There’s the science part of the experiment, and the engineering part of the experiment. There’s also a question whether there is more than one hypothesis going:
1. Recruiting is the largest component of NCAA football success, and GT has underemphasized it
2. There is a new wave of players today, and they respond to training differently. Practices need to be updated to fit a new culture
1 and 2 are correlated in Collins’ mind—you have to update what training is to attract the next generation of stars. We should think about how correlated they are.
Let’s look at the first hypothesis. For the science part, the question might be “how big a percentage of team success is occupied recruiting success?”
THESE ARE NUMBERS, AND THEY’RE FAKE, but I’m just breaking down the ideas.
I also just wrote down some numbers and saw what I got—there wasn’t a plan.
Let’s say we have the following breakdown of components
| Component | Weight |
| Recruiting | 0.4 |
| S&C | 0.2 |
| Practice | 0.2 |
| Gameday coaching | 0.1 |
| Scheme | 0.1 |
Recruiting isn’t the majority in this breakdown, but it’s the biggest single component. How much can you skimp on the other components to build up recruiting?
Let’s plug in some numbers and see what happens. Let’s say this is Collins over the last three years
| Component | Weight | Score | Weighted Grade |
| Recruiting | 0.4 | 0.8 | 0.32 |
| S&C | 0.2 | 0.75 | 0.15 |
| Practice | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| Gameday coaching | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.01 |
| Scheme | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.05 |
| Total | | | 0.63 |
Let’s say this is Johnson (we could do Gailey too):
| Component | Weight | Score | Weighted Grade |
| Recruiting | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.24 |
| S&C | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.1 |
| Practice | 0.2 | 0.75 | 0.15 |
| Gameday coaching | 0.1 | 1 | 0.1 |
| Scheme | 0.1 | 0.9 | 0.09 |
| Total | | | 0.68 |
In this one, Scheme comes out ahead. I rated recruiting an 0.6 for Johnson because “he recruited to his scheme”. I could have moved it lower. I also think the low grade in recruiting isn’t a zero. I gave Collins an 80% because he’s recruited really well for GT, but he’s not getting us in the top 20-top 15 range, and that’s where the 90’s are.
Anyway, from a science perspective, we can simultaneously prove that recruiting matters more than anything.
From an engineering perspective, we need to boost recruiting at Tech, while also we can’t neglect the other components.
If you look at the same idea, the “throw all your weight behind scheme” can turn out even worse.
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The second hypothesis—have a flashy practice and an cool culture, and players will come—hasn’t been proven out yet. For that, I’d say we need to get the top 20 classes. We’ve gotten close, but no cigar.
Even if I count the transfers, we’ve gotten a 5* transfer, but we haven’t gotten gamechangers on the field. (I like McGowan, but Athens got a game changing CB and a game changing TE just last year. We’re not in the big leagues in the transfer portal, either)
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This doesn’t even mean it’s a bad experiment. It can also mean that Collins hasn’t set it up as well as he needed to. He had a level to hit in recruiting—but did he hit it?
Also, if he were to bring his "low grades" up, he'd be ahead, even without scheme.
