Quote Originally Posted by Jarius View Post
We now have huge advantages over those non power 5 teams that we are playing whereas we used to have some advantages over them but it wasn't as big. When we play any team that isn't power 5 in 2016 and we should skull drag them. We have a much bigger budget, much better facilities, and coaches that should be way out of their league and that should cause us to have way better players. It hasn't always been that way.

Also, money is becoming less and less of a factor between us and the rest of the conference, even though we are still at the bottom of the league money wise. Once you get to the point to where the entire conference is income wise, money should not be a crutch argument that we use to accept mediocrity. Prestige? Yea that is still an issue. Our 120 yeas of sucking? Yea that still haunts us. Our small state with 2 SEC schools? Yea that's a factor. Money really isn't that huge of a deal right now. We have great facilities, great coaches, and great stadiums.
But those advantages are just now coming into play. Our budget has grown tremendously in recent years. But the gap over the last 5 years in total still has us $200-300 MIL behind the SEC average. The gap between us and some of those non Power 5 schools you are talking about is $100-150 MIL at best and that just jumped in the last few years. USA and Troy for example are just a little below what our budget was when Mullen arrived. We are just now really able to start to really separate ourselves significantly from those schools. But not his first 4-5 years.