I meant on paper, if you believe recruiting rankings over the last 4-5 years. On the field, you are correct, we certainly don't perform better than 9 of our opponents.
I brought that up because I've seen many places (both here on VN and from national media types) that Tennessee is struggling because of a "lack of talent." Every time I hear that, my next thought is "Well, relative to who?" Lack of talent explains why we aren't competitive with Georgia, Alabama, and you can argue Florida.
It doesn't explain why we lost to Georgia St, BYU, have lost 5 of the last 7 to Vanderbilt, and have consistently lost to teams like South Carolina and Mizzou over the last several years. Tennessee has more talent on the field than all of those schools. I totally agree that we've lost LOS battles when we play those schools, but my question then is "Why?" We didn't lose a LOS battle with Georgia St because Georgia St's lines are more talented.
You nailed it. Folks aren’t peeved about losing to Fla, Ga and Ala at this point. Folks are peeved because he can’t beat non-Power 5 teams.