Heupel Can’t Recruit

[terrypedigo]

Excuse me, you say the Hype Train?

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THE BIG ORANGE TRAIN IS ROLLING.

 

[TennEddie]

We have come farther in just 3 years than I could have ever imagined.
It’s not easy coming from where we were for over a decade and with
the NCAA hammer hanging over our head.

 

[VolatileVol]

How I laugh to think how many in here (probably a few trolls) said Heupel couldn’t recruit. Well, let’s see, that’s two 5-star QBs in three years. Fulmer was a great recruiter and even he never did that. Time to officially lay this myth to rest. Time to join the Heup train!!

It's worth noting Fulmer didn't recruit QB, as well as the coaches which followed him. We had a pretty good run of QB's in the 2010-2020 timeframe. Off the top of my head Bray was a 95 according to 247 consensus rankings. Crompton was a 97. Ainge was a 90. Clausen was a 99. I'm not certain McIntyre is better than anyone on this list despite having a slightly higher ranking than everyone besides Clausen at the moment, but Nico is probably equivalent to Clausen from a ranking standpoint. Additionally, most ranking sites seem to be ranking kids MUCH higher than they did in the past, imo.

 

[volfeeva]

Up to now I think its fair to say that CJH hasn't recruited on the same level as the more elite teams in the country. That's not a crack at him, it's just reality. I think we're getting there but it's going to be a longer ramp up than many want to admit. Look at Michigan. How many years did it take Harbaugh to put that team together? I think we're looking at a similar trajectory. We are getting there. But we can't be doing things like whiffing on entire Oline classes like we did a couple of years ago. We're DAMN lucky that so many of our COVID senior linemen decided to come back. Without that we wouldve been screwed! Our secondary and LB play has got to drastically get better as well.

I remember seeing Jim Harbaugh taking his team on a ( bonding ) trip to Rome and visit the Vatican. Maybe the Vols should go visit the pope also ?

 

[OrangeTsar]

I'd prefer that he keep his religious beliefs to himself.

He pretty much does. A person giving God credit in life isn’t offensive at all to me. It’s not like he is having an alter call at the end of the game

 

[GUNTERSVOL]

Let me answer that emphatically no. It’s not the recruiting skill either. It’s Tennessee isn’t a program like Bama or Georgia are right now. Both those programs have more instate talent and have recruited better nationally over the past two decades. Right now you’re seeing the resurgence of Tennessee as a program and the decline of Clemson as a program; Clemson kind of took over the regions that Tennessee had recruited well and built that program into a contender but it didnt happen overnight. Dabo finished second for several elite guys before they broke through and started landing them. Tennessee needs to follow a similar path and it looks to be the path they’re on currently.

Tennessee as a program will never have more talent than Georgia though. We just have to get close and be able to beat them on the field. Georgia can just recruit in state and have a top five class year in and out. Kirby is one helluva recruiter to boot; don’t want to take anything away from him as far as that.

People underestimate the impact of GA's instate talent level establishing a very high floor EVEN when they recruit nationally and dance with the instate guys until they need them. Across most if not all positions each year. They can take a pass on 30 or more every year and still have a great instate haul. We are close enough to lots of those 4 stars and highly evaluated 3 stars to fight AU, FSU, Clemson and SC and even Bama for a share of those.

This year they have elected to only sign 7 (I think) of their 28 HS guys from GA.... we have 4. And our early 25' class is heavy from there. Sometimes they don't pass but can't hold gems too... take our WR this class for example. But according to 247, GA has 39 4-5 stars and another 20+ missing being a 4 by 1 point. We have 9 4-5 stars and 2 missing it by 1 point.

It is what it is. Keeping as many of our own and stealing some of their cream and evaluating and getting the right culls is our game, everywhere, but especially in GA regionally. National stature also is what it is..... so closing ground there is key as well. A January 1 bowl win cannot be discounted in the eyes of recruits.

 

[Other_Guy]

Let's put this position into perspective. It is at best year 2 outside the PROBABILITY of bowl bans and SIGNIFICANT scholarship reductions. So that impacted the talent level you could bring in to develop for two cycles. How does anybody think serious development did not take place to get the wins we have with the greatly diminished roster and these early restrictions is beyond me.

I think the evaluation and development of available resources has been spectacular, even on the defensive side of the ball where serious roster manipulation was limited until these last few months. We have overcome the loss of serious early relationship building while under the cloud those first few cycles to get into the short straws with top targets. Not having to play the trust me card with the sophomore and juniors when early offers go out is leveling the field now.

Need large groups of top talent to be able to yield gains and meet objectives, especially with NIL now when a guys market price exceeds our value assessment, and we take a pass and move on.

I agree as a whole. Just mean 2 positions, specifically. Other positions have flourished. Hoping they have better luck with their transfers too. It's just small red flags that EVERY coach has.

 

[GoVols64]

Up to now I think its fair to say that CJH hasn't recruited on the same level as the more elite teams in the country. That's not a crack at him, it's just reality. I think we're getting there but it's going to be a longer ramp up than many want to admit. Look at Michigan. How many years did it take Harbaugh to put that team together? I think we're looking at a similar trajectory. We are getting there. But we can't be doing things like whiffing on entire Oline classes like we did a couple of years ago. We're DAMN lucky that so many of our COVID senior linemen decided to come back. Without that we wouldve been screwed! Our secondary and LB play has got to drastically get better as well.

I'm not sure we can say that it isn't on the same level. If we consider where we have been and where they have been you could make the argument that he is recruiting on the same level but it is much harder to get the talent to a school getting curb stomped by UGA and only one SEC win of note in the last three years. If we had their track record on the field I would completely agree he is behind. Given we are getting much better recruits you could argue we are capturing the recruits truly available to us. This should get better the longer we perform at a high level.

Now, NIL + Transfer Portal change the game completely and I have no way to measure success in that way.

 

[BanditVol]

How I laugh to think how many in here (probably a few trolls) said Heupel couldn’t recruit. Well, let’s see, that’s two 5-star QBs in three years. Fulmer was a great recruiter and even he never did that. Time to officially lay this myth to rest. Time to join the Heup train!!

well..in 1994, Fulmer got the no. 1 AND no. 2 QBs, which is exxtremely hard to do, and we haven't even come close to that since. But I'd put this latest run at a strong no. 2, for sure.

 

[miket4god]

I don't think it is a question so much as can Heuple recruit as it is "can he
recruit up to the likes of Saban and Smart"
He has not shown that he can recruit with Saban and Smart so far. Let's see
what happens with the full 2025 class, not just 1 player. Ala and Ga also
have comitted a 5* qb.

I am very supportive of Heuple, and I don't want to lose him, don't get me wrong. I just don't think he
matches up well with the recruiting skills of Smart and Saban.

Not right now they don't.

That could change of course but.......

 

[Remy]

Georgia has lost two games in the last three years.

Johnny Majors a much beloved VFL got fired because the rub against him became he couldn’t beat Bama. Heupel has no shot at long term employment on The Hill if he gets permanently tattooed with the tag “ he can’t beat Georgia/Kirby.” Granted he’s not there yet but he’s 3 years closer to when it becomes critical.

 

[KTrain]

I don't recall when the star system came in but CPF did have Peyton Manning and Brandon Stewart come in the same year. I think both would have been 5*'s for sure. But I'm excited that CJH has been able to bring in top QB talent. What QB wouldn't want to play for Josh?

Yep Fulmer was a great recruiter I remember we had 3 of the top 5 QBs one year. Can't remember the names but one left for Arizona or Arizona State after Spring but Fulmer did recruit great and as long as he had Cutcliffe with him that combo was great back in the day.

 

[KTrain]

Social media exists to give a forum for people to give their opinion, but if your opinion turns out to be wrong someone has to post about how funny it is that you were wrong and really rub it in. There seems to be a human need to say "I told you so, I was right all along, but more importantly, you were wrong."

In some ways that's what makes it fun in some worlds, guys like to zing guys it's what a lot do in brevity, for a response. Some ppl are too sensitive and take too much stuff too serious but I get what you are saying. It's all according to being a fan but not a fanatic IMO.

 

[LadyVolette]

Johnny Majors a much beloved VFL got fired because the rub against him became he couldn’t beat Bama. Heupel has no shot at long term employment on The Hill if he gets permanently tattooed with the tag “ he can’t beat Georgia/Kirby.” Granted he’s not there yet but he’s 3 years closer to when it becomes critical.

No, this is different, literally nobody can beat Georgia now lol.. there was a lot more parity back on the day, so the expectations were actually a little more realistic then I remember going to games and pretty much any team had a shot, which is what made it so fun.. the Alabamas and Georgias kind of sucked the fun out of things imo, but hopefully that will change some

 

[Brave Volunteer]

I'm not sure we can say that it isn't on the same level. If we consider where we have been and where they have been you could make the argument that he is recruiting on the same level but it is much harder to get the talent to a school getting curb stomped by UGA and only one SEC win of note in the last three years. If we had their track record on the field I would completely agree he is behind. Given we are getting much better recruits you could argue we are capturing the recruits truly available to us. This should get better the longer we perform at a high level.

Now, NIL + Transfer Portal change the game completely and I have no way to measure success in that way.

Well to me it comes down to one question. Is CJH and his staff closing the talent gap between us and the elite programs with each recruiting class, or aren't they? Can we honestly say yes? If so, then I guess we have nothing to complain about. Like I said before, this is a long-term build. Right now, the most important things for this program are consistency and stability. Historically we are a 9-win program. That's who we are. We have to get back to being that consistently first before we start worrying about seriously competing for championships.

 

[temptn]

Johnny Majors a much beloved VFL got fired because the rub against him became he couldn’t beat Bama. Heupel has no shot at long term employment on The Hill if he gets permanently tattooed with the tag “ he can’t beat Georgia/Kirby.” Granted he’s not there yet but he’s 3 years closer to when it becomes critical.

Serious question, who do you want to coach? Who has shown that they can consistently beat Bama and Geogia or for that matter beat them every two or three years? Nobody.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

I don't think it is a question so much as can Heuple recruit as it is "can he
recruit up to the likes of Saban and Smart"
He has not shown that he can recruit with Saban and Smart so far. Let's see
what happens with the full 2025 class, not just 1 player. Ala and Ga also
have comitted a 5* qb.

I am very supportive of Heuple, and I don't want to lose him, don't get me wrong. I just don't think he
matches up well with the recruiting skills of Smart and Saban.

Who really recruits on the level of Saban and Smart? Out of what 130 D1 teams, how many recruit at that level? Maybe 2-3 coaches?

 

[J C Higgins]

I don't recall when the star system came in but CPF did have Peyton Manning and Brandon Stewart come in the same year. I think both would have been 5*'s for sure. But I'm excited that CJH has been able to bring in top QB talent. What QB wouldn't want to play for Josh?

More than you want to know about the star system.

The star system was started in the late 60's by a guy named Joe Terranova (Terranova's Report) while he was a grad student at U of Michigan or Michigan State. He later became a Ford Motor Company executive and retired to the desert southwest. He's 82 or 83 now and moved back to Michigan a couple of years ago.

He rated players 1-4 stars.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

It's worth noting Fulmer didn't recruit QB, as well as the coaches which followed him. We had a pretty good run of QB's in the 2010-2020 timeframe. Off the top of my head Bray was a 95 according to 247 consensus rankings. Crompton was a 97. Ainge was a 90. Clausen was a 99. I'm not certain McIntyre is better than anyone on this list despite having a slightly higher ranking than everyone besides Clausen at the moment, but Nico is probably equivalent to Clausen from a ranking standpoint. Additionally, most ranking sites seem to be ranking kids MUCH higher than they did in the past, imo.

No one is sure yet, but I think that both the new 5* QBs will be better than Bray, Crompton, Ainge, and Clausen.

 

[LAVol1]

It's worth noting Fulmer didn't recruit QB, as well as the coaches which followed him.

Manning, Stewart, Tee, Schafer, Clausen, Ainge, Crompton. Compared to the QB's of that era, I'd say Fulmer did pretty well recruiting QB's, better than any Vol coach not named Heupel. About the two QB's he had a shot at and really went after but didn't get were Couch (who didn't want to sit behind Manning) and Jamarcus Russell.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Manning, Stewart, Tee, Schafer, Clausen, Ainge, Crompton. Compared to the QB's of that era, I'd say Fulmer did pretty well recruiting QB's, better than any Vol coach not named Heupel. About the two QB's he had a shot at and really went after but didn't get were Couch (who didn't want to sit behind Manning) and Jamarcus Russell.

Also Chris Simms.

 

[VOLtaism]

How I laugh to think how many in here (probably a few trolls) said Heupel couldn’t recruit. Well, let’s see, that’s two 5-star QBs in three years. Fulmer was a great recruiter and even he never did that. Time to officially lay this myth to rest. Time to join the Heup train!!

Actually, it has yet to be seen if he, or any other coach, can recruit. The entire process has changed and become 3 dimensional. Now a coach must not only recruit the incoming class, he must also re-recruit all of his returning starters. Offers coming in left and right for his current players and recruits while he must do the same thing to opposing coaches players/recruits. How do you outbid the bidders in both cases? Sounds like a nightmare scenerio to me, I am not sure there are any experts.

 

[DaddyChad]

Things were pretty terrible when Dooley left and things were pretty terrible when Butch left. I don't see Heupels situation being much worse than those two.

I swear sometimes it’s just painful how unaware our fans are of the state of the program. Heupel had the deck so stacked against him just in the form of raw numbers. You had thirty guys leave, a lot that stuck around weren’t on par with the average players from this conference. Add in you also had an NCAA investigation and Tennessee had been a dumpster fire for a couple decades.

 

[LadyVolette]

Johnny Majors a much beloved VFL got fired because the rub against him became he couldn’t beat Bama. Heupel has no shot at long term employment on The Hill if he gets permanently tattooed with the tag “ he can’t beat Georgia/Kirby.” Granted he’s not there yet but he’s 3 years closer to when it becomes critical.

No, I love Johnny, but he got fired because his health was crap and he had a problem with the booze… and it was starting to show, and effecting his coaching…if you get my drift... those of us who were just students on campus knew about it.. not a very well kept secret

 

[DaddyChad]

No, I love Johnny, but he got fired because his health was crap and he had a problem with the booze… and it was starting to show, and effecting his coaching…if you get my drift... those of us who were just students on campus knew about it.. not a very well kept secret

Heart issues, drinking issues, and telling the wrong people to kiss his ass issues….