As I said that doesn't surprise me. Look at how many players on our team from the class five years ago to see my point.
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I was at the game and we only had 11 seniors being honored for Senior night I believe only two of them were starters along with the kicker. Hell Ole Miss has 14 starters who are Seniors and the one guy that makes them good is not a Senior but is gone to the NFL.
Name all the guys here with less than two years in our system. We aren't inexperienced really. Not at game 12 of year two. If two years isn't good, then Juco is pretty worthless I guess. We're going after those guys for experience.
Our problem is poor talent on the OL, LB/DE, and S, K, P. Our depth isn't good. Mullen and Moorhead left gaps & sanctions hurt. Will isn't completely there yet. I'll cut him a little slack. He's still got work to do and experience would help him. Got a couple guys that need to mature too. But inexperience really isn't the biggest problem.
We changed offenses and defenses 3 times in those years. We have no identity.
Arkansas and Ole Miss haven't left us behind. That's about as dumb as saying we've left Auburn and A&M behind because we beat them this year. The SEC this year was much more like the 1990s than it has been over the past 2 decades. On any given weekend all but 3 teams had games that were toss ups - Bama, UGA, and Vandy. Ole Miss happened to win more of their toss ups but their talent profile isn't that different than ours. They were a lot like our '99 team where everything went our way - including a huge come form behind at Auburn, and a lucky Tip, kick, pick that resulted in a game winning FG. Without those, that '99 team is just another MSU 8 win team. Meanwhile, we were a lot like our '13 team - where we just weren't quite ready for prime time but you saw the flashes of talent that would make the '14 season.
Hopefully next year our team has learned from the mistakes and gets the kinks out. Ole Miss will be dealing with losing a talented Senior class and replacing a talented QB. Arkansas will be in the same spot. Will we beat them? I have no idea. I do know that looking at our schedule again next year we have 10 winnable games - and only Bama and UGA stand out as teams that we will like have no chance against.
Good post. Everything is cyclical. Not sure where everyone got this idea of years of domination by one school over another other than Bama & GA winning against everyone else and Vandy losing to everyone else. It's like the lottery any given year. Throw in a bunch of balls and the numbers that come out vary year-to-year.
Arky passed us because we had a toss up PI and missed a straight 40 yd FG
We’re passing both next year.
Ark and OM hired coaches that ran offenses that fit the talent on campus and was similar to what they already ran. We made a long term investment while they went with styles that would work quick. And OM had a 1st rd QB on campus.