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I have a different view of it Augusta. I've been a Tech fan for a while and have closely followed recruiting since the late 90's. During Gailey's first few years his recruiting classes were ripped apart by Tech fans who had become used to competing with the big boys for our players. As time went on however and he developed his staff and connections in the south east his recruiting took a sharp turn for the better and in 07 and 08. My argument would be that he figured out how to recruit to GT and in fact his 07 and what was leading to his 08 class were more in line with what we should expect with recruiting as they correlate better with where O'Leary left the program. Comparing Johnson to the first 5 years of Gailey and drawing the conclusion that he faired similarly so this must be GT's ceiling or expectation in regards to recruiting is simply wrong in my view as Gailey was seen as a really poor recruiter and had taken a significant step back during his first 5 years in terms of recruiting. As I said earlier to judge the ability of tech to recruit based off the first 5 years of Gailey and the entirety of Johnson does nothing but show where our floor should be. Neither were considered strong recruiters although Gailey did turn that around.
'08 was trending towards a high 30's/low 40's ranking before he was fired. He found lightning in a bottle in '07, and it's possible he could have replicated it had he been given the chance. We will never know that. As I have said, I provided data, and the data doesn't really support your narrative or the CPJ defenders narrative, but rather, paints a picture somewhat in the middle. As for your assertion that this is where the floor should be, I'd say you are correct. I'm willing to bet that both CCG and CPJ would have been better recruiters had the GTAA and former ADs kept pace with program spending. When they allowed us to become the second lowest spender in the ACC, they hamstrung our program. It's a wonder that either coach was able to recruit decent players at all.