I just looked at some data

[ilovetheoption]

This is an interesting thread, but I think it is still overlooking the main question.

London failed because he, while he could recruit, he couldn't coach a lick. Let's look at the anti-London: Bill Snyder at KSU. He built a superior program there despite being out-recruited by almost everybody. You think Paul's national recruiting rankings were bad? Go over to 247 and look at Kansas State under Synder. He specialized in a run heavy shotgun spread (as I believe I've mentioned here before) with a cast of 2 and 3 star players that almost no one else wanted mixed in with the occasional 4 star player. I compared his recruiting with Paul's in a previous post. KSU had higher average stars in one year out of the 11. Synder ended up 215-117-1. It ain't all recruiting by a long shot.

Mmmm, I agree that London had other problems as well as not recruiting the lines, but I'm not sure Snyder is the example you want to use.

K-State mined the JUCO ranks like nobody else under Snyder. There's just no way in hell that a school like GT could hire Snyder. His teams were an allstar squad of illiterate reprobates (perhaps slight exaggeration, there)

 

[alagold]

This is an interesting thread, but I think it is still overlooking the main question.

London failed because he, while he could recruit, he couldn't coach a lick. Let's look at the anti-London: Bill Snyder at KSU. He built a superior program there despite being out-recruited by almost everybody. You think Paul's national recruiting rankings were bad? Go over to 247 and look at Kansas State under Synder. He specialized in a run heavy shotgun spread (as I believe I've mentioned here before) with a cast of 2 and 3 star players that almost no one else wanted mixed in with the occasional 4 star player. I compared his recruiting with Paul's in a previous post. KSU had higher average stars in one year out of the 11. Synder ended up 215-117-1. It ain't all recruiting by a long shot.

I believe he also went heavy on JC and other transfers so the guys coming in were not pure FR so he could reload fairly quickly..

 

[takethepoints]

Mmmm, I agree that London had other problems as well as not recruiting the lines, but I'm not sure Snyder is the example you want to use.

K-State mined the JUCO ranks like nobody else under Snyder. There's just no way in hell that a school like GT could hire Snyder. His teams were an allstar squad of illiterate reprobates (perhaps slight exaggeration, there)

Yeah, I know. The thing is that his recruiting averages, which seems to be what people are going by here, were … well, not too good. And, despite some of the players failings in the classroom, he seemed to reach them without a whole lot of trouble.