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- Please no inappropriate usernames (remember that there may be youngsters in the room)
- Personal attacks on other community members are unacceptable, practice the good manners your mama taught you when engaging with fellow Dawg fans
- Use common sense and respect personal differences in the community: sexual and other inappropriate language or imagery, political rants and belittling the opinions of others will get your posts deleted and result in warnings and/ or banning from the forum
- 3/17/19 UPDATE -- We've updated the permissions for our "Football" and "Commit to the G" recruiting message boards. We aim to be the best free board out there and that has not changed. We do now ask that all of you good people register as a member of our forum in order to see the sugar that is falling from our skies, so to speak.
Comments
@DawgfromILM…Excellent post sir. I agree completely, although I didn't go as far as you in my earlier post. I'm still in the "Wait and See" mode, but you are right - it's about the here and now. What did you do for me lately. I don't really care what you did under the old model back 3+ years ago. No more having an unfair advantage by hoarding all the talent on your bench. That just won't happen any longer. So what can you do with what you got on the front lines? Because we saw how big of an impact having even one player like Gabe Harris injured can do for your effectiveness.
What can you now do under the new model? Adapt or die. Succeed, Struggle, or just plain Fail?
Maybe. Certainly he has an amazing record of 145-37, but it's really an apples-oranges comparison. Does he have huge POTENTIAL? Oh absolutely. Winning is hard at ANY level and clearly he helped push James Madison from the Colonial conference to the Sun Belt. But just like the NFL <> College Football, the Sun Belt <> SEC. Last year, yeah, they went 11-2, but every win was against an unranked team. They got their butts beat by Ohio State (38-15) and then lost in the first round of playoffs to Notre Dame. This year was certainly impressive, but that's just one year.
I guess the question is why the top teams over the years haven't hired him to be HC. Indiana was a promotion, but again not an SEC program (and there has been a lot of coaching turnover there, so a lot of opportunities).
This year was an amazing year, but it's still a "Cinderella Story" at this point, not a "you see these guys in the playoffs every year" that Smart has. If he turns Indiana into a Top 5 team over the next few years, he will definitely be moving up the GOAT ladder, but at this point, no Smart is in a different league.
So, you say to Kirby, "Stay the course?" Same OC, same DC, same position coaches, same QB. And you expect a different post season outcome?
That is such a useless argument because there is no set criteria for being the best Coach. It is all opinionated and can be a yearly proposition. For Klatt to insinuate Smart is less of a Coach because he has not made the semi-final since 2022 is absolutely ludicrous. Congrats to Cignetti and Indiana but if they don't win on Monday night, Klatt and others may have a different view. Go Dawgs!
And Indiana has an average player age of 23, grown men with college football experience playing mostly against 18-20 year old HS recruits with little or no college football experience..a tremendous advantage. But, give cignetti credit, not denying he isnt a good coach, he is. He used the portal better than any coach to buy a roster, and his efforts now show on the field from his decision to do that. Welcome to the new world of college football..the coach that uses the portal to find the best transfers to fit their system, will probably be the coach who puts the best team on the field going forward. Lane Kiffin is a prime example, he used the portal heavily every year, and he took Ole miss from being average at best, and turned them into being a top team in college football. And he did it in a much shorter time span than it would've took recruiting, and developing HS talent.
Kirby’s proven to recruit and develop, Cignetti’s taken older players/transfers and found success. See if Cignetti can maintain high level success over a long period before making claims about who’s who.
I guess it depends on what you want from college football. Cignetti, like Kiffin, did not train his team, he assembled his team. I tried (not very hard) to look up how many of those Hoosier guys were transfers this year, and couldn't find the exact number, but I do know that it's not insignificant. As has been said in one way or another, those guys don't actually represent their school. They represent themselves in the school's name.
Smart trains guys. Does UGA take in transfers? Sure, but not with the same kind of reliance. The guys that come and stay have an honest connection to (and thus are an honest representation of) the school and the program. Being a Dawg means something. If we can have that AND national titles, great. If we can have that and still remain relevant (consistently ranked, conference titles), I'll take that just fine.
In the end, a person can't bemoan what NIL and portal over-reliance are doing to the sport and at the same time complain about their school's decision to focus on player development. It can't be both ways.
Also, who cares what Klatt says…?
You said it all. No more rose colored glasses for me. Reality sucks!
Kirby Smart is the only active coach to win the SEC championship game AND the other 13 SEC coaches combined have 5 playoff victories. Of those 5, 2 were games where SEC teams played each other (Alabama vs Oklahoma, Ole Miss vs UGA), 2 were against suspect P4 playoff teams (Texas over 4 loss Clemson and 3 loss Arizona State in 2024) and 1 was against a Group of 5 school (Ole Miss against Tulane). Texas beating Clemson and ASU were the only playoff victories for the SEC in 2024. Georgia and Tennessee both lost in the first round by at least 2 TDs. In 2023, Bama lost in the first round to Michigan. Even better, the only schools other than Bama and UGA to win a BCS title or playoff games the past 10 years are Georgia (2022, 2021, 2017) and LSU (2019). Take away those and you have to go back to Auburn in 2010. Look at the SEC Big 6: LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia.
LSU: 2019 is the only time that they have exceeded 10 wins since 2011. And they haven't reached 10 wins consistently (2023, 2022, 2018, 2013, 2012).
Auburn has had a single 10 win season since 2012, and that was 10-4.
Tennessee has had two 10 win season since winning the SEC East in 2007: 11-2 in 2022 and10-3 in 2024 against an even worse schedule than Texas A&M had this season (Georgia and Bama were their only opponents to win more than 7 games during the regular season).
Florida has had four 10 win seasons since Tebow left: 2012, 2015 (4 losses), 2018, 2019 and are on their third coach this decade.
Texas and Oklahoma weren't doing so hot in the Big 12 before joining the SEC either. Texas beating Clemson last year was the first BCS title or playoff win for either since 2005.
And no one outside the Big 6 + Texas and Oklahoma has done squat until Ole Miss this year.
Granted, the SEC still gets the most talent. National signing day and the NFL draft are evidence of both. But it has been a long time since anyone but Kirby Smart and Nick Saban have done anything with all that talent. Saban's gone and Smart hasn't been able to leverage all of his future NFL talent without a healthy Brock Bowers on the roster, though he came close with a team of mostly Richt recruits including Chubb, Michel and Wims in 2017.
SEC fans should stop claiming that it is a tough top-to-bottom league like it was from the late 1990s through the early 2010s. It isn't and hasn't been for quite awhile. How else can SEC folks claim that A&M had a weak schedule this year when that schedule included Florida, Auburn, LSU, Texas and Arkansas (plus Missouri and South Carolina)? That would have been a murderer's row in 2006 when Meyer was at Florida, Tuberville at Auburn, Miles at LSU, Mack Brown at Texas, Spurrier at South Carolina and Houston Nutt (with Gus Malzahn as OC) at Arkansas. UGA fans claim that A&M played a weak schedule because they didn't play UGA, Ole Miss, 3 loss Oklahoma and 4 loss Bama (one of those losses was by 2 TDs to 5-7 FSU) which is utterly hilarious. The "tough games" in the SEC in 2025 included a Bama team with no RBs and an Oklahoma team with no QBs or RBs.
With that history the SEC going belly-up in the playoff the last 2 years is no surprise. Saban and Smart are the only SEC coaches to consistently do anything since 2010. Saban is long gone and Smart has an aversion to elite playmakers at WR, QB and lately RB, only seeming to value them at TE. The second best coach in the SEC? Lane Kiffin. Third best? Steve Sarkisian. Both are former failed Pac-12 head coaches. USC fired both. Sarkisian went 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 and 8-4 at Washington before USC hired him for reasons that only made sense to USC. With Heupel still not able to build both lines at Tennessee and scapegoating his defensive coordinator plus Florida and Auburn settling for mid-major coaches (remember when SEC programs used to raid up and coming coaches from other programs?) this isn't going to change. At the very best it will merely exchange UGA and Bama with UGA and LSU.
Your last two paragraphs are great closers.
The game has changed—completely, and in ways no one really saw coming.
The fallout is everywhere. A lot of it traces back to how NIL and the portal were rolled out: rushed, inconsistent, and with almost no guardrails. The NCAA has essentially lost the plot, reduced to watching from the sidelines while a system with real money and real lawyers operates without real rules. That was always going to get messy.
None of this should shock us. But what should be clear is what it means going forward. Programs can’t keep operating like it’s business as usual and expect to win. The ones that adapt—how they acquire talent and build their roster, how they manage staff, how they treat players—will survive and compete. The ones that don’t will fall behind. Like it or not, the behavior has to change.
What will we say at this time next year if the Dawgs don't make the semis—or the CFP?
Will Kirby still be the best coach in college football? Or will he used to be the best?
Joe quack doesn’t like Georgia. He talks down about Georgia all the time. I will say that KS seems to have lost that fire he once had before 2 nattys and a $13 million a year contract. No more speaking of Not being hunted or Keep chopping. He always talk about how the fan base needs to show up for those big home games then turns around when fans are complaining about bobo and state..I don’t work for the fans!
If curt reels off back to back natty then we will talk. Curt is a good coach but c’mon man!
This is a stretch
Cignetti certainly deserves praise, appreciation and respect CFB wide for what He and his Team have accomplished. And unless Miami plays the best game they’ve played in years frankly I look for IN to curb stomp them.
These things said Cignetti has Yet to come close to All that Kirby has accomplished. Cignetti Might over come Kirby’s coaching stature but at This point in time that is pure speculation.
Yes it’s True KS and the Dawgs didn’t make it to the final four teams in the play offs. But KS and the Dawgs Did add another Conference Trophy to the show case.
This tune reminds me of the same song played when Ed Orgeron had Joe Burrows at LSU. Problem was when Burrows left all the LSU glory went with him. Even leading up to LSU feeling they needed to replace Orgeron.
So until another HC among Current HC’s has the Same # of National Titles, Same # of Conference Titles, in the Same amount of Time. They can’t be really justified in saying they Are better than KS.
Has Mendoza exhausted his eligibility Or planning to go to the NFL ? HE like Burrows is a Huge part of IN’s success. Though I will say that even excluding Mendoza IN is a Very well balanced and Very well coached team.
So Even if this is Mendoza’s last year I don’t expect IN to Quickly sink into the abyss as LSU did after Burrows left. However if it is Mendoza’s last year it MIGHT diminish IN from being a Great team to a Very Good team.
Speaking of Very Good I believe the Dawgs were on the bottom portion of Very Good, Ole Miss was in the middle portion of Very Good and Miami the top portion of Very Good. IN as of now is a Great team.
UGA, Ole Miss, Miami beat teams behind them ranging from Poor to Pretty Good.
Neither UGA or Ole Miss has Anything to be Ashamed of. Disappointed, certainly, Ashamed, NO. I don’t Know factually what the Dawgs will do next year, good, bad, or in between. No One being Honest does. We can All speculate and the range of speculation and opinion is massive !!
People will say Well On Paper…….. Kirby and his Dawgs have exceeded On Paper hypothesis many times. Go Dawgs !!
very valid points. Read an article about how Indiana has turned their program around. With Cignetti’s arrival with 8 or 9 of his employees from James Madison, they went all in on the new semi-professional NIL, which includes predominant roster building through the portal supplemented by recruiting versus the UGA approach. They additionally increased their total football spend for facilities, and staffing. Their total spend now is on par with Ohio State, Alabama, UGA, etc. and the article indicated that Indiana assistants are among the most highly compensated in college football. I intend to pay more attention to the assistants during upcoming game, but I think they are younger up and comers. Perhaps Kirby does need to shake it up and make some staff changes.
On the QB question, I am concerned that Bobo’s relationship with Gunner and his family, may cloud his objectivity about Gunner’s limitations as a passer. If Puglisi or Montgomery continue to develop, and give Dawgs best chance to excel on offense, will Bobo do what Monken did when he told Kirby that Stetson Bennett gave us better chance to win than Beck.
There’s a vast difference in Hoping for something and Expecting something. I Hope for a National Title next year. But I’ll have to see At Least minimum the first four games played before I can have a feel for Expecting or Not expecting the Dawgs to reach that lofty height.
I’m NOT asking Dawgs fans to Settle for anything. I Am saying that perhaps you should temper your expectations a bit. That way if it turns out less than what you Hoped for you won’t be quite as depressed. If it turns out to be more than you Hoped why then you’ll be super elated !!
I don’t think we’ll Ever see Dynasties like Bama and FSU etc. again. That’s Not saying that a team might not win say Two Ntl. Titles in a say a six year period. But winning it every other year or every third year in my humble opinion is Gone.
The advent of NIL and the TP has made establishing dynasties almost miraculous !! Saban saw it, hit the door and took his legacy with him. I think sometimes he wishes he was still in it as he’s So competitive. But I bet his wife says Nick your a little to old to be getting a Divorce !! Don’t even think about it !!