re: Bama board poster says Oatis is likely to transfer and the probable destination is...

quote:

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I try to not panic and normally stay level headed when it comes to these things. But it just makes no sense how Ole Miss can obtain Walter Nolen AND Oatis. Along with Prince from Florida. Not to mention Amos and Richardson (who is now gone to the draft) And we cant get not a single dt??

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Nah, it does make sense: Ole miss saw that the SEC schedule release gave them a super favorable draw, and had a solid base of returning production so strategically picked this as the year to "go all in". They're not a team that has the resources or structural advantages to contend every year, so they made a call to try and contend THIS year, even to the detriment of long-term program building. Note that people were saying this even BEFORE they landed their first big transfer - so it's not just wishful thinking to explain away or discount the apparent success of a rival.


By contrast, LSU, when it is operating at peak efficiency, IS a program that can contend every year - so the best course of action is exactly the one BK has taken: Build sustainably. Focus primarily on HS recruiting--especially with your $--and use the portal opportunistically, to plug holes and cheaply add depth. You say that LSU "can't get a single DT", but that's not actually the case at all - LSU just flipped Dom McKinley from A&M a few weeks ago. We could've probably been players for some of these big portal guys, but we opted to take the long-term route instead. Compare that with Ole miss, whose HS recruiting class is ranked 10th in the conference, and would probably be 11th if a&m wasn't going through a coaching change.


Here's the bottom line: Probably neither Ole miss nor LSU is going to win it all in 2024. But one year from now, Ole miss's roster is going to be in comfortably worse shape than it is now, because all these guys they've paid up for will be gone, with no home-grown talent to replace them--while LSU, on the other hand, will have its best long-term roster outlook since probably 2010, with consecutive top ~5 classes in their 2nd and 3rd years and potentially a #1 overall class following them up as freshmen.



Also, as an addendum, I will note that Shea recently stated that we fully expect to add a certain starter-caliber DT in the spring window (the implication being that everything is largely worked out and we just need to wait for the time to arrive), and are actively pursuing a couple other pieces as quality depth. So even insofar as the portal goes, the staff isn't sitting on its hands by any stretch.