Strictly talent wise, where do we stand now?

#76
#76
Not sure where all the optimism is coming from... we are clearly not as talented as the recruiting services say we are. Otherwise, we would’ve gone bowling last year.

We don’t have a healthy top tier offensive lineman. We don’t have a single average SEC corner. We don’t have a top tier RB, WR, or QB. We’ve got 1 good safety, 1 good DL, and a couple of good linebackers... that’s about it. No way we are in the top half of the SEC. probably more like 8th-10th.
 
#77
#77
RavinDave said:
Average star ranking of rosters in SEC runs from 3.93 for Bama to 2.97 for Vandy, with a median of about 3.3 (same number of teams above as below), and UT at 3.57 which is almost halfway between the median and the top and a #4 ranking out of 14 teams.

So how to explain how badly we sucked last year?

If Einstein was still around he might come up with something like this:

E = M * C^2

where

E is an Energy Indicator and a measure of how well a Team plays relative to its star ranking;

M = the "mass" of the roster (i.e. its star ranking);

and

C = the Coaching Factor which can be a negative or a positive approaching infinity either way.

I would submit that, by virtue of the coaching change, the Vols are moving from Negative to Positive territory.
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I think it's a combination of crappy coaching and a team just straight up quitting on the coach. There is no way this team should ever get blown out by Vandy and Mizzou unless they just honestly didn't care at that point.
 
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#78
#78
As far as the east goes, We are roughly as talented as Florida and South Carolina. All three schools are significantly behind Georgia right now. We are less talented than Alabama, LSU, aTm, and Auburn IMO, so that would put us around 6ish in the league.
 
#79
#79
norrislakevol said:
As far as the east goes, We are roughly as talented as Florida and South Carolina. All three schools are significantly behind Georgia right now. We are less talented than Alabama, LSU, aTm, and Auburn IMO, so that would put us around 6ish in the league.
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We're a bit higher than that.

Our average recruiting class ranking over the past 5 years is 12.4 (with classes ranked 7th, 4th, 14th, 17th, and 20th). Puts us behind Bama (2.2), Georgia (5.0), LSU (6.4), and Auburn (9.0). We're ever so slightly ahead of A&M (12.8), and a bit further ahead of Florida (13.4). The rest of the SEC, we are comfortably ahead of. In raw recruiting class rankings, anyway. Sure didn't work out that way on the field last fall.

That puts us at 5th in the SEC. We (and the Gators) are well ahead of South Carolina in talent, btw. They should not be having the success they have; that's coaching and opportunism.

Those are raw rankings based on recruiting classes. 247sports does one that takes attrition into account. But it's not very different; we're still in the #5 spot, well behind Bama, UGa, LSU and Auburn, and just ahead of A&M and Florida.

So yeah, when Phil Fulmer said, "it's not the Xs and Os, it's the Jimmies and Joes," he didn't account for how badly a coach could screw up both the Xs and Os and the Jimmies and Joes. Took Butch to show us that.

Fact is, if we can just get back to punching at our weight, we'll be significantly ahead of where we were in 2017. Based purely on talent, we would be favored in 9 of our 12 games in 2018.



Sources:
 
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#81
#81
I think the talent is around average with the rest of the country. It just depends if they over achieve or under achieve with it. Also minimum injuries would help also.
 
#82
#82
BreatheUT said:
I even passed up the delusional "we have top 3 or 4 talent in the league" posts to say this one sounds more ridiculous. Suddenly Gooden and Chryst catapults the Vols up the talent Richter scales??? Got it!
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How well did this tread age cor anyone that posted. Been saying since the beginning that talent is an issue.
 
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