Pruitt has his work cut out for him. He is still a great hire when you consider the dumpster fire Curry created. He will do a good job. But I know fans, me especially, probably will expect too much too soon. Smart has made it tough on all new coaches in the SEC by going to the playoff his second year. I will give Pruitt three...lol . Damn Bama. Doesn't win the SEC and still wins the NC. I saw a statistic that is unreal. They haven't lost to an unranked team since ULM in 2007. They are 98-0 against unranked teams. Good teams should beat unranked teams. But that is crazy. To put it in perspective, in that timeframe, 10 years...no other P5 school has less than 9 losses to unranked teams. Saban has always had great staffs around him. How good does this staff Pruitt is assembling look?
Well...saban has made it tough for everyone the last 10 years (mandatory mention of "by cheating massively at recruiting" goes here
). What Kirby Smart did in his second year is impressive, but can he sustain it? Not so long ago Gus Malzahn made it to the NC game in his FIRST YEAR, and this came after a 3-9 season. And then fell off the map. In fact, there were rumblings of him getting fired quite a bit this season, and without beating both uga and bammer he would have.
Impressed by what Smart did this year...was really impressed by Malzahn also though.
One reason Smart might do better is that he is currently dominating recruiting the way saban does. Don't know how long that will last either.
I am tempted to hope that Smart had more to do with bammer recruiting success than saban over the years and that the reversal is permanent. Except...that doesn[t really help us.
SEC is down everywhere but at the top, but man is it tough. Toughest conference in Murica by a mile.