Okla Stoops didn't do his Kentucky brother any favors by picking a fight with a couple SEC coaches.
-
You do not need to register if you are not going to pay the yearly fee to post. If you register please click here or log in go to "settings" then "my account" then "User Upgrades" and you can renew.
HuskerMax readers can save 50% on Omaha Steaks .
Locked due to no posts in 60 days. Report 1st post if need unlocked Nebraska Going Head-To-Head with Kentucky
- Thread starter Twelve String
- Start date
- Status
Kentucky is not good. But the first thing you do to turn around a program is to have solid recruiting classes and upgrade the talent on your team. That is what they are doing so they are on track to be a solid team possibly contending for a division title.
Just remember things can change quickly and it's a good selling pitch for kids to be apart of the change. Think of all the bad teams in the SEC, well in the last 6 years every single one of them has been ranked in the top 15 at one point. Including Kentucky who was #8 for 2 weeks in 2007. They don't have a storied history but they have proven they can compete in the conference and now they have a new coach, new facilities, and enthusiastic fan base to help make the push.
With your logic, we should not have hope or expectation that any recruit of any caliber should come play basketball for NU because we are Nebraska and don't have much of a history. So why would a kid want to come play for Nebraska!? Maybe it's a new coach, new facilities, one of the top conferences in the sport. Sounds a lot like the Kentucky football program right now, too.
Sorry, but that's just a dumb statement. No, MOST teams do not get to eight or nine wins with a weak ooc.
IN the four losses? 3-48 to Georgia, 17-31 to Florida, and 13-23 to Northwestern? I'll give you that they played NW fairly even into the fourth quarter, and that South Carolina obviously expected the same old Vandy of the past in the first game of the season (13-17). But at what point in the GA game was Vandy in the game? They also were down 21-7 to Florida early in the fourth quarter. Yeah, Vandy tried to put up a late fight, but seriously, three scores down with a quarter to go and they were in the game? We have different ideas of what being in a game means.
Vandy got there with an overwhelmingly weak CONFERENCE schedule. They played the four worst teams in the SEC; Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri with a collective 3-29 conference record. They barely beat both Missouri (19-15) and Auburn (17-13), and a mediocre Mississippi 27-26) in the middle of the softest four game stretch of their schedule.
I give Vandy credit for taking advantage of that schedule, but had they played say, Nebraska's schedule, they would have had six losses easily, eight if you count the post-season.
And I am not going out of my way to put down the "best" conference. I'm only clarifying the facts. The bottom half of the SEC was putrid last year.. The top six teams were apparently very, very good, but when 2/3 of your record is built on horrible teams and mostly mediocre ooc teams one has to wonder whether they were as good as they appeared.
Yes, I'm tired of listening to the incessant hyping of the conference by ESPN, so maybe that has colored my pov.
Well, I'll give you your points, and I will agree with your final one, but Basketball is a game played by five players, not twenty-two. Turning a basketball program around can happen with the inclusion of one real star player.
Kentucky's recruiting has improved over the last two years, but if you compare those classes with the previous three or four, the improvement is fairly minimal, about three or four four-stars compared to one or two.. I would expect UK's record to reflect an improvement in both coaching and talent, but in a conference in which there are supposedly five or six top twenty programs, that improvement will likely resemble Vanderbilt's, and dependent on how bad the bottom half of the conference remains.
I'm sure that the Cats can get to some bowl games, but their long term prospects are not winning the SEC Championship, nor even winning their division, not as long as Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina are in the division. Stoops is not likely to stick around much beyond the first two or three bowl games they play, especially should they win them. Some team with better facilities, better support, and better available talent will lure him away.
I can't say I'd be unhappy to see Stoops be successful at Kentucky. His recruiting efforts in Ohio will serve to weaken the Buckeyes however slightly, but anyone who thinks Kentucky is going to become a power in the SEC just doesn't know the history of the program. Since Bear Bryant left only one coach has managed to post a +.500 record, and that mostly on the back of the talent Bryant recruited.
I wish Stoops considerable luck.
Oh, and do I think Miles can turn the NU basketball program around? Yeah, but I also do not expect to see them winning the conference or the conference tournament any time soon.
A much more tame and reasonable response than I anticipated from you. :lol: . I agree that turning a basketball program around is much, much easier for soooo many reasons. As far as Kentucky recruiting, this is the new regime's first full year at it. They finished strong last year and it's so early but it looks as if they have a solid chance of ending up in the top 20-30 this year. Top 25 recruiting classes generally will result in top 25 football teams. Not next year necessarily, but they are on there way to having a chance to being respectable.
Vanderbilt's record is all smoke and mirrors.
9 wins - against Presbyterian, UMass and Wake Forest in non-conference with Missouri, Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tennessee in conference and NC State in a bowl. The SEC teams were a combined 6-34 in conference and 22-36 overall with one team (Ole Miss) having a winning record (7-6). Not one of the 6 conference wins were against a team that had a winning conference record! FYI Wake Forecast had a losing record and NC State lost its coach prior to its bowl game and too was barely over 0.500.
They should not have been in the top 25 and historically Vandy has never won a conference or division title in the SEC. Their last winning conference record prior to 2012 was in 1982. In 81 years of SEC membership Vanderbilt has been to 6 bowl games.
- Status
