Just now started paying attention to this Canadian doctor who was administering HGH, etc. to athletes in 2007. I saw Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran mentioned, and thought baseball is as bad as cycling. Then I see Tiger. Tiger?!? Since when do golfers use PEDs? I remember Tiger at the '07 US Open in this ridiculous pink shirt, biceps popping the seams on his sleeves. The announcers commented on how jacked he was. Pundits raved about his workout regimen. Mens Fitness featured him. And in hindsight, he was so clearly juiced up. He was cutting his Viagra with andro and drinking growth hormone protein shakes for breakfast. I remember Braves announcers in the early 2000s taking turns exclaiming about what a great job Javy Lopez and Julio Franco did working out in the offseason. It was the exact same a willful suspension of disbelief, instead investing in the idea that these athletes are entirely exceptional. Todays NFL couldnt exist without our willingness to believe in and perpetuate this fiction.
To anchor it to something outside of sports, for much of the late 2000s, Atlanta Public Schools made outlandish strides in their standardized test scoring. Everyone lauded Bev Hall and APS. Now we know there was rampant cheating going on.
Point of this overlong post: there is no reason to think that Clemson and Auburn's recruiters are so much better than their previous staff. Or anyone else. Any time someone or something is deviating so far from the previous mean, we should be suspicious.