I see a lot of people saying that the snub caused all this, or that our staff doesn't recruit well enough. That's all BS. I'm not even going to address the snub, that was last year, we have a different football team this year. As for recruiting, here's the deal. We recruit at a high enough level to win a national championship. We consistently have outrecruited Michigan and Washington, who played in the national championship last year. I don't think we have the NIL budget to consistently land top 10 classes. I think we are going to live in that 10-20 area, which is good enough. No amount of different coaches on this staff will lead to us landing a top 5 class. We literally do not have the money for it, so just forget about it. But money is not the issue. Georgia Tech and Boston College both recruit a bunch of players that we would never even offer, but because they actually developed their players, they both kicked our ass. Michigan and Ohio State is another perfect example. Michigan has never recruited on the level of Ohio State. Ohio State has always had way more money to throw around. Yet, because of their superior coaching and development of players, Michigan took the rivalry back and won a national championship. Now, Ohio State has built possibly the most expensive CFB roster ever constructed, and they are probably going to wipe the floor with Michigan this year. We cannot do what Ohio State is doing, we do not have the money for it. We can however, do what Michigan did, and develop our recruits into elite players. Michigan is the blueprint we can follow. We will never have the money to recruit with Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, etc. Our donor base is just not as big as those schools. We have to win with development, and that is precisely what we are not doing. I also see people complaining that we relied too heavily on the portal. That is also not the issue. Last year's team was built through the portal, and we were one of the best teams in the country before the Travis injury. Miami, who is probably going to murder us this year, is also built heavily through the portal. Their QB, RB, entire DL, and star LB are all from the portal. You can win through the portal if you choose the right guys who are hungry and develop them properly. So what is the solution? If these trends continue, we need to clean house with this coaching staff. Forget about recruiting, we have a decent enough NIL budget and that's all that matters in recruiting. What we need are coaches who can properly develop our players. We have enough talent on this roster to be way better than we are. We need better coaches. Norvell needs an OC. Atkins has shown zero ability to teach our line how to run block. Even last year, run blocking was the weakness of the team, and we probably would have been one dimensional in a playoff game, and probably would have lost. Keeping Atkins for recruiting is asinine. We have a bunch of 5th year seniors on this roster who still can't block. Atkins has not developed our players. He needs to go. Thomsen obviously needs to go, our tight ends are god awful. If the d-line doesn't improve rapidly, Papuchis and Haggins need to go. Shannon obviously needs to go, the linebackers are completely lost. I think Fuller may need to go as well. Teams have figured out his weakness, and he hasn't adapted. Teams have figured out that we always keep the box too light, and we don't communicate effectively when there is pre-snap motion. Until he adapts, we will continue to get gashed on defense. His system has 2 major weaknesses, and they've been figured out. Storms also needs to go. No excuse for us being pushed around by GT and BC. Barring a dramatic change in trajectory, this is going to a very bad season, and we need to fire a bunch of coaches. Forget about recruiting, we need coaches who can develop the players that we recruit. It should be obvious from the last 2 losses that development trumps recruiting every time.
