Bill Connelly takes a look at his S&P+ 5-year rankings and what he comes up with shouldn’t surprise you.
On the flip side, here are the 10 power programs whose 2016s compared least favorably with their 2011s, making their five-year averages suffer the most:
- Oregon (-4.5)
- Georgia (-3.1)
- Rutgers (-3.0)
- Oklahoma State (-2.9)
- South Carolina (-2.7)
- Vanderbilt (-2.4)
- Missouri (-2.2)
- Arizona State (-2.1)
- Michigan State (-1.9)
- Illinois (-1.8)
Yikes. (By the way, how ’bout that SEC East, baby! Four teams out of ten on that list… if you’re wondering how Georgia missed out on winning a weak division, it’s because the Dawgs fell off more than anybody else did.)
One explanation for the drop might come under the heading youth will be served.
I emphasize the word “might”, because you probably notice like I did that the two SEC division winners both had higher numbers of true freshmen snaps than did Smart’s team.
Whatever the cause, if Georgia shows up next to last again after the 2017 numbers are compiled, it’s not gonna be a happy time in Athens.
Get The Picture 
Also, South Cackalacky played more freshmen, but dropped off less.
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I think it’s a combination of losing bobo, bad qb play, and CMR unwilling to take over the offense. The staff turnover resulted in a lot of attrition by players and the whole thing is just discombobulated.
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It’s all Muschamp’s fault. Stomps UGA but loses his job => McElwain hired to replace him => Bobo leaves for CSU job => New (crappy) OC Shottenheimer => New OL coach => Richt fired => Kirby hired with new OC & OL coach = lots of turnover and poop for results
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There’s another selling point for Bama on the recruiting trail. It looks like they can truthfully tell recruits they’ll play as freshmen Of course, if you have a 5-star freshman spelling a 4-star junior, it makes substitutions a lot easier. And, if your first team is up 31-0 in the second quarter, that helps, too.
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I think the biggest issue, among the many, that UGA had last year was coaching. Insisting on running Chubb up the middle against a stacked defensive front is just dumb. And when you’re getting paid almost a million a year to do it, it’s mind-numbingly dumb.
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And when you’re getting paid almost four million a year to do it, it’s likes the challenge smart
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^This is what soured me on CKS last season. I get that he wants to change the culture from finesse football to power football but running an AA caliber RB into a brick wall over and over, while losing games he could have won by doing just that, smacks of idiocy–not culture change. I thought the team got better at it by the end of the season….and then we had the second half of the Tech game. I’m trying to keep an open mind and be optimistic about Kirby but sometimes it’s hard.
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