- Dec 4, 2016
- 6,063
- 6,875
Many people have argued that one of the reasons that Mullen struggles at recruiting is that he's use to recruiting a lower tier prospect cause that's all he could attract at Miss St. This is the reason why Smart is so successful cause he use to recruiting blue-chippers from his time at Bama, and why Pruitt is even out recruiting him cause he was at UGA,FSU, and Bama recruiting studs there as well. I don't really buy into this theory, I just don't think Mullen connects for some reason or another. He wasn't really a great recruiter under Meyer while he was here.
On the last Gators Breakdown podcast I was listening to and they were breaking down recruiting trends. They did point out James Franklin didn't get a top 10 class until his 4th class, and I thought that was surprising. His previous 3 classes were like from 14 to 25 or something like that, but those classes were still good enough for him to be in the top 3 in his conference each of those years. A 15th rated class at Florida likely gets you 6th best in your conference at best. Franklin was an offensive coordinator at Maryland i think before head coach at Vanderbilt, definitely he was recruiting a lower tier athlete to those schools as well, but I believe he had Vandy a top 25 class while he was there. Surprising to me that it took him to his 4th class to get a top 10 class, but Penn St didn't have the best reputation when he got there and that may have had something to do with it. They also pointed out Dabo at Clemson as another one that took 3 or 4 years to get in the top 10, but once again he was probably top 2 or 3 in his conference each year as well.
Unless something drastically changes this recruiting cycle, Mullen is gonna be hard pressed to cut some assistants to replace with better recruiters for next year. Also the Cali strategy has got to be abandoned like many on here have stated, what a waste. I can understand if there one complete stud out there that shows interest in us, then by all means try and land him, but we spent to much time out there when we should've been in our on backyard. Mullen has got to figure out how to take back this state in recruiting, it's ridiculous how terrible we do in our own backyard in recruiting.
On the last Gators Breakdown podcast I was listening to and they were breaking down recruiting trends. They did point out James Franklin didn't get a top 10 class until his 4th class, and I thought that was surprising. His previous 3 classes were like from 14 to 25 or something like that, but those classes were still good enough for him to be in the top 3 in his conference each of those years. A 15th rated class at Florida likely gets you 6th best in your conference at best. Franklin was an offensive coordinator at Maryland i think before head coach at Vanderbilt, definitely he was recruiting a lower tier athlete to those schools as well, but I believe he had Vandy a top 25 class while he was there. Surprising to me that it took him to his 4th class to get a top 10 class, but Penn St didn't have the best reputation when he got there and that may have had something to do with it. They also pointed out Dabo at Clemson as another one that took 3 or 4 years to get in the top 10, but once again he was probably top 2 or 3 in his conference each year as well.
Unless something drastically changes this recruiting cycle, Mullen is gonna be hard pressed to cut some assistants to replace with better recruiters for next year. Also the Cali strategy has got to be abandoned like many on here have stated, what a waste. I can understand if there one complete stud out there that shows interest in us, then by all means try and land him, but we spent to much time out there when we should've been in our on backyard. Mullen has got to figure out how to take back this state in recruiting, it's ridiculous how terrible we do in our own backyard in recruiting.