Tennessee or Nebraska ?

#2
#2
they've both made their fair share of mistakes the past decade.

as to who gets back faster? a lot depends on whether or not either, or both, made the right hire this year.

as for framework or set up for the programs, you have pluses and minuses for each.

i think it will be easier to recruit at a high level at TN, and while both schools historically have to recruit nationally, we have a geographic advantage, and playing at TN and in the SEC is a big deal to a lot of kids in this part of the country. advantage TN.

but NE plays in one of the worst divisions of college football, and while the SEC east lately hasn't been anything to write home about, GA certainly presents a tougher challenge than Wisconsin, and Nebraska doesn't have to play anyone like Alabama on a yearly basis.

i think record wise, Nebraska will probably get back to the 8 or 9 win type seasons faster than TN.

i don't know that they'll be nationally prominent faster than TN will be.
 
#3
#3
I definitely thing it's an easier path to more wins for Nebraska but I think we'll be the better team because we'll be more battle tested and, despite what the article is saying, we're right in the middle of a great recruiting area (surrounded by Georgia and Carolinas with FL just on the horizon).
 
#7
#7
Frost did a remarkable job in the sunshine state. I have no doubt he can coach but can he go to Texas, California, Georgia and Florida and get some decent players. Pruitt is still in progress but we have more resources and got better players in TN and are closer distance to better players.
 
#9
#9
Pretty fair take and good read. Eerily similar.

Which program had the tougher fall from grace? Which is more likely to have a more successful rebuild?

If you had to bet on Vols or Huskers futures, which would you pick?
It seems most of the names being considered last fall, on this site anyway, have had a tough start at the new jobs this year. Kelly at UCLA and frost at Nebraska haven’t won a game. Arkansas is struggling mightily under their new coach. At first glance it looks like the gators have made a good choice. We will see how they recruit. The coach at nc state is a good coach as well as Purdue’s ,though no one here wanted them.
 
#10
#10
It's sad to see two programs with so much tradition and history struggle this much for so long. It's a very fine line between greatness and mediocrity in sports. A bad hire, poor management, a week recruiting class or two......it can all be gone.

I said it in another thread, but I can see a scenario where Nebraska gets left in the dust (no pun indented). UT should be able to come back to a National stage quicker than Nebraska for many reasons. The only feather Nebraska has is the conf/division they are in. That is all. They also screwed the pooch letting Frank Solich go.
 
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#11
#11
Well, our coach won the National Title last year as a coordinator. Theirs won it as theHead Coach. Pretty much settles it.
 
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#13
#13
It's sad to see two programs with so much tradition and history struggle this much for so long. It's a very fine line between greatness and mediocrity in sports. A bad hire, poor management, a week recruiting class or two......it can all be gone.

I said it in another thread, but I can see a scenario where Nebraska gets left in the dust (no pun indented). UT should be able to come back to a National stage quicker than Nebraska for many reasons. The only feather Nebraska has is the conf/division they are in. That is all. They also screwed the pooch letting Frank Solich go.
They also made a "splash," flashier hire than we did. He better be a hell of a recruiter for their sake.
 
#14
#14
I have to say that I have paid a lot more attention to the Huskers than most VOLS fans probably do, my wife is a die hard Nebraska fan. It's true that the teams are very similar, in several ways. I think that the difference maker is in coaching. If Frost makes as big of a splash as expected he will have Nebraska back to 8-9 wins relatively soon, but he hasn't lived up to his name so far this season. He has a talented QB and some decent receivers, but he has not used them to their full potential. Martinez got hurt, and that cost them but they are 4-0 and not playing well. I see Tennessee taking maybe a year longer to return to 8 wins (year after next) and Nebraska hitting the same numbers around the same time, but with lesser competition. Tennessee is the better team now and will be the better team in two years even if they have the same record at the end of 12 games.
 
#15
#15
Not biased, just a factual concise opinion : Tennessee.

More funding, better facilities, closer to recruiting hot beds, better conference (in terms of $ generated in the TV deals and in recruiting).

When Nebraska was dominant they were pulling recruits from California, Texas, and even the south west on occasion. They were the big fish in a small pond. I just don't think they will be able to compete in those fertile recruiting grounds anymore, hence lowering their ceiling.
 
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#16
#16
If "national prominence" means being a legit contender for the 4-team playoff, the answer is: neither. Too much lost time and ground to the elite, established programs.
 
#17
#17
If "national prominence" means being a legit contender for the 4-team playoff, the answer is: neither. Too much lost time and ground to the elite, established programs.
Depends on what you mean by "legit contender." I don't think Tennessee will ever be an every-year contender for a CFP berth like Alabama and Ohio St currently are. I do think that Tennessee is a good enough program to vie for a CFP berth something like once every 4-6 years, and be competitive in conference all the other years.

I do question why a school like Clemson in particular can turn into an every-year contender for the CFP and Tennessee could not, though. Clemson does not have the tradition and history that Tennessee does and both schools have to go into other states to recruit. Clemson still brings in less revenue than Tennessee does from football. If Clemson can be in the playoff 3 years in a row, why couldn't Tennessee do that at some point in the future? There was a time when general thought was that Clemson in any given year will be in the ACC pecking order behind Florida St, Virginia Tech, and sometimes Miami.

I mean, read this blurb from this article (Five Prominent College Football Coaches On the Hot Seat For 2011) about Dabo in 2011. My how times have changed.
Dabo Swinney (Clemson): Handing the reigns to a wide receivers coach in 2008 was a gamble. It hasn’t paid off. Dabo Swinney rode C.J. Spiller to nine wins in 2009, but, without him, the Tigers muddled to a 6-7 finish (5-7 vs. FBS), their first losing mark since 1998. The team’s talent was never the problem. Swinney will get another chance with a revamped offensive staff, but, with former offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez single and ready to mingle, anything less than competing for an ACC title could see him ousted.
 
#18
#18
Depends on what you mean by "legit contender." I don't think Tennessee will ever be an every-year contender for a CFP berth like Alabama and Ohio St currently are. I do think that Tennessee is a good enough program to vie for a CFP berth something like once every 4-6 years, and be competitive in conference all the other years.

I do question why a school like Clemson in particular can turn into an every-year contender for the CFP and Tennessee could not, though. Clemson does not have the tradition and history that Tennessee does and both schools have to go into other states to recruit. Clemson still brings in less revenue than Tennessee does from football. If Clemson can be in the playoff 3 years in a row, why couldn't Tennessee do that at some point in the future? There was a time when general thought was that Clemson in any given year will be in the ACC pecking order behind Florida St, Virginia Tech, and sometimes Miami.

I mean, read this blurb from this article (Five Prominent College Football Coaches On the Hot Seat For 2011) about Dabo in 2011. My how times have changed.


To answer your Clemson question.... ACC.

Even Butch was undefeated against the ACC and The Big 10. The SEC is just that hard to have success in.
 
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#20
#20
To answer your Clemson question.... ACC.

Even Butch was undefeated against the ACC and The Big 10. The SEC is just that hard to have success in.
Butch beat up on the soft underbelly of those conferences. Dabo built a power at Clemson in the same division with FSU and is now routinely winning recruiting battles against SEC schools.

A void existed for several years in the East before it was finally filled by Georgia. The opening was there waiting to be filled by Tennessee, Florida, or Georgia before 2016. Tennessee has a big uphill climb, but there isn't anything structural that would preclude Tennessee from doing what Clemson has done at some point in the future.

On the day Tommy Bowden was fired, if you said Clemson's next coach will routinely win the ACC, win a national title, and be in the mix every year for the national title within a span of a few years, you would have been laughed at.
 
#21
#21
If "national prominence" means being a legit contender for the 4-team playoff, the answer is: neither. Too much lost time and ground to the elite, established programs.
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#22
#22
I mostly agree with the article. I do think the cupboard is more bare at NE right now, however. But they could finish 10-2/9-3 next year. We won't sniff that possibility until 2021, unless we just luck up get a stud QB. We play GA and Bama every year. Then every 3-4 years we seem to want to play Oklahoma. In 2019, NE has a cross over with OSU, but their OOC is South Alabama and CU. 2020 is even easier with no Power 5 OOC, but they do have OSU and PSU from the East. Then they pickup Oklahoma in 2021 and 2022. Alternatively we have relatively easy OOC with just BYU next year, but then pick up Oklahoma in 2020 and Pitt in 2021 and 2022.
 
#23
#23
They are the ones who made the jump to the big ten. In doing so, they put themselves further away from the Texas recruiting base. They did it to themselves.
 
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#24
#24
Nebraska is so much tougher to recruit to than Tennessee and the article makes it sound like we are in similar situations recruiting-wise.

First off, it's a weird myth that the state of Tennessee is divided culturally into 3 parts. Tennessee is more culturally homogeneous than Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia from my experience (as someone who has lived in all 4, and a few other states). I see this myth spread by non-Tennesseans a lot based on the flag design, but people from Middle Tennessee generally see themselves as similar to people in East Tennessee. Whereas, Northern Virginia is radically different than Southwest Virginia, and Atlanta is radically different from South Georgia. I don't see this as an issue at all. If anything, being the only major football program in the state of Tennessee is a huge advantage recruiting-wise.

Moreover, it's a lot easier for Tennessee to pluck talent from Atlanta, Charlotte, and Virginia, than it is for Nebraska to pluck talent all the way from Florida, California and Texas. The move to the Big 10 has made it that much more difficult for Nebraska to recruit, because it's tougher to get kids from Texas, and the Midwest isn't a good enough region to compensate for that.

Otherwise, I'd say the biggest thing is coaching hires. Nebraska hired a sure thing in Scott Frost. We hired a not-so-sure thing in Jeremy Pruitt. Many of us are optimistic about Pruitt, but we don't really know whether he's the next Saban or the next Muschamp, or (most likely) somewhere in between.

I think no matter how good Scott Frost is, he's going to have difficulty winning a national championship with Nebraska's recruiting situation. Whereas, you can get national championship talent in Tennessee pretty easily with a good coach; not any different from Alabama. We've just reversed positions with Bama since 2007.

Question is, have we hired a great coach? We'll have to wait and see. Our track record has not been good over the past decade, unfortunately. Whereas, I think Nebraska absolutely hired the right guy, but Frost also has a much tougher rebuilding job. But like Johnny Majors at UT, Frost will probably be given broad leeway given his "hero" status at Nebraska and his excellent track record as a coach thus far.
 
#25
#25
First off, it's a weird myth that the state of Tennessee is divided culturally into 3 parts. Tennessee is more culturally homogeneous than Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia from my experience (as someone who has lived in all 4, and a few other states). I see this myth spread by non-Tennesseans a lot based on the flag design, but people from Middle Tennessee generally see themselves as similar to people in East Tennessee. Whereas, Northern Virginia is radically different than Southwest Virginia, and Atlanta is radically different from South Georgia. I don't see this as an issue at all. If anything, being the only major football program in the state of Tennessee is a huge advantage recruiting-wise.
I thought that too. The article is clearly written by someone who isn't all that familiar with the state, or figured out what the state flag means and drew too strong a conclusion about it. There are a ton of other states with many more internal differences (geography, culture, demographics, etc.) than Tennessee. There are always going to be differences between cities and rural areas (like Atlanta and everywhere else in Georgia outside of Atlanta), but perhaps he was trying to say that even our rural areas are different (mountains vs. flat farmland). I dunno.

It is absolutely harder for Nebraska to recruit. They have zilch in-state talent (waaay less than Tennessee), have to go much further away to attract said talent, and aren't a good fit in their own conference. Tennessee obviously doesn't have to worry about conference fit at all.

What's more an issue of Knoxville's proximity to the talent that is in Western Tennessee. Tennessee isn't an overly large state, but it takes almost 6 hours to drive from Knoxville to Memphis. Memphis is a shorter drive to Tuscaloosa than Knoxville and the same length to Auburn as Knoxville, for example. The state is stretched out over a fairly large area, which makes the talent in the western part of the state susceptible to being plucked by other schools who are from outside the state but actually closer. On the other hand, Kirby Smart can get in a car, drive an hour and a half to Atlanta, and field two-thirds of his team. It might be the easiest recruiting job in the country. I suppose he does have to deal with Alabama/Auburn/FSU/Florida for the south Georgia kids, but it isn't in a bind if he misses on some of them.

The best thing that can happen for Tennessee recruiting-wise, other than having our rivals decline, is to continue to see growth in the Nashville area.

I agree that it seems really clear that Nebraska got their "right guy" though. We are still very much in wait-and-see mode about Pruitt, although I do really want to like him.
 
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