He’s used the portal well I think. I know people act like you can win a natty with the portal, but really I think it just means you don’t have to have two years of suck after all the previous regimes kids leave. It’s for patching holes. Our problem is our main hole is oline and there’s not many portal tackles floating around that can play SEC football. That being said, if you put a qb with any awareness/instinct in the pocket I think a lot of our issues start to be less noticeable. The only issue I have with Josh right now is that he should be able to make hard/tough decisions like getting a portal qb and creating competition there instead of leaving us stranded with Joe bc that was the plan and he’s “earned it” by being such a good sport sticking around with Hooker. Or starting Nico if he has the chops (but I have been told if Nico was better than Joe he would be starting by now) I said all this before the season as well. This is way too long winded but I’ll finish by saying this is way better than any 9 and 4 butch ever put together. Those were flukes and prayers and terrible coaching covered up by Josh dobbs magic. After Alabama last year Josh has at least two more seasons for me before I want to think about moving on.
I agree. 100%. Butch loved to thump his chest with that 9-4. I remember the times he let Vandy beat us and his SEC record, 14-24 (2-6; 3-5; 5-3; 4-4; 0-6). He sucked. Period.
Idk man. We are gonna finish this season without a win over a ranked team. Our out of conference wins are over a garbage UVA and garbage UCONN team. Struggled to beat an A&M team that’s firing its coach. Lost to Florida. Embarrassed at Mizzou. Butch beat multiple ranked teams in each of his 9-4 seasons. Also had two OT losses to ranked teams (one each season) that could have gone the other way to get him to 10-3. I’m not saying Butch is better than Heupel. Not even close. But I’m not sure there’s much evidence to support a 9-4 finish this season being better than either of Butch’s.
One of Butch's 9-4 teams was loaded and veteran. That was a huge missed opportunity. This team was always going to be challenged to do much better than 8-4. I was hoping for 9-3 but assumed that was the absolute ceiling. Fix the DC, add Nico and improve the OL and next year will be more fun.
https://utsports.com/sports/football/roster/2016 Look at this roster and tell me which team looks more talented to you im much more impressed with Heupels 9-4 regardless of opponents
Idk man. We should have beat Florida. Not sure who we’ve beaten that we shouldn’t have. Should have at least been competitive against Mizzou. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say we underachieved this year.
I get it. But I think you can make a case that the competition was better in 2015-2016. Possibly to the point where it balances out.
I get it. No argument here about rosters. Butch had more talent. But again, competition matters and balances things out a bit, imo.
At what point does the roster stop being an excuse and start being Heupel’s responsibility? I’m not being facetious. At some point it has to be on him. When is that?
Next 2 yrs. He inherited a dumpster fire for a roster. He wildly exceeded expectations last year, disappointed this year. Next year will be more of his guys without much for Seniors. 2025 needs to be championship contender.
I don’t follow your logic then. If we had this roster to start this season, we’d expect to be in the CFP. Conversely I expected us to win 7 games this year truly. I thought Joe sucked, figured it would cost us A&M(thought they would be better tbh) and one of KY/SC. What did you expect us to be if 9-4 is underachieving? The roster is totally on him. It’s getting better for the most part but still young. We had a lot of key departures this past year, and if I recall correctly we all saw this year shaping out around 8-4. We all saw this was a gap year in the preseason. The frustrating thing is we look horrible on offense, which wasn’t supposed to be the issue. Where it isn’t getting better and does concern me is the OL.
It definitely isn't now. Shit, @Indy, the first class of his that he actually recruited are now Sophomores. Heupel took the backups from a 3-7 team and won the [uck fay]ing Orange bowl with them.
