Sticking just with Rivals rankings here.
1. We finished sixth in both total points and average star ranking.
2. What's up with this: Texas finishes with ~300 more points than us BUT it's average stars are lower. If you are looking just at stars, we both had 3 five stars. But we had 14 four stars compared to their 13. What gives? Guess they had more four stars in the 250? Or higher five stars. Regardless . . .
3. If we continue recruiting at this level AND we outperform GA and Alabama in player development, we should be able to put up a realistic fight the next time we make the CFP.
4. There is a substantial shelf between Alabama/Georgia and the next tier. The top shelf used to only have Alabama. What did UGA do to change that? With all due respect to those who want to say NIL or money or whatever, I think the main ingredient was/is work ethic. Love him or hate him (I love him), Kirby is the Dennis Rodman of coaches. Willing to get nasty and do the stuff others don't want to do to win. That bodes well for us, because I think Venables has that work ethic, too.
5. Clemson used to be on that top shelf or damn near it. What has happened the last couple years? Has Dabo gotten too comfortable. Is he beat down after being critiqued for his conservative positions and ideology? Have his values changed? And of course, how much does this have to do with losing Venables? Dabo looks weary. He doesn't look like he has it in him to keep paying the price. Which leads to the breathtaking reality that . . .
6. Saban is a fvcking animal. His will to compete is like the will of The Terminator. It is inhuman, robotic, mechanical. He might in fact be an Android. We should cut him open at the belly to find out. I bet he's just a maze of unfeeling circuits and dispassionate processors.
7. I would like to see the recruiting rankings overlayed with NIL dollars committed/spent alongside of a trailing national rankings. My gut says that the correlation between dollars spent and actual team performance will not be as compelling as folks presently think.
8. The NIL model represents massive social experiment. It feels like we are betting as heavily as anyone, if not more so, on the human/relational/character element. If so, the fact that we could land so high in the rankings represents a herculean intangible sales job by Venables and this staff. Or . . .
9) Did we more or less cave to the pressure to match the dollars no matter what? And relax other standards like the "no visit" policy. My general impression is that we might have descended from the moral high ground as signing say approached. @Josh_M, I would love to get your take on this.
10) Because I tend to believe that "defense wins championships" and "battles are won in the trenches, I would like to see a pure ranking of defensive recruiting classes. For example, of Alabama's top ten recruits, 7 were on the defensive side of the ball and another one was an OL. By contrast, we had only 4 defenders in our top ten plus 2 OL. I know we came a long way from the days of TBOW in terms of defensive recruiting. I suspect in terms of winning the battles for the players that matter the most to winning championships, we are still far away away from being elite. In other words, I don't think coming in 6th is as good as it might sound.
1. We finished sixth in both total points and average star ranking.
2. What's up with this: Texas finishes with ~300 more points than us BUT it's average stars are lower. If you are looking just at stars, we both had 3 five stars. But we had 14 four stars compared to their 13. What gives? Guess they had more four stars in the 250? Or higher five stars. Regardless . . .
3. If we continue recruiting at this level AND we outperform GA and Alabama in player development, we should be able to put up a realistic fight the next time we make the CFP.
4. There is a substantial shelf between Alabama/Georgia and the next tier. The top shelf used to only have Alabama. What did UGA do to change that? With all due respect to those who want to say NIL or money or whatever, I think the main ingredient was/is work ethic. Love him or hate him (I love him), Kirby is the Dennis Rodman of coaches. Willing to get nasty and do the stuff others don't want to do to win. That bodes well for us, because I think Venables has that work ethic, too.
5. Clemson used to be on that top shelf or damn near it. What has happened the last couple years? Has Dabo gotten too comfortable. Is he beat down after being critiqued for his conservative positions and ideology? Have his values changed? And of course, how much does this have to do with losing Venables? Dabo looks weary. He doesn't look like he has it in him to keep paying the price. Which leads to the breathtaking reality that . . .
6. Saban is a fvcking animal. His will to compete is like the will of The Terminator. It is inhuman, robotic, mechanical. He might in fact be an Android. We should cut him open at the belly to find out. I bet he's just a maze of unfeeling circuits and dispassionate processors.
7. I would like to see the recruiting rankings overlayed with NIL dollars committed/spent alongside of a trailing national rankings. My gut says that the correlation between dollars spent and actual team performance will not be as compelling as folks presently think.
8. The NIL model represents massive social experiment. It feels like we are betting as heavily as anyone, if not more so, on the human/relational/character element. If so, the fact that we could land so high in the rankings represents a herculean intangible sales job by Venables and this staff. Or . . .
9) Did we more or less cave to the pressure to match the dollars no matter what? And relax other standards like the "no visit" policy. My general impression is that we might have descended from the moral high ground as signing say approached. @Josh_M, I would love to get your take on this.
10) Because I tend to believe that "defense wins championships" and "battles are won in the trenches, I would like to see a pure ranking of defensive recruiting classes. For example, of Alabama's top ten recruits, 7 were on the defensive side of the ball and another one was an OL. By contrast, we had only 4 defenders in our top ten plus 2 OL. I know we came a long way from the days of TBOW in terms of defensive recruiting. I suspect in terms of winning the battles for the players that matter the most to winning championships, we are still far away away from being elite. In other words, I don't think coming in 6th is as good as it might sound.
