While their talent prevents calling any SBC game a sure loss , because of how young their roster is overall, and how solid the SBC is top to bottom , most feel this team is a year away or two away from being a SBC Championship caliber team.

The consensus last spring that a lot would have to go wrong for this team not to win five games, and not much right for it to win more, is still the prevailing opinion at the end of fall camp........... for real and for tangible reasons.

Most expect Butch Jones prediction that their fans will be happy where they are at, at the end of the 2022 season, and excided about 2023 will end up being true. Regardless, should be a very fun team to watch grow in an exciting new SBC. Enjoy!

Took the last post on the other thread to start this thread.

Other than they have a talented team , the answerer IMO is better than last year for sure, but how much better is an unknown.

Their practices have been closed for the most part, plus the Portal has resulted in their, and their opponents rosters changing more significantly than normal from last year.

We do know according to 247 they added one of the top SBC recruiting classes https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Footba...erence=SBC , to one of the top rosters https://247sports.com/Season/2021-Footba...erence=SBC , as far as talent.

While 247 has not provided their transfer ratings , they will almost certainly be one of the better SBC classes in that regard too.

The key for them is whether a nearly decade long trend- for a verity of reasons, of being the worse prepared, most undisciplined, and fundamentally unsound team on the field in most games continues .

The other questions is how much better will a team of mostly Butch Jones players, perform for him than did a team composed of mostly Blake Andersons players. While their spring practices and scrimmages, indicated the answerer is "a lot better", there have been changes since then and the results have been hidden behind closed doors.

247 did have SBC transfer ratings for 2022: https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Footba...erence=SBC , but did not include the addition of Utah CB Drew Rawls , Ohio St / Austin Peay RB Brian Snead, Purdue DE Robert Mcwilliams, Miami (OH) QB AJ Mayer , Lamar DT Treviance VJ Bronson, or Eastern Illinois CB Charles Shelton IV .

As far as beyond this season, the still open question is can Butch Jones & Company better bridge the gap between their talent ratings and their performance on the field, than the previous coach. Blake Anderson was rather mediocre at doing so even before a three year fight with the cancer that took his wife, capped off by the COVID year that hit them hard after the Memphis game.

One thing is for sure, that gap did not close last year, and might have been a little wider. Hard to tell because Butch was facing much better SBC competition than Blake did during most of his tenure.

Really fun team to watch and as young as they are will be a fun team to watch grow for years.

While many just assumed Grambling was really bad, it was much more a case of A-State making them look worse than they are.

Much better coached team than has been the norm.

With a plethora of P5 talented around him - especially on the OL, and at RB, and the same OC for the first time in his career, James Blackman is going to tear some defenses apart. Barring injuries that offense is going to be more than most can handle by conference play.

Defense is real young, and there will be growing pains, but again loaded with true P5 talent and really outstanding overall speed and athleticism.