Oh I agree but if you want to sustain being good you better bring in top talent. That's what we're seeing at UK, dip/flops in recruiting, bad luck with injuries, lack of development. Hope it turns around but a lot of work to do. Without the ability to sustain, peaks and valleys will continue.
I know we've been battling a bit on this thread....but your comment is patently wrong. There has been zero dip in UK recruiting if we use the team rankings as a proxy for talent.
- Now guys like Kiyante Goodwin, Christian Lewis, Jakobi Albert, etc....have left and maybe those ratings were not as accurate for them
- But I see a significant decline in player development year over year as more the issue than recruiting as to why we are dipping back to losing at home to USC, Mizzou, Vandy and less competitive with top tier SEC teams.
The Oline development has been abysmal. We are now to needing 2+ starters a year from portal to maintain even a lower level of Oline performance. Maybe it's loss of Schlarman....but something is way off as Jager Burton didn't have a good year yet again as he's a 4* kid.
The DBs are not developing like they did in years past. Baity, Edwards, West, Coker, etc...improved year over year.
- Lovett didn't play as good this year as last year
- Childress was an utter disaster to be frank. He probably never should have won the job
- Vito flamed out and we couldn't develop him into the top tier safety we hoped we got
Edge backers have not seen incremental improvement like Josh Allen, Boogie Watson showed in past. JJ Weaver has been really bad this year. Chris Wright wasn't a good edge rusher in his final year as well.
To me...the development of position coaches like Buffano, Chris Collins, Brad White as Edge backer position coach, Yenser, etc... has been a step back from Clinksdale, Dean Hood, Schlarman...I think we also miss Sumrall. But we can't keep letting Stoops overhaul the staff....at some point it's on him more than positional coaches.