basis. If anything, his on field results are just slightly underachieving compared to his recruiting rankings.

quote:
I can guarantee with 100% certainty that Saban isn't going to be running a "Pro-Set I-Form Offense" that's designed for "Drop Back under Center" QB's with "Spread Shotgun" QB's.

Except that's exactly what he did last year. He adjusted the offense slightly to fit the strengths of his team. You'll see the same with LSU this season (and they did a much better job after the Arkansas fiasco last year).

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Talent is important, but it's NOT 99% important. It has to be complimented by some degree of competent game mangement and organization from the head coach.

When Miles has the players, he wins big. Everyone wants to pretend there's something fundamentally wrong with him, but there isn't. His best teams looks really really good, his teams that need work can shite the bed from time to time. This is true of almost all coaches.

It's college football. The teams that recruit on a top 10 national average level are usually the teams you see competing for championships. There are exceptions due to scheduling differences and style of play, but that is generally the rule. Coaches grow and evolve, and Steele has most likely learned a lot since his horrible ending to his Clemson tenure. Plus, he doesn't have to do it alone. Miles, Orgeron, Cooper, and Peveto all know a lot about playing defense. They will help the team gameplan to maximize the chance of winning.

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Enough is enough. Time to finish first in the SEC West minimum.

This season is not the end all be all of the Miles era. But I think if he doesn't have another SEC championship ring by the end of the 2017 season, it's time to shut the door on him.

Miles clearly believes if his assistants get him the talent, he can bring in a championship. He went with a recruiting dream team and it looks to be paying off big. We'll see what happens once the fall gets here.

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Posted by I20goon

about 7mi down a dirt road

Member since Aug 2013

13334 posts

Posted on 7/4/15 at 8:32 am to tlsu15

quote:
The "Talent" at Alabama is no better than at LSU, yet they win the SEC and/or NC with consistent regularity.

Completely false. LSU recruits at a very high level. Alabama recruits at an almost untouchable level. Seriously. Nick Saban gets the best talent on a yearly basis. If anything, his on field results are just slightly underachieving compared to his recruiting rankings.

And they have lost 2 consecutive bowl games; Saban is 3-5 in bowl games as of now. Ironically, that bolsters the OP's argument of having X & O's issues with our talent level since hands down Bama has the most consistent, highest talent level in CFB. Even more ironically, while it backs his premise it ruins his comparison to Bama.

Yes, Steele has been embarrassed several times. Yes, there's been a lot of revisionist history. But he's never had this much talent to work with. Let's see what he does. He'll never have this good a chance to revise his own history as now.

But Chavis has had his own embarrassments, just not as many. And in some cases (Clemson bowl game, 119 plays?) his D just got put in an almost no-win position. I'm not thinking about the ND game; I'm thinking about MSU last year. That was freaking embarrassing (ignoring the B Harris scores, against mostly D backups mind you).

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Posted by tigerpawl

Can't get there from here.

Member since Dec 2003

22451 posts

Posted on 7/4/15 at 8:35 am to tlsu15

quote:
Really we didn't decline much in 2012, we just got unlucky at the end of the Bama and Clemson games.

Oh..... my.....God....

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Posted by timlan2057

In the Shadow of Tiger Stadium

Member since Sep 2005

17073 posts

Posted on 7/4/15 at 1:24 pm to tlsu15

quote:
Alabama recruits at an almost untouchable level. Seriously. Nick Saban gets the best talent on a yearly basis. If anything, his on field results are just slightly underachieving compared to his recruiting rankings.

That's funny, every preseason since 2011 this board is filled with posters crowing that "Alabama is rebuilding this year! This is our year! Alabama's lost this! Alabama's lost that! Alabama has a new and inexperienced quarterback!,etc. etc."

Since 2011, the consensus from the Rant resident experts is that every year the gumps are rebuilding and we have a ton of talent coming back or coming in and it is our year.

Then every year we finish in the middle of the SEC West pack and the "rebuilding" gumps go to the BCS national championship game or the playoffs.

I've never seen any close-to-significant number of posters on here say in any preseason: "Oh, we're the underdogs! Alabama has so much more talent than us!"

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Posted by KG5989

Das Boot

Member since Oct 2010

16324 posts

Posted on 7/4/15 at 5:02 pm to tlsu15

quote:
Completely false. LSU recruits at a very high level. Alabama recruits at an almost untouchable level. Seriously. Nick Saban gets the best talent on a yearly basis.

This is actually whats completely false...

Sure, Bama has had a better ranking in terms of recruiting over the last few years. But it doesnt matter what a 17year old kid that has rarely gone against equal talent in high school is ranked. What matters is how that player performs at the college level and how they do in the NFL. High school rankings dont mean anything once they step on a college campus. Our 2009 recruiting class was ranked 1st in the nation and it had 11 NFL players, same amount as the 2010 and 2011 class which were both ranked 8th in the nation. Just because someone is a high ranked recruit doesnt mean they will become a high caliber player in college or in the NFL.

LSU has had 39 drafted players, and 46 total players active, from 2010 til now. Bama has had 44 players drafted, and 49 total active players, from 2010 to now. Active players does not include players from 2015 draft and FA. Thats an extremely small margin. And a lot of analysts say that Alabama has had a lot of draft picks that have underachieved in the NFL, and some are very very early draft picks.

To say we arent as talented as Alabama is just false. We have and have had just as much talent as Alabama does / did. Go through each position and compare the players for each team over the last 5-6 years or so. Its a push at probably every group except they get the edge for LBs and probably a slight edge at OL and we get the edge with DBs.

The difference is that they have handled their QBs better than we have and they make sure they always have a capable QB on their roster. They can be top 5 team in the country with an average at best QB(just went 12-2 with Blake Sims and were ranked in the top 5 all but 2 weeks and most of the time they were ranked #1 or #2). They make less mistakes across the board, including coaching staff and play calling. They cater to their QB and what he can and cant do and do their best at putting them in good situations.

We are just as talented as Bama is. Period. The difference is what you can get out of the QB spot. They get more out of their QBs than we do, and get more out of QBs that are average at best than we do.