Giff Smith was a D line coach and a fine recruiter. Giff Smith had been on the staff since 2004 and never put together a class like that--in fact, the 2006 class was pretty bad.
Collins was recruiting coordinator/personnel director for the 2006 season/2007 class (Feb signing date remember). He was on staff for that one year.
I give you those facts and let you draw your own conclusion as to whether or not Giff Smith was the "mastermind."
The 2006 class was bad because we were on probation for APR issues
The NCAA placed Georgia Tech on two years of probation Thursday for using 17 academically ineligible athletes in four sports, including 11 in football.
www.espn.com
During “Flunkgate”, we under-recruited offensive linemen and it hurt us. Possibly even before. Detractors of Johnson say “he had that great 2007 class”. He also won with a thin OL, and had walk-ons in some positions. He worked around a lot of gaps in the roster, and he deserves credit for that.
Everyone involved is going to take some credit for a successful recruiting class, but the players recruited seem to say it was Smith. There were a lot of good recruiters on Gailey’s staff, and they all deserve credit
Did Collins reproduce that same class elsewhere? More importantly, did that 2007 bump in recruiting follow him around?
I’ll add that Collins had a reputation as a good recruiter. He lost that reputation over the last few years because of talent evaluation. Until Giff Smith went to the NFL, he had a track record of good classes and a reputation as a great recruiter.
When we hired Collins, I thought “I’d always heard it was Smith, but Collins says it was him, and he has a reputation in the media”. It hasn’t panned out, though. And some of our best recruits were tied to Choice or other coaches. I have my doubts about how big Collins’ personal impact was now.
(Jonathan Dwyer is one of scores of players who passed through Georgia Tech thanks to Giff Smith.) There were no pictures of Giff Smith in the image bank, which is probably the way it should be for a defensive line coach, even at an ACC school...
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