I can’t get enough of this stuff:
13 SEC teams have won their most recent game against Tennessee. The Volunteers do not have a 13-game conference losing streak, but they have lost their most recent game against each of the other teams in the SEC. Missouri is the most recent SEC rival that Tennessee has beaten, scoring a 63-37 victory over the Tigers on Nov. 19, 2016. Since then, the Vols have lost to each of the other six teams in the SEC East (including twice to Vanderbilt), and they haven’t beaten an SEC West opponent since topping Ole Miss 52-14 in 2010. During its 15-game losing streak against the SEC West, Tennessee has lost to Alabama seven times, Arkansas and LSU twice each and the other division members once apiece.
It’s pretty amazing what was squandered.
Let’s do the bad news first. Here are the teams that most egregiously underperformed their recruiting rankings in 2017.
You already know who’s first, because you a) saw the picture on top of this post, and b) did not spend the last five months living under a rock at the bottom of the sea.
- Tennessee (8th in recruiting, 107th in S&P+, 4-8). The Vols were terrible and fired Butch Jones with two games left in the season, despite Jones signing national championship-caliber talent. It takes something special to be as bad as Tennessee was after spending almost half a decade recruiting with the big dogs.
The downside to that, of course, is that Jones left Pruitt with something to work with. Besides Champions of Life, that is.
Get The Picture 
As a Georgia fan, I just have too much class to “copy and paste ” that first paragraph to my Tennessee friends’ Facebook pages. Don’t I?
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The way my “friends” treated me from 1999-2001, I’m going to copy it twice.
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Unless they’re morons (did I really say “unless” right there?), their settings won’t let you do that. But I think we can assume they’re morons.
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Where is Booch? Last I heard he was wearing an orange-striped plastic 50 gal trashcan with suspenders plus, sadly, attached to a concrete dog with an orange leash.
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He’s wearing that outfit daily working as a rodeo clown.
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What’s the consensus on CJP’s tenure at UT?
I predict he gets Mullen fired and that it will be a UT/UGA battle for the East beginning in 2019. Hopefully, the talent gap between us and them will be insurmountable by then.
Boom and Mullen will be fighting over third place and that won’t be good enough in Gainesville.
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I can’t imagine Pruett has the patience for Fulmer, or that Fulmer will stop meddling. I predict a train wreck or a fist fight.
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I have no idea, but I think you’re underselling Mullen having easier access to top talent than Pruitt will.
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Access is one thing. Getting them on campus is another. Getting them to play well enough to win championships is another still. Deep pool in Florida but lots of suitors too. I’m also just not that sold on Mullen.
Looking at what CJP did with our D in 2014 and 15, I would imagine he’d be able to replicate that in Knoxville. That’s good enough to get double digits wins with a bad offense, like 2015.
If booch was able to get 8th ranked classes, Pruitt will replicate it or surpass it.
I don’t think he can beat us or Bama regularly, but his key is taking over the UF series and beating the balance of the SEC east. You do that and pull an upset once awhile in Knoxville and he’ll be a rockstar in Knoxville.
If Emory jones turns out to be a phenom, all bets are off. I’m thinking he’s the third qb in the ste because he’s good but not great.
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If we’re going by “look what he did as a coordinator”, Mullen is no slouch in that department, either.
As a head coach, he’s got a lot more to work with at UF than he ever did at MSU, and he didn’t do badly there.
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Who was our GPOOE on defense during CJP’s time as UGA DC?
I’m suggesting that CJP’s defenses will give them a chance in a lot of games against equal and lesser opponents even if 1) the talent isn’t quite what he’d like and 2) the offense may struggle.
As far as Mullen, I’m not saying he did poorly but he hardly overwhelmed. The fact he was stuck in starkvegas for so long suggests I wasn’t the only one.
Btw: isn’t CTG gonna be the gator’s DC? We’ll see how that goes for them. I think he’s a good coach myself. I just think his system is difficult to grasp for a lot of guys and he wasn’t the best recruiter. Certainly not as good as Kirby and Pruitt at getting guys to come play for them and playing fast and confidently.
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3-4 years tops, then gone…
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I think you’re mostly right Derek but a little off. Boom will bring SC up to second in the East (he already did that this past season) on a regular basis and Mullen and CJP will be fighting with Mizzou for third place, at least for the next few of years. And yes, if that’s what happens Mullen will be gone in 3 years, particularly if FU starts losing regularly to UT, Mizzou or both, on top of getting beaten by the Dawgs.
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We’ll see. Not sure he can recruit well enough. Losing Tindall to us makes me think he’s not going to be able to hold onto the best the state produces. SOS started getting guys like Clowney and Lattimore who they were so used to being poached, like AJ, and that made the difference in being part of the championship discussion. He still only won the east once though and Boom is no SOS.
Boom may finish second next year, but that’s because of where UF and UT are right now. That won’t be the case for long. By 2019 we’ll see a reconfiguration IMHO.
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“Boom may finish second next year, but that’s because of where UF and UT are right now. That won’t be the case for long. By 2019”
This is my thinking as well, not necessarily the time frame but by the time things settle. The Florida and Tennessee programs have a higher ceilings than SC. Boom has a head start but I don’t think it will last long. Sure they will play the top programs tough (including us) but I don’t see it being consistent back to back years. They will rise and fall in the East as classes mature, come and go…and there will be some upsets mixed in. Of course the patience and decisions of the respective school’s admin will weigh in on the outcome. Boom better get in all the wins he can over the next two or three years.
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The Sackerlina-Florida recap was enjoyable, too.
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Not really. UT’s ’16 and ’17 classes were mediocre at best, which were loaded to the gills with 3 star types. And he left Pruitt an ’18 class that is equally ho-hum. That is three straight borderline poor classes, which will take time to overcome. UT’s solid ’14 and ’15 classes now are seniors, have departed, or haven’t panned out.
Pruitt has his work cut out for him. It’s a minimum 3 year rebuild.
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I tried to bet my pastor (UT fan) that Pruitt would not make it past 3 years. Either he or the Phat Pumpkin will explode, maybe both.
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If Pruitt goes I think there is a good chance Phat Phil gets runnoft, too. He’s tied to Pruitt’s success or lack thereof.
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Agree ut’s recruiting classes weren’t as good as the story implies. And when they do get a player that has some talent, you can count on them jumping ship early if it looks like they might be a 7th round pick.
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We have seen some crazy stuff in the Booch era. However with the egos of Fulmer and Pruitt the craziness will bet at an all time high! Where’s the popcorn?
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Be hard for Pruitt to be worse but I don’t see him winning the sec.
I feel like Mullen can win the sec.
Muschamp seems like a longshot but would guess he is more likely to win sec than Pruitt
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I hope you are wrong about Mullen. If he starts winning SEC Championships that means FU is beating the Dawgs.
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