Keep in mind that in 1978, majors signed the best class ever

#27
#27
BeattieFeathers said:
Included lee Otis burton who would have been Reggie white esque. Saw him run down a notre dame running back from behind. Class included captain James Berry, Glenn ford, Dennis Mahon, a bunch of kids from Georgia like lee north, Rory Cunningham, mike go cofer etc.
A lot of those studs were washouts. Not to be a downer but you have to put together consecutive three or four top classes to become competitive with the top of the league. Ole miss has recruited a couple of good classes but they can't compete week in and week out with the giants.
Kudos to butch, keep it rolling......:hi:
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Wow! Just one household name after another there....Ford, Mahon... and who can forget Cunningham? Names right there with Cafego, Majors, White, Manning...
 
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#28
#28
cgbtn said:
How many were in the '78 class? I think that in Major's own freshman class there were 108; that was a pretty good class. In the freshman class he recruited to win the NC at Pittsburg, I believe there were 113, including Dorsett. It would be hard to say any modern day class was the best ever, based on sheer numbers.
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The SEC had a limit on the number of scholarships which each SEC team could sign each year. I don't remember that number, but it was at least 35-40. The SEC also had an early signing date which was honored by the ACC but no other conference. The SEC schools had to fight to keep their early signees from schools from the conferences other than the ACC.
 
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#29
#29
KBVol said:
Wow! Just one household name after another there....Ford, Mahon... and who can forget Cunningham? Names right there with Cafego, Majors, White, Manning...
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They would compare with Hurd,Malone,and helms. You know, parade all Americans that have not done anything yet. And for those keeping score, there were only about fifty parade all Americans per season.:hi:
 
#31
#31
BeattieFeathers said:
Included lee Otis burton who would have been Reggie white esque. Saw him run down a notre dame running back from behind. Class included captain James Berry, Glenn ford, Dennis Mahon, a bunch of kids from Georgia like lee north, Rory Cunningham, mike go cofer etc.
A lot of those studs were washouts. Not to be a downer but you have to put together consecutive three or four top classes to become competitive with the top of the league. Ole miss has recruited a couple of good classes but they can't compete week in and week out with the giants.
Kudos to butch, keep it rolling......:hi:
Click to expand...

tFdO5ET.gif
 
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#33
#33
BeattieFeathers said:
They would compare with Hurd,Malone,and helms. You know, parade all Americans that have not done anything yet. And for those keeping score, there were only about fifty parade all Americans per season.:hi:
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We have the benefit of hindsight with the guys you listed.
 
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#34
#34
BeattieFeathers said:
Included lee Otis burton who would have been Reggie white esque. Saw him run down a notre dame running back from behind. Class included captain James Berry, Glenn ford, Dennis Mahon, a bunch of kids from Georgia like lee north, Rory Cunningham, mike go cofer etc.
A lot of those studs were washouts. Not to be a downer but you have to put together consecutive three or four top classes to become competitive with the top of the league. Ole miss has recruited a couple of good classes but they can't compete week in and week out with the giants.
Kudos to butch, keep it rolling......:hi:
Click to expand...

Summer's Eve spokesperson.
 
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#35
#35
BeattieFeathers said:
Included lee Otis burton who would have been Reggie white esque. Saw him run down a notre dame running back from behind. Class included captain James Berry, Glenn ford, Dennis Mahon, a bunch of kids from Georgia like lee north, Rory Cunningham, mike go cofer etc.
A lot of those studs were washouts. Not to be a downer
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There are no guarantees of success in college football. Got it. We all knew that. You don't have to go back to 1978 to find stud-loaded UT classes that were busts. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence that landing a highly-ranked class increases a team's chance of success. There is absolutely no reason for pessimism on this glorious weekend. It's certainly not a type of thinking befitting the real Beattie Feathers.
 
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#39
#39
One historical perspective is to Google the Parade All-American teams through the years. I think Majors signed 7 PAA's in 78 compared to the 3 we signed last year. Majors also signed the top running back from 4 different states. He could stockpile high school talent when he was fired up about recruiting.

Athlon goes back that far and Smith & Street. You could follow recruiting but you had to work harder at it.
 
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#40
#40
BeattieFeathers said:
Included lee Otis burton who would have been Reggie white esque. Saw him run down a notre dame running back from behind. Class included captain James Berry, Glenn ford, Dennis Mahon, a bunch of kids from Georgia like lee north, Rory Cunningham, mike go cofer etc.
A lot of those studs were washouts. Not to be a downer but you have to put together consecutive three or four top classes to become competitive with the top of the league. Ole miss has recruited a couple of good classes but they can't compete week in and week out with the giants.
Kudos to butch, keep it rolling......:hi:
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You just got demoted to Lieutenant Obvious with this drivel.
 
#41
#41
cgbtn said:
How many were in the '78 class? I think that in Major's own freshman class there were 108; that was a pretty good class. In the freshman class he recruited to win the NC at Pittsburg, I believe there were 113, including Dorsett. It would be hard to say any modern day class was the best ever, based on sheer numbers.
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According to Majors Pittsburg signed 83 players in 1973 which wasn't against the rules. That wasn't the norm though most conferences had agreements on how many Freshman each team could sign. Pittsburg only had about 50 players on roster when Majors took over and had gone 6-36 the previous four years. The 30/95 rule went into effect in 1974.
 
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#42
#42
When Majors took over UT was God awful. Bill battle recruited character guys over great players and was more concerned with their being well groomed gentlemen than finding the best players who could.. That class of Majors began a turnaround that put Tennessee back on the map.. It was 4 years Later before Tennessee beat Alabama but then Tennessee had rebuilt its program and was back to becoming respectable again.. 7 years after the 78 class Tennessee won the SEC, and the Sugar Bowl... It takes time people.
 
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#43
#43
cgbtn said:
How many were in the '78 class? I think that in Major's own freshman class there were 108; that was a pretty good class. In the freshman class he recruited to win the NC at Pittsburg, I believe there were 113, including Dorsett. It would be hard to say any modern day class was the best ever, based on sheer numbers.
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29 signed in 1978 with 9 being Parade All Americans.

17 of the 29 left the team before their senior seasons. most of those were gone very quickly..
 
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#44
#44
BeattieFeathers said:
You have no historical perspective either. There were many parade all Americans in that class which means we out recruited a lot of heavyweights. There were several publications that had us ranked number one just as sport magazine rated us pre season number one in 1983. Go back and talk about the 90s when you were born. The men will continue to discuss weightier matters.:peace2:
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You are incredible. Literally, in-credible.

I remember that time period well. A good FCS team today probably would have won the D 1 title. The game has evolved.

As for Parade AA's. It would be pretty interesting to go back and look at their accuracy. I doubt it is all that great.

Just for giggles, here's the 2010 Parade AA team. I'm not very impressed.

Meet PARADE's 2010 All-America High School Football Team
 
#46
#46
BeattieFeathers said:
They would compare with Hurd,Malone,and helms. You know, parade all Americans that have not done anything yet. And for those keeping score, there were only about fifty parade all Americans per season.:hi:
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Who says they compare? Absolutely no one but YOU. And you aren't the expert or "wise ol' fan" you think you are.

Parade's AA team has never been a very well researched thing. OTOH, the recruiting svcs now pour a lot of money into finding the best players and reporting on them. A player almost can't be worthy of a DIII scholarship now without one of the recruiting sites having taken a look at them at some point.
 
#47
#47
Try from 1978-2014.

Vol qb's that were Parade All-Americans- Tony Robinson, Andy Kelly, Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, Tee Martin, Casey Clausen, Jonathon Crompton and Justin Worley.

It's easy to define the misses, but most of them read like NFL rosters as far as the skilled positions.

There's also a long list of instate guys that we missed on without even mentioning the Memphis guys. Anything can happen, but they don't hand out Parade All Americans. UT's best run on PAA's was about 2000-2004 where we signed about 16 of them. Several of these guys didn't pan out long term.
 
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#48
#48
KBVol said:
Wow! Just one household name after another there....Ford, Mahon... and who can forget Cunningham? Names right there with Cafego, Majors, White, Manning...
Click to expand...

Oh I will never forget Glen Ford.

glen ford.JPG

Yeah Herschel ran over Bates but Fords fumble was the biggest play of the game.
 
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#49
#49
sjt18 said:
Who says they compare? Absolutely no one but YOU. And you aren't the expert or "wise ol' fan" you think you are.

Parade's AA team has never been a very well researched thing. OTOH, the recruiting svcs now pour a lot of money into finding the best players and reporting on them. A player almost can't be worthy of a DIII scholarship now without one of the recruiting sites having taken a look at them at some point.
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Until the recruiting services get a little better at evaluating Boise st, michigan state, an other players recruited by programs who " over achieve" with their talent, the services will be a bunch of snake oil salesmen in my book. I do note they are now rating spurriers recruits higher at Carolina. Catching up a little.....
All the services are good for is informing us on what schools have vetted a particular prospect. Keep on believing you can rate prospects playing 7 on 7 two hand touch.
 
#50
#50
BeattieFeathers said:
Until the recruiting services get a little better at evaluating Boise st, michigan state, an other players recruited by programs who " over achieve" with their talent, the services will be a bunch of snake oil salesmen in my book. I do note they are now rating spurriers recruits higher at Carolina. Catching up a little.....
All the services are good for is informing us on what schools have vetted a particular prospect. Keep on believing you can rate prospects playing 7 on 7 two hand touch.
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LOL@U.

The recruiting svcs are far from perfect. There is no perfect way to predict how a 17 year old kid will develop or what can go wrong. But to say they invest more and are more accurate than Parade was in the 70's is a massive understatement. It is VERY likely that Parade uses the recruiting svcs to narrow their list today.

Keep on believing you can rate recruits based on statistics in spite of the competition they play against... just because its tackle.

You are interesting. You'll try absolutely anything to lower the bar and expectations, huh? Here you've dug up a recruiting class from an entirely different era of college football AND more importantly a different era of media in an effort to diss the '14 class.

You do understand that it is a complete logical fallacy to try to use the '78 recruiting class to make ANY statement whatsoever about the '14 class, right?
 
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