Napes has had a tough yr 1 with 5 ranked top 25 games, 3 in the top 10 with 4 in the top 15. None of the other 1st year coaches are anywhere near as difficult a schedule. Quite ludicrous.
There's no single reason each of these coaches have been successful. Good veteran QB play certainly helps a lot, but that's not the only factor. Lanning: He inherited the most talented roster in the Pac-12, and followed a bad coach in Mario C (see: Miami, University of). Lost badly in week 1 to UGA but seems to have righted the ship against less talented Pac-12 opponents. Their only good win is against UCLA in Autzen, so schedule helped here. He's done a good job maintaining success, but nothing terribly special. Let's see if they beat UDub and Utah the next two weeks. Riley: Portal, portal, portal. His top QB (OU), RB (Oregon) and WR (Pitt) all transferred in with Riley from other schools. USC benefitted from a weak schedule (no wins against ranked teams). He "fixed" USC quickly with the portal guys, but we'll find out how good the team is when they finish @UCLA and vs. ND, and possibly the Pac-12 CG. Kelly: As other posters have mentioned, he's a proven winner, inherited some talent, brought in some key guys via the portal, and they've gotten better as the season has gone on. He's done an excellent job, and that's probably going to continue. Dykes: Wow... It seems like he inherited a pretty good team, improved the offense behind Max Duggan. But most importantly they win close games. This usually isn't sustainable, so its likely his record is a combination of luck and solid improvements on both sides of the ball.
LSU's schedule will eventually be just as difficult after they face UGa in the SEC Championship game.
Agreed. LSU may have had a numbers problem that Kelly had to backfill, but the overall talent of the players on the roster was strong. 2019: #5 overall class 2020: #4 overall class 2021: #3 overall class
If not more difficult. Ole miss and Arky are better than S Car. and Ky. They play us which lessened their strength of schedule.
He seems pretty good but you can only judge by his performance at Oklahoma where he finished and recruited progressively worse every year before leaving, he went 1-3 against the SEC, 0-3 in playoff games, 1-3 in bowl games and never really did anything outside of the big ten. The big 10 is basically Texas and Oklahoma followed by a league of crap, and it's worth noting that Texas wasn't exactly competitive during his tenure. I'm sure he's a decent coach but I probably could have done well as Oklahoma's HC following Stoops.
Now do our game against Tennessee and their game against them. I wonder why they got spanked so hard against a common opponent of ours? But they did in fact have more talent than we did and they got lucky in the transfer portal, especially with their QB. Then got lightning in a bottle with two freshman recruits in Mason Taylor and Harold Perkins.
They got spanked so hard probably because the game was at 11am. Play that at night and it would be different. BUT, you are absolutely correct on the talent level and the transfer portal impact.
It is funny how LSU plays so poorly in early games. That's why we should always play them in the daytime in Gainesville. I wonder if our administration even has a say so in that?
They probably do but those cry babies start pissing and moaning about their gumbo needing all day to cook and we give in.
With regard to what you said specifically about Kelly. I agree for the most part. He added talent from the portal and had a good recruiting class help too. But, I will add that he did NOT make the same coaching missteps the our coaches did on schemes and set pieces, especially on the defensive side of the ball like we did early in the season. Having said that, I do think that our coaches have righted those mistakes, and I do think we are playing much better now than we have all year long. We're very close to putting together a good competitive Gator team on the field. Early on we played too much zone, and up front we did NOT get any pressure on the opposing teams' QBs. Now we have pressure (4 man front as opposed to 3 man front) and we are playing more man/press on the back end. That's why we're getting the interceptions now too. The zone was not conducive to aggressive defense, and we let teams control the time of possession and the score board. We never got off the field. So that better start helped Kelly get to where they are right now. I don't think they are that much better as a team than we are, but individually they may have more aggregate talent than we do. I hope we play them at noon next year. If AR comes back I think we beat them in their house.
Hahaha. You're so bold following Daniels' career worst game. Anyways, this topic is not important enough for me to debate. You win, Daniels won't even start for Vandy.
I think it is important to look what happens to the school the coach leaves. Anyone think Oklahoma would be at .500 if Riley was still there? CBN was 12-1 last year at Louisiana. his only loss was to Texas on opening weekend. Won the Sunbelt. This year they are right near .500 as well. The future is bright here folks.
