Weezer
VolNation Dalai Lama , VN Most Beloved Poster
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As a conference, we are no longer the top of the heap. It used to be the SEC, then the rest of the college football world, but after tonight, the playing field has tilted. The best of the best won't come from our conference. It'll be the PAC12 or the B1G. The fact is, the best in the SEC this year, the mighty Bama, cannot even fall back on the tired old excuse that we beat ourselves up week in and week out. They lost to a team playing their third string QB. It was pathetic.
So what does that mean for us? Yes, we can laugh at Bama(and pray we win our own bowl game), but Butch lost one tool in his recruiting arsenal tonight. How do you sell playing in the "conference of champions" to kids in other areas of the country when you're no longer the conference of champions? How do you sell SEC dominance after a bowl season like this one? You can't. Teams like Bama, teams that compete, they'll always be able to sell that. But as a rebuilding team, we were able to sell our conference. I know some of you don't think it was much, but hey, you use what you have, and the simple truth is, it's one less tool Butch has now. That's one less foot in the door, and in the long run, we'll never know how much it may or may not hurt us. Hopefully Butch can find enough closer to home that it will not matter, but when UT was at its height, we could open practically anydoor in the country. As long as the SEC was known as THE strongest conference in the country, we could open many doors in the country because of that and our storied past. Now, we're in an average conference. We're an average team atm. Hopefully we continue to rise, but fewer doors across the country are available to us now. We have to start winning next year. A five hundred record in an average conference won't be good enough anymore. Next season, we have to make that leap to being a truly winning team, otherwise, it's very possible we backslide and watch as teams in other conferences pass us by.
Yeah, yeah, a bit melodramatic, but it's all true. Next year needs to be at least an 8 win season. We gotta progress because arguing we play in the SEC no longer holds water.
So what does that mean for us? Yes, we can laugh at Bama(and pray we win our own bowl game), but Butch lost one tool in his recruiting arsenal tonight. How do you sell playing in the "conference of champions" to kids in other areas of the country when you're no longer the conference of champions? How do you sell SEC dominance after a bowl season like this one? You can't. Teams like Bama, teams that compete, they'll always be able to sell that. But as a rebuilding team, we were able to sell our conference. I know some of you don't think it was much, but hey, you use what you have, and the simple truth is, it's one less tool Butch has now. That's one less foot in the door, and in the long run, we'll never know how much it may or may not hurt us. Hopefully Butch can find enough closer to home that it will not matter, but when UT was at its height, we could open practically anydoor in the country. As long as the SEC was known as THE strongest conference in the country, we could open many doors in the country because of that and our storied past. Now, we're in an average conference. We're an average team atm. Hopefully we continue to rise, but fewer doors across the country are available to us now. We have to start winning next year. A five hundred record in an average conference won't be good enough anymore. Next season, we have to make that leap to being a truly winning team, otherwise, it's very possible we backslide and watch as teams in other conferences pass us by.
Yeah, yeah, a bit melodramatic, but it's all true. Next year needs to be at least an 8 win season. We gotta progress because arguing we play in the SEC no longer holds water.