Er, yeah, Thompson, not Johnson. Not sure where I got that. You may very well be right. Can't hurt us, in any event.
I didnt realize Miles was doing this at Okie St too. I assume it was more for coordinators though since multi-year contracts for position coaches is a relatively new phenomena.
Tennessee has played football for 112 years and their record is 775-327-53. They're 9th in all time wins and 10th in winning percentage. They also have six national titles. Their stadium holds over 104,000 seats and they stay filled. They're also 25-22 in bowl games. For as much as I love LSU, it's easy to say that Tennessee ranks ahead of us in all time play. Even recently...they've played in 5 of the last 12 SEC championship games. They had great recruiting classes as late as a few years ago and the Memphis area routinely produces a ton of talent. The state of Tennessee may not rank with Florida, Texas, California, Louisiana, and Mississippi but they still have a lot of talent. With schools having scholarship limits, it's not hard for Tennessee to pull in kids from around the region. I have no idea how the current coaching staff will do but I don't think they'll have a problem recruiting.
Of course, I wasn't saying they wouldn't. I have no doubt that they will do well. We were talking about the recruiting classes. Go look at the schools that rank high and how many of the players are from their state. He used the word perennial top 5, and I think they will have several down years because of the in-state talent. And by down year I mean 10-15ish in recruiting, not bad at all. They have had good recruiting classes but recruiting has changed with the internet and recruiting rules. They cant cheat as much or use their plane. Plus, this new recruiting age has made it much harder to recruit oos, epecially when Butch, Mark and Nick are bordering you.
Don't kid yourselves. UT putting together that talent at recruiting is going to have an effect on everybody in the SEC. They may not steal many recruits from us, but with the history of UT, a recruiting machine for coaches, the will be a major factor in how and who wins the SEC. Bottom line is UT will be a force in the SEC and be a contender for the crown on a regular basis. This just adds to some of my previous comments, in that it is my opinion that the SEC has seen the end of its MNC dominance for a while. I just think there are going to be 7 - 8 really good teams that will end up eliminating each other out of contention.
I believe Tennessee has only 4 recognized NC's, but who's counting. Either way, you're totally right. Tennessee is one of the more storied programs in college football history and a perennial power throughout the years. It won't take much for such a program to return to the top.
How many coaches is that gone so far for Bama? Saban always seems to surround himself with top notch assistants. I bet the replacement coaches come from outside the SEC. I think a lot of out of conference coaches would jump at the chance to coach in the #1 conference in the USA.
