Why can’t we reload?

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Clemson, Bama, Ohio State and usually Oklahoma all reload each year.

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they're not replacing 14 non seniors nor did they have to play a game without their best player who was scheduled to play 24 hrs prior to the game.

As we know. Big shortage on Ammo. Next two recruiting classes will define the next 6/8 years

The simple answer is Bama has a long tenured coach that has stacked top 3 recruiting classes together for a decade

LSU is working on like 2 in a row

None of those teams you mentioned has lost 19 starters at one time like us. It's a lot easier to reload when you lose 3 or 4 defensive or offensive players, and still have the majority returning. Unfortunately, that's not LSU's situation this year.

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why are we experiencing such a big drop off

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We had 4 or 5 starters on the field from last year...thats why, it's not about talent, it was about experience and new coaches.

They don't hire retreads?

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Clemson, Bama, Ohio State and usually Oklahoma all reload each year.

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Bama won their first title under Saban in 2009 and then went 9-3 in 2010. They got back up in 2011 and have been reloading since.

Clemson won their first one and then watson left and they took a step back a couple years with Bryant at QB before getting sunshine. They now reload.

Ohio State and Oklahoma "relaod" but never win a championship. They are helped by having no other teams in their conference that are at the top. Only the SEC has multiple teams in the hunt every year.

The point is that all the schools you mention either don't win titles or they had a step back after the first championship before they started to reload every year.

We had a transition from Miles to Orgeron that created a recruiting hiccup.

I’m still surprised to see the huge drop off from last year in the loss to Miss St though.

What I saw Saturday was a defense that got owned because it was unwilling or unable to transition from man coverage to zone coverage.

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Clemson, Bama, Ohio State and usually Oklahoma all reload each year. I understand we lost a ton of players from last year but still, why are we experiencing such a big drop off? Clemson and Bama are in the playoff picture every year almost,

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Pretty simple-

This isn't "almost every year". Myles Brennan had 345 yds and 3 TDs in his first game as a starter, in a game where most of us agree he didn't look very comfortable or decisive.
Take that in a vacuum, and it sounds FANTASTIC.

The problem is, that wasn't against UTSA or North Texas, or some similar creampuff. It was against Miss St, a conference opponent that usually is a solid step above the creampuff level. And they're running a high-power passing attack that we simply weren't ready for.

Our defense practiced to learn Pelini's scheme. They're still learning it, and we didn't trot out the best 11 as starters. Usually facing an Air Raid team (or an option running team), you devote some time specifically to that. It didn't look like we did. It looked like we prepared basic scheme, and couldn't adjust because the team wasn't at a level where they understood the adjustments yet.

Hell, I didn't watch the full game, so I could be wrong. But if we had even done well enough to tackle after the catch, instead of allowing 15+ yds afterwards, we probably win by a score or 2.