Louisville recruiting since Petrino, per Rivals
Strong
13-73
12-42
11-29
10-48 48
Kragthorpe
09-76
08-55
07-41 57.3
Petrino
06-34
05-45
04-108 (ouch!)
03-35 55.5
Strong averages a whopping 7 spots better than Petrino. With Clint Hurtt's Miami guys! If you take out the supreme outliers since each Lville coach has a random terrible recruiting year, the averages are:
Strong 40
Kragthorpe 48
Petrino 38
Now the assumptions are Petrino doesnt give a darn about recruiting, Strong is an excellent recruiter, and Kragthorpe was terrible. With those assumptions I would expect to see a much wider disparity between the 3 coaches. But the data does not bear that out.
With such limited data, it is hard to value recruiting, but you would think Petrino was helped by actually winning, and it has been suggested he benefitted from "low admission standards". If a winning football team is the answer, I would think Strong would be having his best recruiting year this year, not his worst.
In summation, it is murky business measuring Strong's recruiting prowess, and that has been and will be a major hangup for the anti Strongs (A.S.S.es?). The questions about Strong put him at odds with the fanbase from day one, add in Gruden fever, and he is going to have to work that much harder to produce a 8-9 win season in the next two years. Can he keep Bray and Hunter? That might be telling since if he is a great recruiter, he will be able to keep them imo.
He is too risky.