USC may have been in the mix for Henderson, but I would say Kiffin left us in at least the same shape with Da'Rick Rogers.
No he didn't. If Kiffin had stayed there is a probability of zero that Rogers lands at UT and not much better for Hunter.
If you're going to say Kiffin may not deserve credit for Henderson, then Dooley may not deserve credit for the only Rivals100 recruit he has landed so far.
They were working Rogers but weren't really getting all that far. I didn't say CLK deserved no credit for Henderson. I said that it is very possible if not likely that Henderson would have signed with Carroll... Are you now going to tell me that Kiffin is a better recruiter and has a better name with recruits than Carroll did?
Prater had all but eliminated USC and had scheduled Tennessee as, I believe, his only official visit after Carroll left. At the very least we were his first of two, and he still intended to enroll early; it says something that he was in a hurry to pick a new school and scheduled Tennessee as his first visit. We had a very good shot with him, and would likely have had Ambles AND Prater or Ambles AND Rogers instead of just one.
You can delude yourself all you want but USC wasn't going to end up with a no name coach... and UT wasn't going to end up with Prater.
Michael Taylor is offset by John Propst and Raiques Crump.
Not so sure yet about that. Taylor looked pretty solid.
Dixon is the one offset by Loften, while Robey is offset by Dave Clark coming off a torn ACL IIRC.
Good enough.
The old class was around 3.6 stars and would have gone way up with the additions of the names I mentioned, and now it's around 3.4.
You have absolutely, positively no proof that it was going "way up". Again, talk yourself into it... but UT wasn't getting Prater. They just weren't.
I think they might have gotten a couple more guys like Copeland and Ahmad Dixon. I already acknowledged the class would have been rated higher than it ended up... but you've still yet to answer the truth that blows up your point on this particular part of the discussion.... Kiffin left Dooley in a mess. He left him in a situation that most knowledgeable observers believed was virtually hopeless.
Kiffin walked into one of the best possible scenarios he could have walked into.
Kiffin made USC's class better and Dooley made ours worse.
Kiffin may have made USC's marginally better... hard to say since we don't know what that rookie Pete Carroll might have closed out with...:no:
However it is stupid to lay any decline in UT's class at anyone's feet other than Lane Kiffin. Dooley did NOT make UT's class worse. He salvaged a top 10 class that easily could have fallen out of the top 25.
What I have a problem with is you saying that Kiffin doesn't deserve credit for improving USC's class because Carroll laid the foundation for guys like Henderson, but then even though Kiffin laid the foundation for Rogers here, he still doesn't deserve the credit that goes to Dooley either.
That isn't what I'm saying. Here's what I am saying.
Kiffin left:
- A recruiting effort based on players committing to him and his staff more so than UT.
- Moles and spies.
- An impossible situation for Dooley in trying to fill a staff with quality coaches, salvage current commits, add new commits... all within 3 weeks.
- He left with UT's recruiting info and after saying he wouldn't pursue UT's commits... he did so aggressively.
- He left UT with a marred image
Kiffin came to UT as a coach that no one wanted taking a job that alot of people wanted. He left UT a job that no top shelf name wanted.
You seem to believe that Carroll would have had USC #1 (which likely isn't true)
Quite to the contrary. Kiffin lost some guys that were committed to Carroll and others that would have committed to him. If he had signed 20-22 players as he was going to do... he still would have had the #1 class. That's a matter of mathematics and it hardly works any other way unless Carroll had rounded out his class with only 3* recruits. It is unlikely he would have signed even one more 3*.
and that Kiffin, even though he took a class from 12th to first on NSD, wouldn't even have taken us from 7th into the top 5. That's pretty ridiculous.
It wasn't 12th when Carroll left. It was like 5th or 6th with only about 14 commits listed.
Do you not read responses or do you have a comprehension problem? I said Kiffin would have likely finished higher than Dooley did. I said he might have finished top 5. But he wasn't operating under the same circumstance as the one he handed off to Dooley. He had a full staff. He had a full year to recruit. He had at least a facade that UT's program was stable. He didn't have someone using UT's recruiting info to undermine his effort or steal his commits.
Dooley landed a 4 star (Hunter) that may have been a silent commit to Kiffin, a couple 4 stars Kiffin didn't really want (Loften, Clark), a 5 star that set up his visit because of Kiffin, and a bunch of two- and three-stars. He landed no one on NSD that was widely expected to go elsewhere. I don't see how you can look at that and say it's equal to what Kiffin has been doing since he's been back in college football.
Spin... spin... spin. I don't know what your issue is maybe a man crush on Kiffin that won't quit or some kind of kneejerk bias against Dooley. But if you truly can't see that the job Dooley did under horrible circumstances was as good or better than the one Kiffin did under comparatively great circumstances... then there's really no help for you. You've descended to a level of self-delusion that I can't help you out of.
FTR, I didn't compare what DD did to what CLK has done since he came back into CFB. I didn't say that DD was a better coach or recruiter.
I have said basically two things- ONE, we don't have enough info to say one staff is better than the other yet. TWO, considering the circumstances, the job DD did with this class is more impressive than the one that Kiffin did WHILE AT USC.
