Accounting of course for the coaching and scheme consistency, sure. Maybe PK took longer to understand his stable than it took for the stable to understand the defense, but I have a hunch it's both and I have hopes for some jumps this year.
I just rewatched highlights from our last win over aggy and it's almost painful to see how much we've regressed on defense since then.
Sharing perspective for the OL recruiting haul this year. We need some of them to be ready this year, but I think we see the most benefit after a 2-3 year lag.
2002 class leads to 2004/2005
2007 class leads to 2008/2009.
2015/2016 leads to 2018 Sugar Bowl
It would be really hard to have all the 'right pieces' for 10 years at a non-blueblood.
In their first season without PK, UW had their worst year since before Sark took over.
I didn't move to Texas until 2011 when I instantly became a Longhorns fan. Needless to say, I missed most of the good years and spend quite a bit of time trying to understand the past, which involves scouring the historical recruiting pages. I was curious about past QB recruiting and the big differences between head coaches. These data are according to 247 sports. I imputed Chris Simms as a .99 because no rating was available but he was the consensus #1 QB recruit.
Year
Name
QB type
Rating
Coach on Signing Day
1999
Chris Simms
PRO
0.99
Brown
2000
Chance Mock
PRO
0.9918
Brown
2001
Matt Nordgren
PRO
N/A
Brown
2002
Vince Young
DUAL
1
Brown
2003
None
N/A
N/A
Brown
2004
None
N/A
N/A
Brown
2005
Colt McCoy
PRO
0.8556
Brown
2006
Jevan Snead
DUAL
0.9817
Brown
2007
John Chiles
ATH
0.9875
Brown
2008
None
N/A
Brown
2009
Garrett Gilbert
PRO
0.9918
Brown
2010
Connor Wood
PRO
0.9345
Brown
2011
David Ash
PRO
0.8866
Brown
2012
Connor Brewer
PRO
0.9322
Brown
2013
Tyrone Swoopes
ATH
0.9186
Brown
2014
Jerrod Heard
DUAL
0.9678
Strong
2015
Kai Locksley
ATH
0.8947
Strong
2016
Shane Buechele
DUAL
0.925
Strong
2017
Sam Ehlinger
DUAL
0.9446
Herman
2018
Cameron Rising
PRO
0.9096
Herman
2019
Roschon Johnson
DUAL
0.9111
Herman
2020
Hudson Card
DUAL
0.9721
Herman
2021
Charles Wright
PRO
0.8572
Sarkisian
2022
Quinn Ewers
PRO
1
Sarkisian
I don't think anyone questions Card's ability to throw an intermediate bullet pass over the middle. He did it last year to Marcus Washington in the spring game.
Accounting for past seasons when we had 6 scholarship OL and our QBs' heads were falling off, I hesitate to willingly give up experienced depth anywhere on this team.
I'm not advocating for "wise spending" in the sense of bargain hunting, but in the case of Fisher, aggy guaranteed him for 10 years because of what he did in the middle years of his FSU tenure. I think it makes a lot more sense and maybe even has a higher probability of success to hire a young guy who just might exceed expectations than to embarrass yourself with mediocrity out of a big splash hire. At the end of the day, there's still a high probability of failure.
When was the last time Texas has hired anyone who was unquestionably at the top of his game? Dana Bible?
When was the last time a head coach left an NFL job for a college job when he wasn't already trending down (a la Kelly, Harbaugh)?
It's almost like hiring a proven and consistent winner in the Power 5 is extraordinarily difficult despite the money.