Everything I have seen in this post has contributed. Not sure if it has been said, but I would also add the crap show of offensive staff since 2010 with the jury pending on the current guys. Weiss, Pease, Roper, Phillips, Hill, Leak, Verducci, Lewis & Davis to name a few were all horrible hires and simply could not develop players whether it was on them or Muschamp meddling. It shows on the trail and this is why things went south once rock skipper was QB again. There was no way to fix him and make things better. no one was behind him because everyone that was around during the Muschamp Probation years was either broken or transferred. I'm sure our low balling assistants didn't help find better candidates. Then when they are let go for not producing they do nothing but bash us constantly as if they were wronged when it was about them sucking.
We all want to sit around and say we are UF and should get a top ten yearly, but our name no longer commands that. While the decline started under Urban, Muschamp took a sledge hammer to the program. The guys that signed yesterday were in 6th grade the last time we had a full season of a functional offense. That is what they know and who they see us as. that's only going to change if Mac puts a good product on the field next year or we will be in the same position sounding more and more like Miami fans talking about the good ole days. Once we start passing the eye ball test we will start climbing the ladder again with recruits. Having a top QB recruiting like crazy for us will help next year and Franks did us no favors in refusing to do so. Looking good winning and loosing will go a long way in helping us take back over our share of a state that now every program tries to recruit rather than sticking to their region. It's no longer just FSU, UF, and Miami going for these guy and we have to beat back everyone now. TV contracts, exposure for the smaller schools, and money have changed everything and Foley needs to get with the times and realize it.
Mac may turn out to be a good coach. Hopefully sooner than later because I am not sure how much patience UF has. He unfortunately reminds me of Dabo. Had the "awe shucks" attitude and it took him a while to figure things out. His first couple recruiting classes were not highly ranked and then one day it clicked and now he has a QB and it paid off. Fans wanted to run him off numerous times, but now love him. The problem is that it took him almost 10 years to pull it all together. We don't have that type of time in a state that is recruited by everyone and has two other historically great programs. They had that luxury due to being mediocre for 20 years and in a state with a crap rival minus a few years.