Point very well made. There is indeed excitment leading into this next season for what we hope to see on the field, but also what we see off. Mac really was in the same boat as Chizik at this point with the quality of recruits, the difference that will hopefully be evident is the progression of the recruits that come in. It always seems that every recruit was under achieved when it came to their raw talent.
The real difference will be when their are 4 star or even a few 5 star high school players that are actually considering us, and even commit. Until then, we are sailing the same boat, just on a differnt heading.
While that is true in a sense, the main difference is that Mac had all kinds of time and opportunities to develop the program to the point that he could get some of these higher ranked kids to at least seriously consider Iowa State. Obviously, even with the staggering success that he had here, he was never able to attract the caliber of athlete that could take Iowa State football to that proverbial next level that we all speak of.
I also think part of the problem was that the previous staff chose the path of least resistance most of the time when it came to recruiting. They would get the occasional kids like Billups, Stevie Johnson, and now Phillip Banks, to give the impression that we were out there fighting for the best players available. However for the most part there were lots of players that we beat UNI out for.
The reason that Gene is "sailing the same boat" is that he has to fight against the perceptions in which Iowa State is held. Just because he has impressive credentials doesn't mean that the average high school player knows who the hell he is. He will need a signature win early in his tenure to give indication that the program is headed in the right direction, one that will be playing for conference titles, etc. What people know of Iowa State is what Reese Davis said on ESPN two years ago, "the best coaching job was done by Dan McCarney for figuring out a way to not have to play Texas." after he choked away the Kansas game.
It is not an overnight process, but top kids knew that Iowa State wasn't going to get them noticed under the previous coach. Everytime he got the opportunity to make that statement we had a game like the Nebraska game last year where, even with all of the bad calls, we were still dominated on the line of scrimmage, and really had no chance. Nebraska ran the ball down our throats, and had they decided to do more than control the clock, they would have beaten us by four touchdowns.:no6xn: I firmly believe that Gene will win that game in the next couple of years, to make the statement that this is not your father's Iowa State football team anymore. But until that happens the 4-5 star recruits aren't going to circle Ames Iowa on their Rand MacNally's
