Join Date
Sep 2012
Posts
1,613
Long post, but this is really interesting. Obviously the 247 talent composite does not always tell the whole story but it is a good starting point to see the talent of each team from 30,000 feet.
While it is true that the talent upgrade he gets coming here will be somewhat offset by the superior talent of the teams in the SEC, it is not offset proportionally. Meaning, he will have significantly more talent here compared to his SEC peers than he did at WSU against his Pac 12 peers.
WSU had a talent advantage in only 3 of the 13 games they played this year. For reference, we had a talent advantage in 8 games we played this year. We finished with the same record as WSU. What is even more impressive is that level of overachievement was actually a DOWN year for Leach. Here is the breakdown year over year going back to 2015 (as far back as 247’s team composite rankings go):
2015 - Leach had a talent advantage in only 2 of 13 games played. Finished with a 9-4 record.
2016 - Leach had a talent advantage in only 2 of 13 games played. Finished with an 8-5 record.
2017 - Leach had a talent advantage in only 2 of 13 games played. Finished with a 9-4 record.
2018 - Leach finally had a talent advantage in a whopping 4 of 13 games played. Finished with an 11-2 record.
2019 - Leach had a talent advantage in 3 of 13 games played. Finished 6-7.
Comparatively we had a talent advantage in 7 games in 2015, 6 games in 2016, 6 games in 2017, 7 games in 2018, and 8 games in 2019.
So Leach is coming from a place that has a talent advantage about 2-4 times per season, to a place that has a talent advantage 6-8 times per season. Yes, he is going to be against teams with better players than what he faced in the Pac 12, but he will be in a MUCH better position to overcome that here than he was at WSU.
i saw this post on another board, thought it was interesting
