Is the 2023 Roster Still Better than What Billy Inherited?

I'm thinking that it will take 3 more seasons, if all goes well, to be able to line up against Georgia and play them even.

It will take another two excellent classes to begin to approach them on a talent level.

 

If you're telling me the Jesses and Joes matter, well ... of course? If our guy can't bring in those classes then he better be an incredible on-field coach.

Recruiting is what scares me more than anything about Napier. He's had a good year this year, but we need to be up in that top 10 class range.

 

I think people also need to look at Smart's 2018 class. Absolute monster class, probably hasn't been touched in twenty years.

Most of those guys are disappearing. He's had very good classes since then but not quite there.

 

LSU has recruited better than us for close to 10 years, if not more. They won a Natty recently.

Regardless, we have to beat Georgia, that's a much taller task for us. They are 4-5 years ahead of us and they aren't going to just let us catch up by being slackers.

 

Year three will maybe have Lagway as a true freshman but some developing talent. I don’t expect to beat Georgia with a true freshman taking snaps but I do expect to be thinking, “ next year could be our year.” There’s no guarantee that Lagway will be that guy but it’s possible that we could be looking good by then. Coaches can’t make players elite just because the stars attached to their names, there’s some luck involved too. Bama didn’t have those elite ham hanging receivers they’ve had in the past. Saban is still doing it right but it doesn’t always pan out.

 

On paper? That 18 class has proven to be elite, that doesn’t always happen.

 

But again, Alabama has recruited a LOT better than LSU the last 10 years. LSU was 6-7 and 5-5 the previous two years and somehow it wasn't unrealistic for them to win their division.

 

Look also to Tennessee, who had a much deeper and darker period than we can imagine. Year two and Heupel has them at 11 wins. You're telling me it's impossible for us to get someone like that? I'm sorry, I don't buy it. Too many counterexamples.

I'll reiterate that our roster is not in the kind of shape to win like that next year. But if we're not in that shape by 2024 then our coach isn't doing his job.

So, yes, Napier needs time. But if we let someone flounder for 5 years we've given up, in my opinion. There needs to be progress.

 

You seem to be moving the goal posts just a bit now. FTR, the "discussion" that I find unreasonable and ill-conceived, just one year into a new regime, is the baloney that goes something to the effect that if we aren't at UGA's level talent-wise by the end of BN's third season that it's time to seriously start talking about showing him the door. Now it seems your window for merely showing "progress" maxes out at five years. Again, for cryin' out loud, neither I nor anyone else here would be willing to sit and suffer in silence if that situation actually came to pass. But allow me to remind you that that's not where this "discussion" began. Also, FTR, I didn't "give up" in '79 after 0-10-1, or in '68 when I sat and endured every miserable moment of a 51-0 drubbing in a driving rainstorm vs the dwags. What I am giving up on is trying to reason with people who refuse to be reasonable. Have it your way, after all, your opinion carries the same weight in the council of the mighty as mine does - absolute zero.

 

Top 10 is still a longshot to get past Georgia. We could be 3-5 best team in the country and still not sniff an sec ch game.

 

Yet Bama was still better than Lsu. Best team doesn’t always win but Bama beats them more often than not. Bama will be the big fav this year too.

 

Tenn did win 11 but they still aren’t much better than we were last year. Nowhere near on Georgia and Bamas level yet. Expecting 11 again this year? Maybe but I’d take the under.

 

I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

You don't build college football teams over four or five years.

• You only have a four or five years with any individual kid. Standout have less.
• You have a system that allows anyone who is dissatisfied with their playing time/outcome to leave at any time
• You have a limited amount of practice time allowed.
• You have a system than demands young flashiness be rewarded, or those kids who don't feel as they are maximizing themselves to leave
• You have a society that highlights individual attention. Thus these recruiting announcements
• You have a bunch of money that is not controlled or regulated, which entices kids to always be looking for a better deal.

In other words, no one is going to reward our patience, Our best players will leave, our best recruits will go somewhere else.

You build programs through success.

• Exposure, which comes from success. You get the highlighted games every week, you're in the national conversation
• Putting guys into successful NFL careers. Which means you coach them up and they improve while they are under your tutelage
• Having systems and experienced assistant coaches who can talk about their success in placing guys in the NFL

We just finished our second consecutive losing season. If we have another one in '23 -- of our coach comes in and shows that his first two seasons have been below .500 despite the school not having recruiting classes outside the top 15 -- we won't be able to pitch kids success with a straight face. In addition, any kids we have who have standout years will likely leave where they can get more exposure. Recruits will find other places to go, places where they will get the exposure they need. The ones we do get will be motivated by NIL money,. but mercenaries are always willing to move onto a higher bidder. If you want to be a successful program, you HAVE to be the place people come, not the one they leave.

So that's why this idea of patience sounds great and wonderful, but practically makes no sense. If the program is going to have success, you have to give recruits the idea that you're getting better, that you're building towards greatness. Three straight losing seasons don't do that. Every losing season makes the next winning season that much farther away.

 

No one here, myself included, is writing any blank checks for any coaching staff out of an excess of unwarranted/unreasonable patience. If that's what you got out of my post, I really don't know what to say to you. But before you climb too far up the rhetorical mountain of opinion you're scaling, you haven't said anything that isn't either blatantly obvious or, IMHO, misapplied to the situation now at hand - or to my original post.

 

What you said was -- what everyone is saying is -- that we need to have patience, and expecting success in year three is unrealistic. What I'm saying is that if Napier doesn't show success THIS year, then he's the wrong guy for the job because he doesn't understand the realities of college football at this level, and that will be evident in year 3,4, 7, 13 and 27. Not saying he's got to win the SEC or even the East, or beat Georgia or even Utah. But he's got to win more than he loses, especially if he makes no staff changes this year and has a hand-picked, veteran QB. And I don't know what is unrealistic about that.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of "success." IMHO, we obviously need to see some discernible progress, starting with team building and player development. Plus, BN absolutely needs to demonstrate some normal improvement as a game manager while hopefully bringing in a great recruiting class. Personally, I would take those elements of "success" as a step in the right direction and stay off the guy's case for a while. And of course, at least seven or eight regular season wins would be highly desirable too. To my original point; my primary gripe with the "I want it all and I want it now" approach is that I see that as a self-fulfilling prophesy of failure. I also see the talk of running a guy off who is in the midst of rebuilding a genuinely competitive roster and a championship team culture, after one difficult season, is both premature and counterproductive. JMHO.

 

Napier, the guy who brought in the same bloated staffing that Saban and Kirby have, the same guy that collected a pretty damn talented class per recruit, the same guy that has the 24 class off and running, the same guy that worked right in the thick of it under Saban and Dabo doesn't understand college football?

 

I haven't moved any goalposts, to be clear. I am only concerned about "talent" as it relates to Ws and Ls.

That said ...

By year 3 he should have two full recruiting seasons under his belt. If he isn't close, that's a problem. If we can't steal some wins over teams that recruited better here and there by coaching skill, that's a problem. I'm not waiting 5 years for good seasons. The moment we all think that's ok is the moment this is a program destined for medium term mediocrity.

As noted above, recruiting cycles are - at most - four year processes now. Redshirts have kind of gone by the wayside and few big players stay 4 years anyway. If someone's complaining about not having "their guys" in year 3, I'm sorry but those days of football are over.

 

georgia didnt accept Richt? Rucht was at Georgia 15 years. I would classify 15 years acceptance. Why would you tell other fans what to accept. you can have your own expectations however its not going to change the reality of our team.

 

I'm not?