Absolutely but then again Chavis is the best in college football so any change would have been a downgrade. really thought they would hire up Bob Shoop from State Penn. Pittsburgh guy with SEC experience (was DC at Vandy). Just not a fan of Steele but with having Ed-O next to him that should help the transition. Steele might have been the worst head coach in power-5 history if not for Turner Gil
Chavis is the best and the fact he left tells you a lot. He will have an immediate impact.
After losing several starters off the OL it was almost a given that Stoops was going to go after at least a couple JC players. I was also glad he got a couple JC WR's. I wasn't pleased at all with the group we fielded this year. Of course some of it could have had something to do with coaching. But at least we'll have more depth and game ready experience there.
RLR, he is a good recruiter...why he was brought back to Bama as Player Personnel Director after being fired at Clemson. Last season he coached linebackers for the Tide.
He may be able to recruit for Miles but unless he can coach-up that LSU defense...recruits don't matter much.
Loyal football guy but not sure he's proven himself for this position. Like I said in an earlier post...could be another Ellis Johnson that Auburn just went through. Two and done.
Personally I hope he does well...but not to good when playing the Tide.
He may be able to recruit for Miles but unless he can coach-up that LSU defense...recruits don't matter much.
Loyal football guy but not sure he's proven himself for this position. Like I said in an earlier post...could be another Ellis Johnson that Auburn just went through. Two and done.
Personally I hope he does well...but not to good when playing the Tide.
Maybe so but LSU is one school that doesn't have to depend on a recruiter. Arguably the toughest state to pull a stud from if your name isn't LSU. Coaching has killed this talent rich program. Chavis took way too much shit the last couple years. He wouldn't have been put in those situations if the offense could score.
From a talent standpoint, LSU has always amazed me. Especially at the WR position. They get studs but never can get a QB worth a damn.
like i said addition by subtraction. looks like even the local nawlins paper isn't too excited about senor steele
When Steele saw the handwriting on the wall and left for Clemson's defensive coordinator opening, Saban didn't sound overly worried at the time shifting into the spin cycle.
"Continuity is great," Saban said. "But also when you do have change, there are some tremendous benefits to that in terms of new experience, new ideas, new enthusiasm. It's probably inevitable that there will be some change."
Steele lasted three seasons at Clemson from 2009 to 2011 before being fired days after West Virginia rang up a 70-33 Orange Bowl victory on the Tigers.
That 2011 Clemson team won the ACC championship, despite the fact Steele's Clemson's defense was 81[SUP]st[/SUP] in the country in scoring defense (29.3 points allowed), falling 58 spots from the previous year.
As a head coach from Baylor 1999-02, Steele was Ed Orgeron-awful, 9-36 in four seasons.
So yes, Steele as a head coach or a defensive coordinator might be a bit of a train wreck. Several college coaches have told me he's "hardheaded, a screamer who dogcusses his players, someone totally opposite of Chavis."
When Steele saw the handwriting on the wall and left for Clemson's defensive coordinator opening, Saban didn't sound overly worried at the time shifting into the spin cycle.
"Continuity is great," Saban said. "But also when you do have change, there are some tremendous benefits to that in terms of new experience, new ideas, new enthusiasm. It's probably inevitable that there will be some change."
Steele lasted three seasons at Clemson from 2009 to 2011 before being fired days after West Virginia rang up a 70-33 Orange Bowl victory on the Tigers.
That 2011 Clemson team won the ACC championship, despite the fact Steele's Clemson's defense was 81[SUP]st[/SUP] in the country in scoring defense (29.3 points allowed), falling 58 spots from the previous year.
As a head coach from Baylor 1999-02, Steele was Ed Orgeron-awful, 9-36 in four seasons.
So yes, Steele as a head coach or a defensive coordinator might be a bit of a train wreck. Several college coaches have told me he's "hardheaded, a screamer who dogcusses his players, someone totally opposite of Chavis."
6 teams is good..... big power conferences and make them each have a conference championship game and that winner is automatic entrant plus one wildcard........... or 8 teams in total.
assuming 6 teams it would be rough if 2 undefeated teams lost in conference championships to 3 loss teams but them's the breaks and it would leave room for one of them to make the national finals.
assuming 6 teams it would be rough if 2 undefeated teams lost in conference championships to 3 loss teams but them's the breaks and it would leave room for one of them to make the national finals.
Just my 2 cents but when I look at TCU I see an Oregon "mini me"... basically running the same "System Offense" enabling them to compete. When I look at them I see nothing that tells me they have better personnel then Oregon. Just the opposite... It took the Ducks years to build their roster up with better athletes but in the end I think we saw a lot of what you talked about in regards to recruiting, when the game turned into a physical fight, they were just out manned. How do the TCU recruiting classes stack up?
I watched the game over the other day and I think the telling part of physicality was when on third down Jones ran through the Oregon nose man to get a FD. He knocked the kid off his feet when he hit him and the kid outweighed Jones by 50 lbs. Also, in the fourth quarter the Oregon D was gassed, instead of proper tackling technique they were turning their heads and and trying to tackle with their back and shoulders, they were wore down and beaten physically. On Offense where as we saw Mariota all year being the fastest kid on the field he struggled to get around the corner on OSU. He carried the ball 10 times for only 39 yards with his longest run being only 8 yards. When he was in the pocket he felt pressure for the first time all year consistently.
As stated I felt Oregon had a much better team talent wise then TCU.. They would suffer the same result as Oregon did vs OSU or Alabama imo. Just dont have the horses and they would not be the fastest team on the field.
The Final ranking would have been OSU #1, Bama#2, Oregon #3, and FSU #4 if I had a vote. Just no way I could rank TCU in front of Bama.. Or Oregon.. maybe FSU?
I support an 8 team playoff... take the champion of the Power 5 plus 3 at large births. This year could have been:
1. Bama
2. Oregon.
3. FSU
4. OSU
5. Baylor
6. TCU*
7. Mississippi State*
8. Michigan State*
Give the top 4 a home game in round one, I think this is what it would have looked like:
Top Bracket:
Michigan State
@ Alabama
Baylor
@ Ohio State
Bottom Bracket:
Mississippi St
@ Oregon
TCU
@FSU
I think all 4 of these would have been interesting games. Ohio State might have had the biggest home field advantage with respect to weather. Not sure any southern team wants to go north and play football outside in December and or January, giving the top 4 spots with home field a big advantage.
I would lay odds we lost a lot more players to injury then TCU did... by Monday night the Ducks were bigtime outmanned....The offense was severely crippled with no deep threat at all to stretch the field...Did anyone notice ? you can only use that " next man up " so far with a team that's shorthanded...
I would have to agree with Red Eye. Although i think OSU would have probably prevailed in the end (probably), TCU was more cohesive as a team and functioning at a little higher level than Oregon at the end of the season. Again, just my opinion. But that's the way it looked to the naked eye. They were a very focused team. And the Frogs had very few major injuries or suspensions to deal with this season. I also think TCU was unquestionably better than Oregon on defense, and their stats prove it.
I don't understand the system offense argument. Every good offense is/has a system. I always got the feeling when people said that it was a backhanded way of saying you have inferior athletes and you can't just line up 11 on 11 and push me aside. Well, football has evolved. Systems are there to take advantage of other systems, to take advantage of talent at certain spots. It's a beautiful ebb and flow. Loved that system OSU was running of power and coming back with the counter-trap....I used to see that system every saturday.
The funny thing is Ohio State's offense isn't a whole lot different than Oregon's offense. But they don't call IT a system. Scoring is going up guys. Teams are reeling plays off every 15 seconds. The only difference is some of them do it for part of the game and some do it the whole game. All you have to do is look at last year's higher scoring NC game, and then look at the 3 games that were played this year. And now when it comes to scoring points and defending these new offenses, 40 is the new 30.
The Oregon "system", "offense", etc.. what ever you want to call it.. there is a reason they run at warp speed.. by now we all could agree they rarely have top recruiting classes. To compete for national championships they just don't have the horses to line up and bang head to head for 4 quarters, we have all seen that now.. so they do what they can to give themselves a competitive advantage.. i call it a system, you can call it what ever you like... it is who they are.. Not even sure how this can be denied or debated. I am not saying it is a good thing or BAD THING. It is who they are. It works great most of the time, and they may win a championship before it is all said and done because the coaching up there is great. The problem is that it does present limitations when they are in the red zone or meet up with a team bigger and faster then them..
I am not trying to take away from anything they do. I don't think they get the credit they deserve. Their coaching has been outstanding and i still believe the current HC is better then Kelly.. They have forever changed the offensive side of football in college football, you see almost every school in the country trying to copy some of the stuff they do.
I think their talent level and depth is better then it ever has been and I think while MM will be hard to replace I do not see them disappearing from the conversation of being one of the top programs in the country. They have some outstanding young skill players. Everyone is writing them off in the Pac12, i think they will be right there again at the top of the conference. I am not sold on ucla, zona, or even asu being better then them next year. I think USC will be their best competition next year in the pac.
They have been at the top of the national conversation for many years. Their recruiting is only getting better and they are not going to disappear anytime soon because of the loss of the QB... The Ducks are here to say and to be honest next to watching SEC football I love watching Oregon play.
I am not trying to take away from anything they do. I don't think they get the credit they deserve. Their coaching has been outstanding and i still believe the current HC is better then Kelly.. They have forever changed the offensive side of football in college football, you see almost every school in the country trying to copy some of the stuff they do.
I think their talent level and depth is better then it ever has been and I think while MM will be hard to replace I do not see them disappearing from the conversation of being one of the top programs in the country. They have some outstanding young skill players. Everyone is writing them off in the Pac12, i think they will be right there again at the top of the conference. I am not sold on ucla, zona, or even asu being better then them next year. I think USC will be their best competition next year in the pac.
They have been at the top of the national conversation for many years. Their recruiting is only getting better and they are not going to disappear anytime soon because of the loss of the QB... The Ducks are here to say and to be honest next to watching SEC football I love watching Oregon play.
sooner if you watch Ohio State enough you will see there is no comparison to what the ducks do as a whole and from a philosophy standpoint.. i would say that the one similarity is they do both like to get guys in open space but they go about it in much different ways. they will use tempo at times but it isnt who they are..
I think if Barrett or Braxton Miller had stayed healthy, we would have seen more of the QB read option than we did down the stretch. Which is basically what Oregon runs off of, just with like you said creating more space. Baylor does the same as Oregon with the wide spreads at WR, but I don't really consider a team that was around a 60/40 run to pass offense this year that gimmicky. The kind of offense I consider gimmicky is a Texas Tech/WSU type of offense that relies heavily on the pass. Which means they'll never be able to control the tempo of a game. That's why no lead is ever safe with these teams.
At the end of a season I always compare the final AP rankings to each team's SOS. I always take the SOS ranings from the NCAA statistical rankings for the end of the regular season and do not reference the revised ones following the post season. Here they are.
Ohio St #21, Oregon #45, TCU #69, Alabama #12, Florida St #35, Michigan St #57, Baylor #82, Geo Tech #5, Georgia #55, UCLA #5, Miss St #43, Arizona St #53, Wisconsin #29, Missouri #40, Clemson #52, Boise St #19, Ole Miss #2, Kansas St #31, Arizona #58, USC #58, Utah #30, Auburn #3, Marshall #101, Louisville #66, and Memphis #106.
SOS has to be a factor in any kind of ranking. Florida St took a lot of flack for so many close games or games where they did not dominate until the second half but their SOS ranking is better than TCU's for instance. To me Geo Tech was the most impressive based on preseason predictions etc.
What I have not seen mentioned in this thread is team depth and Ohio St was at the top of the chart in my book. Who else could do what they did with a third string QB. Their OL and DL were deep and dominate. In the end I think Ohio St was the best team in the country and proved it with their last two wins. When Oregon drove right down the field on their opening drive I think a lot of people thought the game was over. But, Ohio St answered and never lost faith. We will find out how great the Oregon offense is now that Mariota is heading to the draft. Imagine had Mariota QB'd Alabama for instance. All the offenses everyone is referencing are dependent on a dominate QB. Urban Meyer is the real deal. His team has lost 3 games in 3 years. It will be interesting to see what happens if Kiffin leaves Alabama. Ohio St is for real also and this year they surprised a lot of people including the so called experts. My hat is off to them. They were ranked #3 in the preseason but everyone counted them out when they lost Miller and lost to VT.
Ohio St #21, Oregon #45, TCU #69, Alabama #12, Florida St #35, Michigan St #57, Baylor #82, Geo Tech #5, Georgia #55, UCLA #5, Miss St #43, Arizona St #53, Wisconsin #29, Missouri #40, Clemson #52, Boise St #19, Ole Miss #2, Kansas St #31, Arizona #58, USC #58, Utah #30, Auburn #3, Marshall #101, Louisville #66, and Memphis #106.
SOS has to be a factor in any kind of ranking. Florida St took a lot of flack for so many close games or games where they did not dominate until the second half but their SOS ranking is better than TCU's for instance. To me Geo Tech was the most impressive based on preseason predictions etc.
What I have not seen mentioned in this thread is team depth and Ohio St was at the top of the chart in my book. Who else could do what they did with a third string QB. Their OL and DL were deep and dominate. In the end I think Ohio St was the best team in the country and proved it with their last two wins. When Oregon drove right down the field on their opening drive I think a lot of people thought the game was over. But, Ohio St answered and never lost faith. We will find out how great the Oregon offense is now that Mariota is heading to the draft. Imagine had Mariota QB'd Alabama for instance. All the offenses everyone is referencing are dependent on a dominate QB. Urban Meyer is the real deal. His team has lost 3 games in 3 years. It will be interesting to see what happens if Kiffin leaves Alabama. Ohio St is for real also and this year they surprised a lot of people including the so called experts. My hat is off to them. They were ranked #3 in the preseason but everyone counted them out when they lost Miller and lost to VT.
