Our offensive line should be much better this year than last year, but I’ll give you the advantage there, as I am impressed by the amount of experience you guys have. I’m a little less sure about giving you an advantage at LB. Eric Norwood and Micah Johnson are comparable players (both first-team All-SEC a year ago), and while we lose Jasper Brinkley and Marvin Sapp, we get Rodney Paulk back, who missed last year due to injury but started the year before. We probably won’t lose too much of a beat at LB.

As far as the coaching comparison goes, while USC has handled UK pretty well under Spurrier, there are still lots of question marks about whether USC has underachieved during the Spurrier tenure, whereas I’d say it’s fairly clear that Brooks has done a great job at UK considering the situation he walked into. UK and Brooks actually have a slightly overall better record since 2006 at 23-16 compared to our 21-17, although that’s partially attributable to our tougher OOC scheduling. I’d say that all speaks pretty well for Brooks.