I know that the common perception among GT fans is that recruiting rankings don't matter, but is anybody else a little concerned about recruiting.
I know Tech has a great history of taking recruits and showing that they were always great players, but man we seem to not be getting any of the 4 star rated recruits..
Our last 4 star recruit was step durham in 2014. We got zero in 2015, we currently have zero in 2016, and we got zero in 2013.
2012 had two, Justin T and Francis.
We are sitting number 88 currently rivals and we are really low on the other sites, even our average per student athlete is low... I know we have a small class, I know we face tougher restrictions (Which I think is crap), but I little concerned about our ability to win over kids.
I am concerned as well. Tech does face a little more of an uphill battle with the academic requirements needed to get in compared to many other schools, especially factories. With that said, I also think it is a little bit of a cop-out used by our fans and coaches for not recruiting better. IMO, Tech has some things going against it in the fact PJ is never going to be a Dabo rah-rah, cool with the recruits, type of person, its just not his thing. Which is fine, but it doesn't really help with sealing some of the bigger names who want a coach they can bond with. Also, the lack of majors that kids can choose from, and been mentioned several times on pretty much every board, the majors that we can hide players and push them through like a lot of other schools have. Most kids know and or are told by other coaches that Tech requires some effort on the education side and lets be honest, majority of big name recruits now days have no interests in having to work in the classroom. Not that everyone isn't concerned with academics, because there are some, but those who are, we are fighting for with schools like ND, Stanford, Ivy League schools, etc that are looking for Blue Chip players who are also smart.
With the current staff, I just don't think we have a strong enough recruiting group to bring in those 5-6 really great (4-5 star) players mixed in a class consistently to keep us competitive. Winning would always help, and if we could have had another great season this year, we might have had a chance to really gain some ground with good recruiting classes with back to back great seasons. But since this year was an absolute bust, the momentum and positive energy we had going from last year pretty much went down the toilet. The only silver lining is you can tell the recruits now you're obviously going to be playing early, because we need all the help we can get.
I know recruiting here will never be easy and that's understandable, but I still think we could be doing better than we are.