I'd love to get a coach that's a better recruiter.
But, realistically only a few coaches are good at recruiting
and everything else a HC has to do. CPJ isn't a great recruiter. But he is a great game coach (was?). Last few years have been disappointing. But to me it seems naive to think we can just 'get a better coach'.
For example; James Franklin gets a lot of press for being a "great recruiter" and good coach. The 4 years before he got to Vandy their average class ranking was 66, he elevated it to #43 his best year, after he left it's been ~50. (He also jumped ship after a few years and Vandy is 21–33 since.)
So, maybe, if we got a coach whose
best skill was recruiting, we could move up 20 spots on average, with the occasional better class. Have us around 30th in recruiting, that's still never going to be enough to out-talent Clemson, UGA and Miami... So, we also need that coach to be a better teacher/game coach than Dabo, Richt and Smart, to get our Top 30 talent to beat their Top 10 talent. CCG got some good players, but did nothing with them. He had Calvin Johnson and managed 6 points against Wake!
Serious question- Who is the coach that:
- Is available
- We can afford
- Will come to GT
- Can raise our recruiting rankings significantly
- Coach up those recruits well enough to beat Clemson, UGA, Miami and VT
- Coach the game well enough to beat Clemson, UGA, Miami and VT
- Will stay more than a few years (Or not leave a mess when he goes.)
- Keep our APR on track
- Not get us NCAA sanctions
- Win as big or bigger than CPJ did (ACC championship and Orange Bowl victory)
That's not an argument to keep CPJ if he's not fulfilling expectations. But we should be realistic about what our next coach is likely to be able to do.