If people look a little closer at recruiting, I think they would be surprised to see it's not that much more difficult to recruit better. People act like recruiting a better is impossible. How hard is it to recruit 2 tiers better than we have? Louisville, who we are playing Friday, consistently recruits in the 30's...IMO, that's where GT should be recruiting. How many more 4/5 stars are they recruiting per year? According to 247:
2018
GT (54): AVG: 0.8476, 4 Star - 2
UL (30): AVG: 0.8702, 4 Star - 4
2017
GT (48): AVG: 0.8389, 4 Star - 1
UL (34): AVG: 0.8556, 4 Star - 3
2016
GT (60): AVG: 0.8322, 4 Star - 0
UL (38): AVG: 0.8456, 4 Star - 2
2015
GT (44): AVG: 0.8446, 4 Star - 0
UL (33): AVG: 0.8540, 4 Star - 3
Total 4 Stars
GT - 3
UL - 11
On average, Louisville is only recruiting 2-3 more 4 stars than we are per year. Keep in mind, GT is recruiting with an offense that's hard to sign those 4/5 star offensive players....BUT our offense IS NOT the problem. It's more a CUMULATIVE issue. The more elite guys we can sign over a 4-5 year period, the better chance we have of putting more 4/5 star guys together. Keep in mind the bust factor of these guys. Just because we get 2 4 stars or UL gets 11 4 stars, doesn't necessarily mean that's what the teams see on the field.
GT is a school that needs to have all recruiting angles covered: Finding "diamonds in the rough", developing talent over an SAs career, sign 2-4 4/5 star players a year.
IMO, those factors along with good coaching is the formula GT needs to have in order to be successful in the space we operate in (P5 football + high level academics).