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in response to volthrunthru#658770:

His "best staff in the USA" Cincinnati coaches did not do well in big-time recruiting. SEC-level coaches hired by Jones recruited okay, but were working with team-members easy for opposing competitive recruiters to target. For instance: Vonn Bell and his world knew about Urban Meyer, another guy from Ohio.
Fact: Jones says things publicly, that are not accurate: For instance: "selective.” His SEC-experienced coaches are more forthcoming: "ran out of time," "improved…with H.S. coaches," etc.
Fact: Jones says he can win the SEC with State of Tennessee players; was publicly corrected by Phillip Fulmer, who said UT must recruit nationally, & that Jones had not done it before.
Fact: Jones missed on most of the best talent in Tennessee, losing even to MTSU:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecru...
Fact: Jones recruits a bunch of 2-stars that recruiting services in the last month upgraded to 3-stars. Quite a few of UT’s 21 scholarships were East Tennessee H.S. players, iffy as SEC caliber. Same elsewhere, including a J.C. 2-star. Did UT coaches EVER do that before?
Fact: This class averages 2.5 stars in the real world.
Fact: Bama, SC, GA, LSU, Ole Miss, Auburn, A&M, & others in the SEC finished higher---MUCH higher.
Fact: We play them in Football.
Fact: some of the UT signees were only offered by schools as fill-ins, in conferences that are nowhere near UT's level Clearly finishing with recruits whose rankings were fudged upward is not encouraging. This class is behind many schools from other conferences, too.
Assistant Coaches Graham, Martinez & Thigpin are competent recruiters. But the rest of the current UT Staff was not able to compete successfully against SEC & other big-time recruiting coaches.
Final Fact: Jones has six years at $18,000,000.00, guaranteed, + bonuses and signs 2.5 stars. That is an artful way to sign a class. Clearly there is LONG distance from a "selective" class to the 1990’s---much less 1998.

The official line is “only had 31-days. ” But if the Cincinnati staffers had been able to recruit nationally, they would have brought in a recruit or two that was more than 2-stars, re-ranked to 3. Even in Junior Colleges, UT finished by taking players that many of the better programs in the country had picked over.

One more thing: this is one of the 10 largest football budgets in the country. The UT Athletics department spends a BILLION DOLLARS A DECADE. The governor says it must fill the stadium. Dooley's last few games had 70,000 in the 100,000+ capacity Neyland Stadium.

Can you tell yourself how those 35,000+ seats are going to be filled by what happened in the past 31 days?

OH! UT will win the SEC with in-state recruits and the best coaching staff in the USA, headed by a guy who had always wanted to be the head coach at UT.
Thanks, Hamilton, Hart, Cheek, President-of-the-Week.