To me it's not so much even about what they're presently doing, but what they allowed to happen. Recruiting in roads aren't quarterly. They're laid over time, and kids in this state are as intrigued to go to places like Clemson, Osu, uga or Alabama as they are about going to one of the big 3. Even as impressive as Diaz's class was in terms of Top FL talent, they still ended up about the same ranking as us. 10-15 years ago, they would've probab;y had the #1 class because of fsu being down and us not doing well in state. The big three used to dominate, and when one team was off, the other two reaped the benefits. Now, you have two teams(UF and um) that looked great at times on the field last year and yet were watching kids leave. Yes, we are UF. But our facilities suck in comparison to basically every team in front of us, and what that recruiting budget does is allows constant contact from QC people, analysts, etc., overall giving the impression that this is the priority. We're building a baseball stadium and putting football on the back burner.
To be clear, it's not one or the other. As Douglas said, it can be, and very much is, both. Mullen has his issues, but also has an admin that has not adapted with the times and refuses to budge. Fisher found himself in a similar situation at fsu, which is one of the reasons he left. Again, we can talk about Kelly being afraid of the SEC, or Frost being drawn home, but both of those guys were thought to be at the top of our list and neither came. That doesn't happen in 2002, 2004 or 2011, imo.