Well it's interesting data, but there are always exceptions to the rule. There are always going to be coaches that underperform and overperform the talent level. In the long run, talent wins out.
Heupel is doing great; can he recruit well enough to stay relevant over the next 5 years? We'll see.
A simple correlation study between annual recruiting rankings and, say, FEI 3 years later would show the real story. I think we both know the answer.
The data for Tennessee is in the table I shared. It's also pretty clear in the chart--you'd just need to shift the recruiting line by 3 places.
It's also easy to add a 4-year running average. Or, we could go and get that "Talent Composite Index".
I think what you're saying in the bolded part is "yeah, the smart move is to get that coaching staff that can recruit--that's the main thing". Kirby Smart recruits better than Mark Richt did, but Smart recruits a lot better at UGA than he would at Kentucky or here. I don't think Kirby Smart or Jimbo Fisher would pull in many top 15 classes here--maybe not any. You can correlate coaching changes with recruiting rankings, but the school seems to be a bigger factor than the coach. UGA has only been outside of the top 10 in recruiting 3 times in the last 22 years--for any coach.
Recruiting is better under Smart, but UGA has pumped a lot more money into recruiting under Smart than they did under Richt. That's an arms race we can't compete in.
Do I think Deion could bring in better classes at Tech than Jimbo Fisher? Probably. Do I think he'll bring in top 10 classes here? Let's say I need to be convinced and would be really impressed by classes in the 15-20 range.
Are classes in the 15-20 range enough to beat Clemson? Yeah, with a schematic advantage, if we had one. Or occasionally, if we didn't have a schematic advantage.
Is Recruiting Ranking correlated with your AP rank? Yeah. Is recruiting ranking also correlated with other contributing factors, like the amount of revenue your AA brings in? Yeah. Are wins correlated with other factors, like how much money the school has? Yeah. Does that mean that we overrate how much recruiting ratings are tied to on the field performance? Yeah. Do we wildly overrate how much a coach's recruiting skills result in wins? Yeah.
Do I mean that coaches should ignore recruiting? No--it's like shaving. If you don't do a good job of it every day you look like a bum.