Agree with everything except the point on the recruiting. You seem to acknowledge recruiting is a problem but it deserves more of attention than you seem to want to give it. Its not so much about our recruiting compared to years past that is a problem but how much our competition has improved in recruited while we have stayed about the same. You said last year we had more 4 stars than ever. I'll concede that because I don't research back that far. However we signed 30 players last class. It was one of the largest classes in the country. Wideman and Sawyer (2 4 stars right there) should not have counted toward that class because it was their second time but they did. So even with the most 4 stars we have ever had, one of the largest classes in the country,(largest in the SEC), and 2 guys counting for the second time; we STILL had only the 8th ranked class in the SEC. So yes, you look at these ranking and say, hey, it looks like we are doing pretty okay, but not quite. We are slipping. We are getting recruits on the fact that we play in the SEC and we have needs. We are not getting enough of the QUALITY of player we need. We are getting the kind: 1. That have scholarships for better teams, that don't want to wait on the bench. 2. Have a pretty good rating but other teams are passing on them. 3. Guys no one else really wants but they showed up for camp and the coaches like what they saw that day. Also you can't just give credit for recruiting all the good players we've gotten without mentioning the high percentage of busts we have had.
But I DO agree that recruiting it doesn't justify being as bad as we are if our coaching and player development were any good. We have been relatively good on offense. We are having a down year this year in that department. Defensive Coaching has been atrocious obviously and I see that as our number 1 problem. Strength and Conditioning has been awful as well. Recruiting has been so-so but it has been getting worse and that looks to be trend. Because the fact of the matter is, it doesn't much matter WHY you lose, It doesn't matter WHY the team looks terrible on the field. If you lose a lot of games, and you consistently look bad and attempt after attempt of trying to fix the problems fails and new problems sprout up, recruits are going to be turned off by your team.
Then you throw in the fact that Steve Spurrier is in his 11th year at South Carolia. He is 70 years old, he said he thought about retiring last year, all these coaches recruiting against us and the media, and social media keep reminding these kids about this over and over. It really looks like he is not going to be around as soon as next year. It looks like that could be absolutely true to everyone. Because let's face it, Spurrier hasn't done a lot of losing in his life. He has a low tolerance for losing and he didn't come here to do that. If he starts to be a consistent loser why would he want to keep doing it? I mean, the guy has a low tolerance for quitting too, but there is only so much losing he is going to be able to take. He's a Heisman winner. Hes won a lot of championships when he was younger. He is ultra-competitive even on the golf course. If he can't win anymore the way he used to, it's going to be a clear sign for him walk away. And everyone pretty knows this and is seeing this about to happen as long as we are bad.
So to sum up I think the biggest problems the last few years to present have been: 1. Defensive coaching. 2. Strength and conditioning. 3. recruiting. The first two are things that can still be fixed although, it seems like they are having a hell of a time for the last 2 years of actually fixing it. 3. At this point I say, the only thing that can be done about it is 1. Actually fix the problems and actually start winning a bunch of games (looks bleak because even if we fix our issues most of our opponents still have better players and getting stronger and quicker is difficult and takes a lot of time, and we have been trying to get the players to play with good fundamentals and have not had hardly any success after a good long while.) 2. Adopt a completely new aggressive recruiting strategy similar to what other top teams and up and coming teams are doing. Not settling for guys just because they showed up to the camp and looked pretty good. You need to get the studs to show up to camps. (Not sure how good our current staff would be at this. I don't they have the right kind of personality otherwise we'd all ready be recruiting that way.) Either way, it one or both of the scenarios don't happen right now our recruiting is just going to continue to get worse which mean our team will continue to get worse, because no matter how good our head coach is, he can't get on the field and make plays for these guys. If they don't start making plays, winning some games, and looking like pretty good football team now. Spurrier won't be able to get the talent to do so later. We'll have to get someone else in here to crank up the recruiting efforts to a very high level and hope coaching is good as well. Than maybe we can start to build a little momentum every year so that we can get back to where we want to be.
