So Paul's inability to recruit was because of realignment talk? Nope, not buying it. Heck there were non-power five schools consistently out-recruiting ISU before and after the realignment talk.When they talk about winners and losers of realignment, Paul Rhoads will be at the very top of the losers list.
Reality is when you are trying to build a program, especially where there wasn't one at a place with zero tradition, your window is very small.
He had the I am so proud speech, and the bowl win the first year to sell recruits. It should have been a huge opportunity. Instead we spent the summer hearing Iowa State would be left out of a power 5 conference.
They survive that, he has a decent second year, 5 wins against a tougher schedule. A thrilling game with Nebraska, where he came out of it almost looking better because of the failed fake extra point at the end of the game than if it had succeeded. A second opportunity to recruit gets taken away again by realignment.
These are the guys that followed knott AJ McDonough (sp), and they weren't up to the challenge because they were overmatched physically. He could never catch up. The hardest positions to fill are quarterback and linemen, they never were able to figure out the qb position, and the d line never grew after the players that were here when he got here, left.
For me, Paul's lackluster recruiting efforts were a result of three major factors.
1.) Facilities for the most part were terrible to below average during his tenure. Bergstrum was added midway into his career which helped, but Jack Trice still looked like a glorified Texas high school stadium for all but one year. By the time all the facilities were to par it was too late.
2.) Recruiting strategy. In short the plan was to pick up leftovers from the Texas and Florida schools. When we are offering kids in Texas that have zero offers from any of the other 5+ division one schools there's a problem. The chances of finding a diamond in the rough are much greater in the midwest where kids don't get much exposure (Ex. Tom Farniok, Klein, Knott). The kids in Texas and Florida got looked at every week by a half dozen D1 programs and we were often the only ones to show interest.
3.) ISU never had an identity (applies only to the offense really). Why play for Iowa State? Were we an air raid offense? No. Did we ground and pound? No. Did we develop players? No. Nothing really stood out on the offensive side of the ball that would make a player say "Wow I'd really like to play in that system."
Throw in the fact that they couldn't identify players that were in their back yard (Waters, Johnson) and its easy to see why we couldn't recruit when Paul wasn't here.