jonnon111
What you see is what you get.
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I absolutely disagree.
Purely because there will always (ALWAYS) be some percentage of young men like Jack Jones and Derek Barnett and Alontae Taylor who are bound and determined to play for the team they love, the team they followed through their entire childhood. If they get the chance, that's where they'll go. All other considerations be damned.
It's not like they're sacrificing everything for it, either. They know all about fellas like Walter Payton and Randy Moss and Steve McNair and literally hundreds of others who went to no-name colleges and still got into the NFL, because the NFL scouts find talent wherever it is. These lads today, they know they're not putting an NFL chance at risk just because they're foregoing Bama or Ohio State.
And now NIL--surprisingly, perhaps--tends to level the playing field. See, before only the very wealthy programs who were ALSO willing to cheat could lure kids with $$. Now the honest programs can, too. And it doesn't take a lot of school $$, either, just one or two well-to-do alums down in the town square willing to give a kid and his family five or six figures in exchange for his photo in some advertisements. Nick Saban said NIL would make the rich richer...I believe it's going to do the opposite: it's going to deal the more honest programs in, and let the poorer programs leverage their alumni more easily.
So no, I don't think loyalty is gone. I think it was always there, even if the % of kids driven by it dropped pretty low for a while. And I think it might actually make a resurgence, thanks to NIL and the leveling effect that might have.
Go Vols!
It's a flawed argument. Now, there is something to be said for the vast majority of D1 talent being 3-6 hours away from Knoxville. That's the bigger issue.Off the cuff ranking of instate talent:
Florida
Georgia
Tennessee and Louisiana
Alabama and South Carolina and Missouri and Mississipi
Arkansas and Kentucky
Population rank by state
FLA (22M)
GA (11)
TN (7)
MO (6)
SC and AL and LA (5)
KY (4)
AR and MS (3)
Demographically, it is absurd to say TN "doesn't have much in-state talent" compared to other SEC states...and least 4 of which then split their talent among 2 major state football programs.
You had me at AL, GA, and FL but lost me at Kentucky. Good this year, yes, but we still went 7-3 against them in a terrible 10 year stretch for UT football. Not an issue if we have a competent coach as mentioned above. In a normal world where everything is rolling, it should be this:Well you have Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky every year, soon Oklahoma or Texas and another wild card from the west - this year it’s ole miss. So that’s 6 -7 or so game against teams in the top 20. We are fixing to play 1,2,3,4 in the conference in consecutive weeks.
if we also don’t have top 20 talent and an above average qb - we will never be 8-4 10-2 just by showing up.
Our coaching and recruiting has to be exceptional.
You had me at AL, GA, and FL but lost me at Kentucky. Good this year, yes, but we still went 7-3 against them in a terrible 10 year stretch for UT football. Not an issue if we have a competent coach as mentioned above. In a normal world where everything is rolling, it should be this:
Alabama
Georgia
Florida
LSU
Texas A&M
Tennessee
Auburn
Ole Miss
Arkansas
Kentucky
South Carolina
Miss St.
Mizzou
Vandy
Those would be my tiers of success.
Trevor is actually a really good case study.You can also use an example of Trevor Lawrence for a rebuttal to your argument. Loyalty does not seem to be quite the driving factor like it was in the past. Systems and loyalty to coaches for an NFL transition appear to be more of a driving factor in todays athletic business environment. I currently live in Nashville with a recent move and my son plays HS football. Scouts from multiple SEC schools, along with some PAC schools all attend these games in this market. With multiple transplants in this growing market the "loyalty factor" has been diminished. UT is simply not near as popular as we would like to believe, and it saddens me. We cannot rely on in-state loyalty to be a driving factor in a recruits decision in this current atmosphere. Perhaps with success this will abate, but I am not confident in that paradigm.
Nick Saban is an "outlier" but I think he is correct as he is using NIL in media events already as you have seen with Byron Young making supposedly a million as a student. The large programs most certainly will have an advantage and this will forever change the landscape where smaller programs will be at such a disadvantage there will have to be a realignment of the NCAA system to level the competition. I think you overestimate honest programs and I would compare this dramatic shift to the passage of the 21st amendment or repealing the Volstead Act.
We are still at a major disadvantage. Over the last 6 years, Tennessee ranks behind Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Alabama in terms of producing blue chip talent (just out of the southeast). The gap between the first two and the rest is massive. Florida and Georgia produce a ton of talent each year. Last year, we had less blue chip prospects that signed with a Power 5 program than North Carolina.Out talent level in state is alot better than the stigma surrounding it. The problem has been landing them.
Off the cuff ranking of instate talent:
Florida
Georgia
Tennessee and Louisiana
Alabama and South Carolina and Missouri and Mississipi
Arkansas and Kentucky
Population rank by state
FLA (22M)
GA (11)
TN (7)
MO (6)
SC and AL and LA (5)
KY (4)
AR and MS (3)
Demographically, it is absurd to say TN "doesn't have much in-state talent" compared to other SEC states...and least 4 of which then split their talent among 2 major state football programs.
How is Vanderbilt #1? They have the lowest expectations of all Power 5 schools. There's a reason why nobody knows who their HC is... it's because nobody cares. His job isn't to win the SEC, it's to keep players out of trouble and promote leftist agendas.
It’s hard to win because no one cares about athletics there. I believe they have some weird structure to their AD as well. Can’t remember but it’s impossible to win at Vandy.How is Vanderbilt #1? They have the lowest expectations of all Power 5 schools. There's a reason why nobody knows who their HC is... it's because nobody cares. His job isn't to win the SEC, it's to keep players out of trouble and promote leftist agendas.
Nebraska still is a tough gig. Hard to recruit to there, competition is tough, and expectations are high.Also... Scott Frost is VERY close to turning Nebraska around, it's just taking longer than people expected. Look at their results so far this season... they are competitive against the best in the conference. Martinez having his best season yet and has another year of eligibility.
Actually the only states in the SEC with worse in state talent annually than TN are Kentucy, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri. This may surprise you, but no one has more NFL talent per capita than Mississippi. We are actually are not even close to Alabama or Louisiana in terms of blue chip talent. We produce a lot of kids that get to play college football, but not high numbers in the way of signing and producing with SEC schools. None of the SEC teams in the states below us are competing for championships regularly, but that is the expectation here by many. The problem is that yes, we had a stretch when we were a perennial top 25 team, but we've never been a consistent championship contender. The last time we played for a title was '98. The last time before that when we could even lay claim to a stake in the national title was '89.Off the cuff ranking of instate talent:
Florida
Georgia
Tennessee and Louisiana
Alabama and South Carolina and Missouri and Mississipi
Arkansas and Kentucky
Population rank by state
FLA (22M)
GA (11)
TN (7)
MO (6)
SC and AL and LA (5)
KY (4)
AR and MS (3)
Demographically, it is absurd to say TN "doesn't have much in-state talent" compared to other SEC states...and least 4 of which then split their talent among 2 major state football programs.
We are still at a major disadvantage. Over the last 6 years, Tennessee ranks behind Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Alabama in terms of producing blue chip talent (just out of the southeast). The gap between the first two and the rest is massive. Florida and Georgia produce a ton of talent each year. Last year, we had less blue chip prospects that signed with a Power 5 program than North Carolina.
Here are the numbers
All 50 states, ranked by their percentage of national blue-chip recruits