CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => SEC => Topic started by: MikeDeTiger on November 28, 2022, 11:17:54 AM
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We don't have a lot of traffic, such that most teams aren't even represented here.....what a shame, this place used to be buzzing with inter-conference hostility.
Still, for those of us left keeping the light on.....how do you assess your team's season?
Particularly curious how OAM rates Napier's first year. I'm generally of the opinion that a coach should get carte blanche and an automatic pass in year 1, although that's not the world we live in today. I was in favor of LSU giving Napier a shot but of course that didn't happen. Wondering how Gators view the season and what they see going forward.
I know we have Tennessee fans here...if they can just be lured out of their checker-board hiding. Do Vols see this as a great year of resurgence or does the losses and injury to HH put a damper on it? Or both?
UGA, I guess, kind of held serve from last year, which is, by definition, all you can ask for. I guess. Who knows what fans expect now.
Bama nation seems to be very disappointed with this year. They still won 10 games with a realistic shot of making the playoffs.
A&M obviously disappointed this year, but for now the roster is loaded and it has to be said this year is an anomaly in Jimbo's career. How's the outlook going forward? I heard fans around here saying there were going to be a bunch of transfers out of the program....does that change now with ending the season on a high note?
Here's I see LSU's regular season: Despite the disappointing and frustrating (and predictable) finale, I think it has to be viewed as overall very positive. Picked to finish 5th in the west, Kelly managed to cobble together makeshift pieces from the transfer portal and keep a team with 20 less scholarship players than every other team in the conference from going .500 again, and took advantage of a down Bama year to sneak a division title out of the season. The positives are he's recruiting well so far, and it could be that this was the least deep/talented team he'll have, so maybe they build on this for an upward trajectory. The negatives are the way they lost the Tennessee game (not that they lost, just how they looked doing it) and obviously the A&M game. Even though the Aggies have a deeper and more talented roster, Kelly and his staff were badly outcoached in that game. I didn't pay enough attention to him at Notre Dame, but word is those teams frequently lost baffling games they shouldn't for the same reason....randomly poorly coached games. Winning the FSU opener would've given us a 10 win season, but I'm not too down about that since FSU had already played a game (I'll go to my grave thinking we probably win that game if we'd already played) and Kelly was trying to herd cattle stampeding in all the wrong directions at that point (I'm talking about the culture mess that O left).
There nothing here that assures me LSU will be a regular contender for the conference and playoffs, but there's reasons to be optimistic. I trust that he can build the roster back up. I'm not as sure he can avoid a couple head-scratching losses with random terrible coaching weeks. It'll be better than Orgeron, which I guess is at least part of the point of hiring him.
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I rate the Vols season an overall 9. Great season big picture.
But, really crapped the bed against S. Carolina, costing us a shot at the playoff. That hurts bad, and I'm having to ignore it's sting to properly rate our season.
What could have been........
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I feel you.
What's the consensus on what exactly happened in that SCar game? I see they stuck it to Clemson too, so looks like the Gamecocks had something cooking down the stretch.
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Some Dawg fans I see "on line" are resembling Bama fans, I think, if we don't win 70-0, they complain.
I see some issues with the team, obvious ones, but if they can win the SEC I'm happy, anything else is gravy.
Fans get spoiled easily.
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I think USCe caught fire late, Rattler obviously, and the Vols just hit a buzz saw, so did Clemson. Rattler might not look that good in a bowl, or next season of course. The Vols had a suspect secondary all year.
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this was a season i've been expecting for a while now. not gonna say i feel great about it, but i'm not upset about it either. it's frustrating, though, cause this team is super talented and could compete with anyone if they play to their capabilities. but they haven't at all this year.
what's worrying is it has a lot to do with coaching. saban included. hopefully, and rumor is it will happen, we see some new coords in the spring. we'll see what future holds, but sooner or later the run will end. this might have been the start of that end.
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Interesting you say that.
After the Alabama/LSU game, there was a part of me that felt like tiger fans may one day look back at that game as a changing of the guard moment. Rationale being that this team has so few scholly players and is held together with duct tape, he has a good record as a coach and if he recruits well, this may be one of the worst tiger teams he fields....while on the other side we know Alabama's run has to end some day and their season this year could be what the beginning of that looks like. And yeah, I totally get that LSU won by stealing a do-or-die moment where the other team doesn't get the chance to respond, and they did it because they knew their chances in OT weren't good.
Fast-forward a few weeks and that part of me wonders if it's just wishful thinking. I can forgive the Arkansas showing, everybody knew that was a classic hangover game, and half the team was playing with the flu. Ok, they sucked, move on. But the A&M game was something else. QB regressing to every bad habit of his career nadir, defense that completely forgot you have to fit the run gaps and spent the entire game forgetting their tackling technique that has served them so well....maybe it's hard to comprehend what a mess Kelly is truly dealing with, but on the surface the whole thing looked like a crap coaching job, from the HC to the coordinators to the position coaches.
Back to the Alabama game, I don't understand some of what was happening in that one. For all but 2 games (FSU, A&M) our front 7 played really well, I get that....but Bryce Young had some throws that were not under duress that hit dead spots in the field and I was just like "What just happened?" He wasn't getting pressured, who even knows how well the receivers were covered because the ball didn't go anywhere near them. Truly baffling. On the other side of the ball Bama came in with an idea that didn't work and never adjusted. Their defense didn't really do anything to confuse or overwhelm our young line and indecisive QB. They just lined up and said "our guys are better than yours".....except they weren't. Arkansas and A&M, on the other hand, stunted, sent exotic blitzes, and generally kept our noobs confused. If Alabama had started something similar, LSU almost certainly doesn't score as many points.
And given all that, who knows how optimistic we're supposed to be.
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that's a good summary of bama's woes. the coaching just doesn't seem to understand this team. they don't adjust at all. i don't mean adjust for each opp, but adjust to what we can do well and away from what we don't. i get saban's philosophy of "we're gonna do what we do and make the other team adjust" and i agree with it, but it has it's limits too. what we do, this year and last, isn't working. not even against over matched teams. we run a strictly pro set offense, with long developing pass plays and zone blocking scheme. but our line isn't good at either of those schemes, and the wr's aren't as elite as in past and can't get open on those routes. we've barely run any of the simple yet highly effective plays that made tua all world. slants, drags, curls, sluggos, verts, simple routes that are hard to defend. there were a couple drives vs auburn we had that went back to those concepts, and we went through them like butter. i know au isn't great this year, but that's how a good offense should go through a bad defense. yet we didn't for much of the season, including parts of the iron bowl.
on defense, similar thing. we don't ever blitz. we will send safeties and occasional corners, but when we do, we drop anderson and turner in coverage. which that by itself is the stupidest thing, imo. we have a literal record setting pass rusher, and we put him in coverage several times a game on obvious passing downs. wtf? our d used to be exotic. you didn't know where, who, or how many were coming. it's gotten stale and predictable. and we have yet to figure out what a spy is. with the backfield and pass rushers we have, we should be setting records for sacks and such. but we aren't.
some bama fans are scheming how we can sneak into playoffs. i hope we don't. this team doesn't deserve it. we have the talent, and if we sneak in we might screw up and win it. but honestly i think i'd rather a good bowl vs a solid team and reset and reevaluate for next season and beyond. cause we need a revamp. starting with coords.
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I reckon if either TCU or USC loses, they'll put Bama in. It's a certainty if they both lose.
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I rate the Vols season an overall 9. Great season big picture.
But, really crapped the bed against S. Carolina, costing us a shot at the playoff. That hurts bad, and I'm having to ignore it's sting to properly rate our season.
What could have been........
I am pleased with 10 regular season wins. I thought that was a pipe dream ceiling before the season and 8-9 wins was realistic.
I really don't feel like we belonged in the playoffs as we still have to many holes on D and that was expected.
Next year we will probably not equal this years win total as we will be replacing a lot and most likely playing a lot of new comers in some areas. However the incoming class will help the D become better, on down the road.
Not sold on our D backs coach or our D coordinator. Going to have to trust Coach as he is in a better position to evaluate them.
Got some good o players coming in as well who will contribute early.
The portal could help next years team a lot,
Glad to see McCoy is returning
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1/10 is my rating. Losing to App State is never acceptable, even if they finish 12-0 ( they didn’t. They finished 6-6). Of our losses, I think 6 were by 4 points. We were in most until very late, but couldn’t close.
The 1 of the 1/10 is for beating LSU. That was nice, given our recent lack of success against them in conference games.
Schedule for 23 looks much better, Bama and Auburn at home, much more experienced team.
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Dunno....A&M has technically beaten LSU 3 out of the last 5. "Recent lack of success" against them may not be too applicable.
I'd been hearing talk about kids hitting the transfer portal at A&M.....do you think that changes now since they ended with showing the promise of what could be?
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I hadn’t thought of the 3/5, just more about the 3/10 ratio. Last years loss still really stings, that LSU team played spoiler.
As far as the portal, a few players have been hitting, but most were backups who never see the field anyways. No news of major contributors yet. There are a couple of players who are debating staying who are JRs, and maybe a SR or two that will take advantage of the free covid year.
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I just typed a big, long thing, but the site flubbed it away.
The short version: C-
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How is your team looking next season? Better or worse?
A&M should be better, duh
South Carolina has some mo, which could meant no.
Florida?
Bama? They need to look better.
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How are Florida fans feeling about Napier long-term?
Not that you can necessarily tell a lot in a rookie season, but just wondering what the overall sentiment about Napier is. A stage like Florida is obviously new for him, but I thought he did a really good job for the Ragin' Cajuns.
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Don't know. Don't care, as long as he wins.
He seems to have an automatic upgrade in recruiting, which is a must. So that checks one box. I expected an automatic improvement on defense, and that didn't happen.