Do you need to be an elite recruiter to win, or can someone who coaches bring mediocre players up to an elite level? It's something that gets discussed from time to time when a team with seemingly subpar talent breaks through and plays with the big boys, or when a coach who can recruit well but might be suspect with talent development has a double-digit win season. Both certainly do happen at times. Now, it's painfully obvious that coaches who can do both are the ones who typically find themselves at the top of the mountain most often, so it's not really a zero sum game and being able to do one or the other very well is no guarantee of success. Still, at the end of the day, is one more important than the other? Well, I may not offer up a definitive answer, but I'll do my best.
Boise State. Utah State. UCF. TCU before the Big 12. Houston. Memphis. These are all clearly examples of a coach doing more with less, but they also faced lesser opponents. Justin Fuente has continued his success at Virginia Tech, although not at the level of his success at Memphis. Boise State has had success even after coaching changes. TCU maintained success in the Big 12, but the recruiting also correspondingly improved with that move. Houston has continued to have strong success in life after Tom Herman. It's complicated to evaluate these teams because of the level of competition and usual revolving door of coaches that maintain a relative degree of success. These are the types of coaches and programs people like to point to, but seeing an Urban Meyer come out of those situations is more the exception than the norm.
So instead of focusing on these situations, I'm going to shift to the elite recruiters who don't have the type of success one might expect. Butch Jones is an obvious one to Vol fans. Although he had a couple of relatively successful seasons, top 5, 10, and 15 classes never led to anything better than a nine win season. Player development was an obvious issue. That is almost universally agreed upon. Let's look at Brian Kelly then. His recruiting has been excellent at Notre Dame. Only once during his time at Notre Dame has Kelly brought in a class outside of the top 15, and yet that has led to two 10 win seasons and one national championship appearance in eight seasons and a 67% winning percentage. That's an average of 8.625 wins per season. The results remain mostly mediocre despite consistent recruiting success. Some defenders of Kelly would point to the schedule they play, but it's worth noting that their strength of schedule averages out to roughly 20th nationally and has been as low as 32nd and never higher than 7th in his eight seasons. That's roughly on par with Clemson over that same period and clearly worse than programs like Alabama, Auburn, and Georgia. Essentially, what I'm saying is that recruiting alone can only get you so far. You have to turn the talent in place into something elite.
Compare that to a coach like Mike Gundy, who over that same timeframe has landed one top 25 class, has won 75% of his games with six 10 win seasons, and has had an average strength of schedule of 19.25. That means comparable strength of schedule, improved winning percentage, but significantly lesser recruiting results. Gundy and staff are clearly maximizing the potential of the players on the roster, getting the most out of them through development and coaching. Another interesting example is Dan Mullen, whose recruiting classes averaged out to 28th nationally per season with a strength of schedule of 24.75 and a 62% winning percentage. With the exception of maybe Arkansas, Mississippi State had arguably the worst recruiting average in the SEC West, yet managed to be a perennial winning program under Mullen's guidance in spite of it. Again, we're looking at a comparable strength of schedule to Notre Dame, a comparable winning percentage to Brian Kelly, yet a significantly weaker annual recruiting average.
Now, having talked about all of this, I'm obviously making the case for development over recruiting, but what about coaches that we know can do both over a sustained timeframe. I'll start with Clemson's Dabo Swinney. Swinney has won 80% of his games over the last eight seasons against a strength of schedule that averaged 22nd nationally. In doing so, Swinney's recruiting classes have averaged 15.5 nationally. During this period, Clemson has won 6 division titles, 4 conference titles, made three playoff appearances, 2 national title games, and won a national title. While he's recruiting at roughly the same level as Brian Kelly, Swinney has maximized that talent much better than Kelly has done over the same time. Now, having said all of this, I would be remiss if I didn't address the best in the business at winning right now, Nick Saban. Over the same eight year period, Saban's Alabama teams have won an average of 89.2% of the games they played against a strength of schedule that averaged 3rd nationally while recruiting all but one top ranked class nationally. During that period he won 6 division titles, 4 conference titles, participated in every college football playoff, made 5 national title game, and won 4 national titles. If we accept the earlier examples that prove that coaching matters more than recruiting, it becomes abundantly clear that Saban, like Swinney, excels at both.
At least early on, we have clear proof that Tennessee's new head coach and incoming staff can recruit, but it's becoming increasingly likely that these are coaches who can also develop talent as a result of the other coaches they've worked with at various times, coaches like Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher, Kirby Smart, Gus Malzahn, and Dabo Swinney. It comes down to development of coaches as well as the development of players, and the ability to identify talent, bring it in, and maximize it. Will Tennessee's staff check off all these boxes in the end? Only time will tell, but it's safe to say they've learned their craft from some of the best in the business.
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