Guys we had a top 5 class last year, we are #5 right now and trending upward. Its sad, but $4 mil is nothing in terms of keeping an SEC coach who can recruit like that and has shown progress. If we lose butch we will end up with another dooley, just hoping and praying that he can get the right amount of men on the field and begging for the 5.5 3* to choose us over Kansas and UCONN, cause thats about the only guy thats going to want to come after the bomb that would be dropped on UT football that would be 10x worse than Lane Kiffin.
The thing about it is, the amazing recruiting classes are some what insignificant in this situation, because in college football, stability is worth a lot of top 10 recruiting classes in our situation. There are so many positive things going on in our program right now. 1. We found our QB, a guy with his head on straight AND can play, we haven't seen that in a while 2. We probably have a top 10 DE in the country and he's a true freshman, and to go along with him, we have a guy who came off 2 torn acls to have 11 sacks 3. We have a freshman RB who week after week announcers and scouts compare to Eddie George and 4. We probably have the most talented WR core in the SEC for next year, by far.
Of course we still have glaring needs along the OL and DT position, but do you guys not remember how terrible awful Dooley was, and he was allowed to coach and recruit here for 3 years. Butch may not be the guy, but he took over for one of the worst coaches I've seen in a long time, so we have to buy him time. And if we have to pay $4-$5 mil to buy that time then its a no brainer you pay it 10/10 times.