I don't understand those of you citing our #35 NIL ranking as if that's not just proving C34s point.

#35 means there's roughly 34 teams in CFB with a more talented roster. It means never even being top 25 either in the rankings or in actual play. It means being at a talent disadvantage in 8/9 SEC games, and a massive one at that for at least 5 of them. #35 in NIL means we can't hold onto the under the radar talent we do find (see the 3 WRs and 1 QB we had to face that transferred from us to other SEC schools). Would Dak have been here in 2015 if Florida offered him $3.5m in NIL? Would Montez Sweat have returned for his Sr year if Bama offered him 700k? You can't be a developmental program if you can't pay them enough to stay once they break out. All you can do is hope to out scout the other teas, and get under the radar Portal transfers every year.... but good luck doing that year after year when other SEC schools also have 5x our recruiting budget.

No, being #35 in NIL in a conference where everyone else spends more means 6-6 is the best we can expect to average over time, and 8-4 the absolute ceiling for any particular season. 5-7 will be what a league average coaching staff achieves, and by the way we spend less on that than everyone else does too.

There's not much mystery left in college football. No dark corners for good players to go under the radar from big schools, no unknown schemes that could give our coach a large advantage. No loyalty that There's been too much money in this for too long- it's now about MONEY to buy the best. Why I've lost almost all interest in the sport.

PS, "we were 2 plays away from 7-5!" isn't really a fair comment since we were also 2 plays away from 3-9- ASU took a miracle pass because their DC called a dumb blitz, and Arky was down the wire. 5-7 is record that accurately reflects our season; we were not a 7-5 team that just got unusually unlucky.