Again, you are wrong. See the other post about talent.

I'd say the D has been legit top 10 to 20. In 2004, the defense was legit top 5. It played the likes of Auburn and USC, the two best teams in the country, and USC likely one of the top offensive team in the modern era, holding both to half their season average points (24 and 16), and also very good O teams in WVU, Miami, and UVA. If you can't come away by watching that VT D perform against the best in the country and don't realize how good they were, then you're blind. In the 2005 and 2006, the D's were also top 10. Maybe not the top D as it was statisically ranked, but definitely top 10. The D was not top 10 in 2002 and 2003, and not in 2009-2011, but they were still top 20 with the exception of the 2003, and 2010 teams. There is the NFL draft and stats to back that up.

Quote Originally Posted by amptech View Post
ON UGA, I just disagree with you. You appear to equate "peak" with average. Yes young QBS can play like crap one game and like an nfler the next. Stafford played like crap the 1st half of our game and like an nfler the 2nd. It happens.

On the talent gap, ask yourself how many of our offensive players could have beat out UGA players and the answer is very few. Again it's not what they did vs Kentucky, it is what they were capable of doing if they had played their best.

They had more talent, we had a chance to win we had the lead and if the D gets one stop especially after the onside kick then we may well win. But after the score, onside kick and score the adrenlin carrying UGA players to play at a level we could not match even on full adrenlin.

On your other point, I think you are really missing it on the relationship between the offense and defense. How does a top 25 (more like top 30 during the time of the games we are discussing) win vs better teams? You nailed it, you find something you can do with the solid players you can get and play to that strength. After all we have agreed that with where we are talent wise, we don't have the talent to have both a top flight offense and defense so I think you are contradicting yourself there.

Bud and Frank are rare ones in what they get out of our defensive players. But don't assume there is a Bud for our offense out there waiting to be hired, there is not.

Further,and this is not meant as a knock on our D but on your and other view of them, our D really never has been top 10 as there is a huge difference in what stats say and who is really the team that can reach down and make the necessary plays to win a game against good talent. We had leads in the 2nd halves of most of those games that burn us the most. They were in the hands of our best and it didn't work out.

Our D is good but not so good as you seem to think and you are arbitrarily blaming the O for losses that if the D was as good as you say, would not have happened.

Our O does as well as the talent of the weakest units. That is what it does. When our D fails we try something else. But the idea we have the talent to do both against top competition, well we agree we don't have that.