Draft Week - The Saints, Part II

Yesterday, I kind of went through a primer on what I think the Saints are looking for. Now, I don't consider myself an expert on college football as a whole or on evaluating talent for college, and I am even less so an expert on the NFL. That said, I have opinions and a blog, so I'm writing about them.

The Saints hold the #10 overall pick and hold picks in every round except the 4th. The needs here are defensive tackle, linebacker, cornerback, and center (having lost Jeff Faine). There is no center who will be worth the #10 pick, so forget about that. At defensive tackle, Glenn Dorsey will not be available, Sedrick Ellis may be available, but likely won't, and the next defensive tackles are not considered worthy of such high selection. At linebacker, Keith Rivers may be there, and if he isn't there likely aren't any really good selections there.

At cornerback, however, there will likely be a wealth of talent available at #10. Leodis McKelvin, Michael Jenkins, Aqib Talib, and Dominique Rogers-Cromartie all are more likely than not going to be available, and if the Saints want one, they will probably have their pick of the 4.

But that brings up another possibility. If the Saints like all four of those guys about the same, there's no sense in using such a high pick (and the concomitant dollars it requires) on a corner when they can trade down about 10 spots and likely still have 2 of the 4 guys still available. Who knows, they may even end up with the same guy at, say, #19 that they would have taken at #10, while picking up additional draft picks in the process.

Another possibility that has been discussed is to try to move up the draft to take Glenn Dorsey. They'd have to move up to at least #4, and even that might not be good enough.

Let me just say that I hate that idea, for several reasons:

1. Top 5 picks cost a fortune in money and cap space. Having another top 5 pick on the team will tie up gobs of money on just two players: Reggie Bush and Glenn Dorsey.
2. It will cost us at least our 2nd round pick and likely more. The "value chart" for draft picks is a bunch of hooey, and religious adherence to it has caused GMs to do crazy things, and it especially overvalues the first few picks in the draft. The value chart is what caused the Haslett-led Saints to trade two first round draft choices to move up a handful of spots to draft Jonathan Sullivan, who was a total bust (and incidentally is probably the #1 reason we need to draft a defensive tackle now).
   
3. I'm not a big fan of drafting local legends. Sure, there can be a temporary boost in ticket sales and/or merchandising, but what happens if you need to bench, trade, or cut the local legend? Or what if he holds out? Or if he criticizes you in the media? Public. Relations. Nightmare.
4. As much as I love Dorsey, his durability is a legitimate concern. To give up multiple draft picks and a lot of money/cap-space to get a guy with a fairly high likelihood of getting injured is just asking for trouble.

If the local legend is truly the best player on the board when you pick, go for it. If you have to pay a premium to get him, either in a too-high draft pick or in a trade, you're better off going in another direction.

I prefer to wait until the 10th pick, and if Sedrick Ellis is available, I take him. If he is not, I probably look to trade down. There are a few other potentially good defensive tackles who will be available in the late-first or early second, like Patrick Sims from Auburn, Kentwan Balmer from North Carolina, or Trevor Laws from Notre Dame. If the right deal is in place (like Dallas's two picks for our one), we can move down and pick up a corner, a tackle, and a linebacker with early picks and maximize our value. One of Talib, McKelvin, or Rogers-Cromartie is likely to be available at #22, and Balmer or Laws will be available at #28, or perhaps Jarod Mayo will be available. Or Curtis Lofton. There are lots of possibilities, all of them pretty good.

Crazy Idea of the Day: You want a crazy trade idea? One that has no chance in hell of actually happening? Here's what I do. I dangle Reggie Bush as trade bait. I'd offer him straight up to any team who comes on the board with Darren McFadden still available. I think McFadden is that good (and Bush that limited, for that matter). McFadden can do everything Bush can do (catch the ball, run outside the tackles, take it to the house in open space) but is a more complete running back, who could team with Deuce McAllister to extend both of their careers. I think McFadden is going to be the better pro, and (gasp!) would actually cost less money than Bush. What's more, I think there are teams that would go for it. I think the Raiders would go for it. I think the Falcons might go for it. The Raiders are fans of every crazy idea that some jacklegs suggests, and the Falcons can use help pretty everywhere, plus they need a draw. Plus, I really don't like Reggie Bush all that much.

I have no idea how such a cockamamie* plan would impact the salary cap, which has to be considered in any big deal you even think about. That's why I doubt it would ever happen. Plus, you know, it's kind of crazy.

Note: Would you believe me if I told you I managed to type out "cockamamie" on the first try without offending my browser's built-in spell-checker?

Draft Week - The Saints

Yesterday, we talked about how  I follow the NFL draft as a fan of both the Tigers and the Saints. Yesterday, we talked about the Tigers. Today, let's talk about the Saints. Clearly, the Saints had a very disappointing season last year. A lot of prognosticators predicted us to contend for a spot in the Super Bowl. We ended up with a losing season. We have been "rewarded" for that with the #10 overall pick.

To the extent I was able to watch the Saints last year, not being in their regular TV market, it appears that our complete lack of playmakers on defense was exposed once again. I know a lot of people will say that losing Deuce early in the season hurt a lot, but the team did very poorly even with Deuce in the lineup.

Heading into the offseason, a lot of people were thinking we would almost certainly be looking at linebacker or cornerback in the draft. The Saints, however, significantly upgraded those positions during free agency period, by picking up linebackers Jonathan Vilma and Dan Morgan and cornerback Randal Gay (former LSU product, by the way). Vilma and Morgan have been stars in the league, but have suffered season-shortening injuries recently. If even one of those guys returns to prior form (and neither is old really, just unhealthy lately), the linebacker position is substantially shored up. Randal Gay is still a young player and has been a solid zone corner in his career despite not being a regular starter at LSU and not being drafted.

The conventional wisdom is that the Saints needed to address linebacker, corner, and defensive tackle. They have already made some changes at linebacker and corner, but may not be done at either of those places. We still need to address the defensive tackle spot as well.

The problem is that it is difficult to project who among the top prospects at those positions will be available at the #10 spot. Among the top players at linebacker, corner, and defensive tackle, only Glenn Dorsey appears to be certain to be gone by the time the Saints draft. USC products Sedrick Ellis (DT) and Keith Rivers (LB) may be gone, or may not. Mocks have them all over the board. Backup plans Kentwan Balmer (DT, North Carolina) and Jarod Mayo (linebacker, Tennessee) appear to be reaches for #10.

At cornerback, commentators disagree over who the #1 corner on the board is. Is it workout warrior and small-school fast-riser Dominique Rogers-Cromartie? He has freakish measurables and may be the most athletic cornerback not just of this year but of the last several years, but he played at Tennessee State. Not Tennessee. Tennessee State. Can anyone identify their mascot without looking it up?

Is it Aqib Talib, another terrific athlete. He played at Kansas and has certain Deion Sanders-like qualities, in that he gets interceptions and is dangerous with the ball in his hands. He's generally considered a little unpolished and inconsistent and seems to have a fairly high bust-potential. But he could also end up being the best corner out of this draft.

Is it Michael Jenkins from South Florida? Leodis McKelvin from Troy? Both are small-school guys like Dominique Rogers-Cromartie, though they are much more known commodities than is Rogers-Cromartie.

Heck, they could surprise us all and take one of the several good offensive tackles on the board. After all, when most people thought they were going defense last year, they drafted wide receiver Robert Meachem. I was actually in the minority who really liked that pick. I think the idea of using the draft to "accentuate the positive" is often a good idea, as opposed to using it to "eliminate the negative". The idea is that if the strength of your team is moving the ball on offense, use the draft to help you do that even better rather than using it to help you stop other teams a little better.

Of course, it's impossible to characterize Robert Meachem's first year as anything more positive than "extremely disappointing", as he did not actually play at all. Meachem got off to a slow start in his college career as well, and ended his career as one of the most productive receivers in the country. Plus, receivers sometimes develop slowly anyway, and Meachem was trying to break into a really productive, veteran unit.

If Meachem can develop in the pros like he did in college, I still think we will look at the Meachem pick as a positive. He is more than capable of being a #2 receiver in the NFL, complementing Marques Colston.

Tomorrow, I will go over what I would do if I was the Saints and was willing to do bizarre things for the sake of maximizing my haul.

Draft Week - The Tigers

Here at GeauxTuscaloosa, we will do a little NFL Draft coverage, both from my perspective as a fan of LSU Football and as a fan of New Orleans Saints football.

Obviously, for LSU, the headliner is going to be Glenn Dorsey, who appears to be destined to be one of the first four players picked, and may be a target for teams trying to move up in the draft.

This is one of those years (much like last year, I suppose) where the top draft picks will be chosen more on need than on clear distinctions of talent. Last year, Jamarcus Russell was the #1 pick because the team holding the #1 wanted a quarterback and was enamored with him. This year, Dorsey could definitely be the #1 pick except that it looks like the Dolphins are looking at other positions, having flirted with OT Jake Long, QB Matt Ryan, and DE's Chris Long and Vernon Gholston in the media. Dorsey could easily be the #1 pick if the team holding the pick was looking for a DT for the 4-3 system. The Dolphins just appear to be looking elsewhere, but the Raiders and the Falcons at #4 and #3 look to be possibilities for Dorsey, and he almost certainly wouldn't fall below the Raiders at #4.

Of course, LSU will not be done once Dorsey is picked, but it does look like the initial post-season evaluations of other Tigers overestimated the value of players like Early Doucet and Ali Highsmith. January mock drafts had both of these players solidly in the first round, but they did not have great workouts and have slid down the draft board. Doucet is probably a late-second or early-third round pick as a slot receiver, and Highsmith will probably be picked somewhere in the middle rounds. Highsmith and Doucet are both gamers, and both very productive, and I think will play above their draft levels, but their workouts did not help them.

Jacob Hester may be the highest rated "fullback" in the draft, and I think he's the sort of guy who will never get a huge contract but will probably be in the NFL for a decade playing special teams, being a 3rd down back and/or blocking for someone else. I don't know what kind of draft value players like that have, but I expect him to get the call.

Chevis Jackson was a guy who a lot of people thought would be a first day pick, but a disappointing 40 time has put Chevis into the category of "zone corner", and those guys are a commodity in the NFL. Unfortunately being a "commodity" is not a particularly good thing. It means one zone corner is pretty much interchangeable with another, and few of them make a lot of money by NFL standards. He'll be drafted, probably in the middle rounds, but pure zone corners don't get drafted in the first round.

Craig Steltz is another guy who will probably hang around the league a long time, playing special teams and hopefully starting for someone at strong safety. I think he's a really safe pick in the middle rounds because, like Doucet and Hester, he's a gamer who knows how to play and knows how to produce. There's a spot for all of those guys in the NFL for a while.

Matt Flynn hopes to get drafted in the last two rounds. If he does, he will be in the NFL for a year or two while he tries to develop and improve enough to prove he can be a solid backup. I think he has the tools to do it and his workouts helped his cause. A regular feature in ESPN The Magazine follows Flynn, Andre Woodson, and JD Booty and evaluates the change in their respective draft stocks. Flynn has consistently rated as a draft-worthy quarterback, and I hope the NFL agrees. There are no guarantees though.

Other draft-eligible players are probably going to be looking for free agent contracts. Jonathan Zenon is a "speed" corner who just didn't show the speed in workouts. Given his lack of physicality as a corner, his mediocre speed probably puts him out of the draft. He will get a chance to make it as a free agent, but that's a pretty long road. Will Arnold certainly has draft-worthy talent, but his propensity for getting injured means no one will spend a draft pick on him either.

One interesting possibility is that some team will take a chance on former LSU running back Alley Broussard. Alley looked like a total stud and a sure-fire NFL prospect until his knee injury before the 2005 season. After that, he struggled with his conditioning and his confidence en route to also struggling with his production. He eventually transferred out of LSU and to a lower division, but is eligible for the NFL draft and worked out with LSU players for the scouts. He's clearly got the talent if his knee is 100%, but you wonder about his drive and his conditioning. I'm interested to see if he gets a sniff.

A former Tiger I actually really like as an NFL prospect who likely will not get drafted is OT Carnell Stewart. Yes, Stewart committed a lot of dumb penalties, and was sometimes abused in pass protection, but he was very inexperienced at the position. He was also a monster in run-blocking and very athletic for an offensive lineman. He's a guy who, I think, if he could get on a practice squad and develop for a year getting more coaching, he could turn into a real player.

Note: Several articles can be written about how LSU players have not tested as fast as expected. It appears that LSU just was not as fast of a team as a lot of people thought it was entering and playing last season. Our cornerbacks ran 4.6 40-times, and our best linebacker ran 4.8 and slower. Steltz ran solidly, but hardly spectacularly, and Doucet timed out pretty slow for a wide receiver. Though all of these guys were very good college football players, it is clear that the LSU football team just did not have the wealth of talent that people thought. We had a lot of very good, solid players, but we were not a team full of NFL first rounders like a lot of people thought. This helps explain the fact that we played a lot of zone coverage and did not blitz as much as people wanted. The coaches, shockingly, understood that we just weren't all that fast of a team, particularly on defense, and adjusted accordingly. Amazing how that happens.

Evaluating Linebackers

I think I can put my finger on one reason I have trouble evaluating linebackers from film. The films on linebackers always concentrate on the guy lining up the running back and making the big hit. It makes for an impressive showcase for a linebacker to show him playing aggressively and making a hit and tackle. The problem is, the films don't really show how linebackers have to play.

The typical linebacker film has the linebacker playing in the middle of the field with the ball going to the running back. The linebacker waits for an opening and then shows a burst of speed to get to the back, standing him up and bringing him down with a thud. Nice.

What does a linebacker in college have to do? Rarely does he get the opportunity to lay a guy out like you see on the films. His first job is just to pursue the ball carrier and get him to the ground. Big hit usually not necessary. The films do an OK job of showing pursuit-and-tackling. Or at least, they usually do. Usually you can see how a linebacker pursues and whether or not he's a sure tackler when he gets where he's going.

After that is where the films fail. They almost never show the linebacker performing his second task, which is to drop back into pass coverage and defend the running back, tight end, or over-the-middle receiver. You just never see it, and it's such a big part of a linebacker's game in college, especially if the linebacker wants to play every down. If you see it, it's because he managed to get an interception, or a big hit after allowing the catch. Interceptions are nice, but I'd rather see five plays of a linebacker sticking like glue to a running back and not giving the QB the option to throw at him.

Evaluating a linebacker without seeing his coverage skills is like evaluating a baseball pitcher without seeing his curveball. How could you even begin? How much confidence could you have in whatever conclusion you drew?

The third most important part of a linebacker's game is to be able to shed blocks and still make a play. Film rarely shows a linebacker actually being blocked, I suppose it's because those kinds of plays aren't very spectacular. You can't usually get a big hit when you're just trying to get a lineman off of you so you can get any kind of hit. You almost never see this.

To continue the analogy, now you're evaluating your pitcher without seeing a curve or his 3rd pitch.*

There are other aspects of being a linebacker, such as being a situational blitzer. The films often show a linebacker blitzing and mauling the quarterback, so that's all good, but this is done primarily on pure athletic ability. So much of the linebacker game is mental, but the films focus on showing the athlete. This is what makes it so hard to differentiate the films of one very good athlete from the films of the three or four other very good athletes you're watching.

The good news is that the coaches know a lot more than we simple observers know. They see these guys play actual games rather than select plays, and can see everything these guys can do. They can make better evaluations than we can.

It looks like LSU will be picking up a commitment from a linebacker out of Florida today. His film is like all the others, but we have on pretty good authority that he is the top rated out-of-state linebacker left on LSU's board, so we'll be very happy to have him.

*Analogy does not apply to knuckleball pitchers.

Saban Roughs Up the Media Again

If it makes it to this blog, I guess it's not news. I didn't know about Nick Saban's weird rant about scholarship numbers until I got into my car to go to work yesterday. The radio was abuzz about it.

In case you haven't heard, at his post-Spring press conference, Nick Saban was asked how he was going to make the scholarship numbers work out, considering he has too many people on scholarship now to add 25 more in the Fall and still be at the 85 limit. His response started with the statement that they have a plan, but it didn't end there.

He got really worked up about the question and was clearly bothered by it. He then said, "The media doesn't need to know and the fans don't need to know. The fans don't want to know." The exchange continued uncomfortably thereafter, with Saban clearly again bothered by a journalist's intrusiveness. The journalist in question was not some rookie or a national media plant. It was Birmingham beat writer Ian Rapaport, who is very Bama-friendly but appears to have gotten under Nick Saban's skin more than once.

Two things about this incident struck me. First, it's not that Saban refuses to answer the question that is really troubling. It's the way he refuses to answer it. It's his tone and his body language, which denotes an air of hostility. Les Miles refuses to answer certain questions to. The man has never honestly answered a question about a player injury except when the injury has ended the player's season. He refused for several months to ever say when Ryan Perrilloux would rejoin the team last season, and then quietly reinstated him at the start of Fall Practice. His manner of refusing to divulge information does not come off quite as disrespectfully as Saban's refusals to answer questions.

Saban is by most accounts a pretty smooth recruiter, which is why it is so surprising that he is so stiff and uncomfortable in front of media. And this was friendly media. I have always heard that when he wants to be charming, he can charm anyone and any crowd, but he gets downright surly with the media, which is where most people see him.

I also think he's wrong about the fans not caring what his plan for dealing with scholarship numbers is. After all, if a major beat writer asked the question, it's probably because the beat writer believes his readers are interested in the answer. Now, many of them, if faced with the response "I have a plan that I won't talk about", would probably be satisfied at least for the time-being, knowing they would eventually find out one way or another. But they care. They're not indifferent to the answers to questions like, "Who are going to be the players on the roster when we play a game?" And that's what the question really is.

Let me just say that I think it's an absolute right of a college football coach not to divulge sensitive information about his team and his players. That's a different thing from saying it's a good idea to hold back certain information, but if a college coach wants to keep information about his program out of the media, I don't think the media is right to claim they need the information for any reason.

This brings me to my second thought about this. Not only does this incident illustrate one of the key differences between Nick Saban and Les Miles, it also illustrates a difference between the LSU fan base and the Alabama fan base. The difference is that I think the Alabama fan base takes a more proprietary view towards their team than does the LSU fan base. By this I mean that the Bama fans feel more ownership of their team than we do of ours. I think there are good effects of this and bad effects of this.

Among the good effects are that the fans continue to come out in droves even when the team is not being successful. The fans continue to identify with the team, buy merchandise, follow the team, travel for road games, and generally care even when the team is losing. If not for this effect, I really don't think Bama draws 92,000 for a Spring Game last year, and I don't think Bama draws in the recruiting class they got in 2008. LSU fan activity dropped off considerably during the Hallman years and the latter Dinardo years, and the team reached a doldrums (particularly in the Hallman years) that led to a lot of fan apathy.

The bad effects are that the fans demand information and accountability. They feel they have a right to know what is going on with the program, and if they don't like it, they want things changed. They can also turn on a coach in a heartbeat. See Shula, Mike. Saban, though he is a good coach, is also a control freak. He is not comfortable with the idea of anyone else but him thinking they have a right to control the team or demand changes. He doesn't even let his assistants talk about the team publicly for fear he will lose message discipline. (Because, as we've seen, Saban is the master of media manipulation and discipline). Presidential candidates aren't this obsessive about controlling message discipline.

These factors are some of the reasons I was skeptical back in 2006 that Saban was a good match for Bama. At LSU, he was allowed to control the message without running into a lot of opposition. He was allowed to be surly with reporters without anyone really caring that much. He was allowed to disregard invitations for public appearances. Here, I don't think he will be able to do those things without taking a little damage. Now, the media and the fans will tolerate it if they win, but only if they win a lot. If 2009 rolls around and Bama is still looking average, the fans could get pretty surly themselves.

The Book on Perrilloux

I've talked before about how I think people overstate the case against Ryan Perrilloux.  Yes, he gets in a lot of trouble here, but it's always penny-ante stuff.  He's never been arrested, never been charged with a crime of violence, never been implicated in drugs, never been implicated in theft, and never actually let his grades slip so much as to be academically ineligible.  

I know at least one of my commenters says that's because a lot of other stuff he's done has been covered up, but that falls under the rubric of "unverifiable" and I don't know if we should put any credence in it.  The young man certainly draws a lot of attention, whatever he does.  You sometimes read threads on a message board that says things like, "I saw Ryan in class today.  He looked normal."

I recently read a fairly balanced article about the LSU program and in particular Ryan Perrilloux, by CNNSI writer Stewart Mandel.  He quotes Miles saying something I've said before here.  He said that critics in the media, and on the message boards I suppose, "don't know what goes on in our program."  He defended his handling of the Perrilloux situation, "The suspension itself was a tremendous punishment."

I often think to myself, why does this young man, who still has never done any truly unforgivable thing, draw so much ire from people?  I mean, the kid has never killed kittens or stuck a gun in someone's face (though some commenters may wonder if he has and we just don't know about it).  Yet, of all the discipline issues in the college football world, including another troubled young QB like Stephen Garcia at South Carolina, Perrilloux gets the most attention, and it's for things like skipping classes or trying to use a fake idea to get into a casino at 20 years old.  Why is he hounded?  Why is his every move watched by the college football media and fans to wait for his next failure?  

Why do people expect that failure to come?  Yes, in the last year, he has had a hard time staying out of trouble, but his previous two years at LSU was uneventful as far as we know.  Granted, in those years he was a 3rd string quarterback and not expected to play, but we never heard anything about any legal problems or suspensions for skipping class.  If he can stay out of trouble for his first two years, why not his last two?

And why is Ryan "LSU's Britney Spears", and analogy I like, by the way, because Britney (like Ryan) is expected to fail and constantly watched for signs of failure.

I think the answer is two-fold.  Ryan Perrilloux is disrespected as much as he is for two reasons, both of them being his own fault.  The first reason is his statement upon committing that he was hoping to win the start his first year and maybe win 4 Heismans.  That really set him off on the wrong foot with LSU fans and with the team, and set the tone for his whole career thus far at LSU.

The second reason is his implication in the counterfeiting operation.  He was never charged, mind you, and was never accused of being any kind of a ring leader.  We don't really know much of anything about it, but I think the most reasonable sounding explanation that I have heard is that some of his friends/family/associates were heavily involved and Ryan may have received some benefits from it and/or known about it.  Counterfeiting is a serious crime, but being on the periphery of it is not particularly serious in and of itself.  What made this so important for Ryan was just how strange it is.  You just don't hear about football players being implicated in this sort of thing, at least not until after their careers have been over for decades.

Without those two things, we have a high-level athlete who tried to gain entry into a casino illegally, got into an altercation with a bar bouncer, and skipped some classes and meetings.  Hardly stuff to write home about or even worry about if you ask me.  

This is not to suggest that those things didn't happen or that they aren't legitimately things that should be added to the Perrilloux equation.  I just think that those are the things that set Ryan Perrilloux apart from other young athletes who have gotten into a few scrapes of minor trouble, nothing to justify the scrutiny he has received.  I doubt anyone will ever actually forget those things, but if he can manage to get the other things turned around and stay turned around, he will be a special quarterback we can hopefully remember very fondly when his playing career here at LSU is over.

Deepest Conference in the NCAA?

I was listening to talk radio again yesterday, and I heard some actual substantive football talk for the first time in a while.  Tony Curry, who does not offend me generally, said that the SEC this year is the deepest conference in America, and the deepest it has been in a long time.

Really?  Well, Tony Curry is entitled to his opinion, and I'm not going to criticize his intelligence for it, but I think he's incorrect here.  In fact, I think the SEC is going to be significantly down from last year, when we had 10 teams end the season bowl-eligible.  I doubt we even flirt with that again.

Next year I think the SEC will have a decided underclass again, which is the usual state of affairs.  What made last year so special was that South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Arkansas all put together pretty good teams that could beat anyone on any given day.  I expect that only Mississippi State will be able to do it again next year among that list.

South Carolina, Vandy, Kentucky, and Arkansas all lose a lot of good players and don't have the depth or recruiting to replace them.  In particular, let's look at Kentucky and Arkansas.  Kentucky loses its quarterback, 4 of its top 5 receivers, its top running back, and its best defensive player.  And those are just the guys I can identify immediately.  Kentucky's depth chart was not littered with 4- and 5-star players.  They are not going to be able to replace guys like Andre Woodson, Keenan Burton, Jacob Tamme, Raphael Little, and Wesley Woodyard.  Kentucky should take a step down.

Arkansas is even more obviously going to trend down.  They lose their only really dangerous skill position players.  Guys like Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, Peyton Hillis, and Marcus Monk made this team dangerous.  Even with Marcus Monk mostly out of the equation last season, they still lose their top 4 receivers.  They have some young players who show promise, but you just don't lose that much productivity, plus install a new offense and a new defense, and expect not to lose a little bit.

Those two teams are clear candidates to take a step down, but Vandy and USC also lose productive players.  Vandy will have an offensive lineman selected in the first round of the NFL draft, and its best wide receiver in its history is going to the NFL as well.  USC no longer has anyone named Brinkley on the team, and its solid running back tandem is now a solo job.  They return dangerous wideout Kenny McKinley, but have never managed to find a consistent quarterback to throw to him.  South Carolina had a really good 2007 recruiting class, but they're probably a year away from making any real noise.

That's 4 teams out of 12 that I think are not going to be as good as they were last year, and I can only identify one team that I think will make a significant step up.  Ole Miss was a young team last year with a lot of talent at wide receiver, defensive line, and linebacker.  Their QB play should be much improved, and if they can find a running back to replace BenJarvis Green-Ellis (5-star recruit Enrique Davis is a good place to start looking).  Their young wide receivers made some serious plays last year, and if they get consistent quarterback play out of Jevan Snead they can have a very good offense.  I think Ole Miss is a bowl team, but they're really the only team to appear on the verge of stepping up.

We all know that Florida and Georgia look like they're going to be really good.  LSU looks like it will be just as good if our quarterback situation resolves in the way I hope it will.  Tennessee and Auburn both look solid, though perhaps less so than in years past.  Bama, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss look like they are likely to be bowl teams, but that's really about it.  I think the SEC will be good next year, but not as good as last year.