4. Some new coaches have never had this type of talent before
What would happen if Mike Leach got to coach a team full of really good college football players?
While the new Mississippi State head coach made the most noise this week over his tweet about Mitt Romney, and he didn’t have a whole lot to do with the new Bulldogs coming in, this is technically his best recruiting class in 19 years has a head coach.
Depending on what brand of recruiting rankings you believe in, this 2020 MSU class and the 2006 Texas Tech recruiting class – which didn’t turn out to be any big whoop – were both generally ranked around the mid-20s nationally. No other Leach class at Texas Tech or Wazzu was able to bust past the 30s, and most of them were around the mid-50s or worse.
Forgetting the first-time new head coaches at several places, or the ones who went from movies to TV after going from a Power Five school to a Group of Fiver, it’s a nice boost when a new coach walks into a situation with talent he couldn’t get at his old job.
Leach wasn’t exactly a killer on the recruiting trail at Washington State, but the guys he brought in for this year are way, way more talented – at least according to the various rankings – than any group Nick Rolovich ever got to coach at Hawaii.
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Lane Kiffin certainly knows what it’s like to put together a class of great talents from his brief time at Tennessee and USC, but he couldn’t get the players at Florida Atlantic like he’s getting at Ole Miss.
Missouri probably had the worst recruiting class in the SEC, but it’s still miles better than any class Eliah Drinkwitz could’ve landed at Appalachian State.
And then there’s Willie Taggart.
The new Florida Atlantic head coach is rallying to get a slew of transfers to go along with the pieces Kiffin put together, but his real effect this recruiting season was at Florida State, where the class wasn’t among the elite, but it was special compared to what Mike Norvell had at Memphis.
A few years removed, Taggart had an even bigger effect overall on …
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