Recruiting Over and Underachievers

The following is a review of schools who have orerachieved and underachieved relative to their recruiting success as selected by the SportingNews' Tom Dienhart. For the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 10, and SEC Dienhart ranked each conference based on recruiting. He averaged each school's Rivals.com recruiting ranking from 2003-2007. From that list he selected over and underachievers. Following is a critique of his selections and a look at other factors, especially coaching, that have landed each school on Dienhart's list.

ACC
Overachievers
Wake Forest: AD's at big time programs around the country don't understand why Jim Grobe is so content in Winston-Salem. It makes absolute sense that his name gets tossed around for the biggest jobs each year. At some point, he'll bite.

Boston College: The poor recruiting is just another thing in a long list of things that BC does worse than its competitors. However, winning football games isn't on that list mainly due to having made some great coaching hires. Time will tell if Jeff Jagodzinski will fit the bill. The concern with BC football is that they are always one bad coaching move away from really slipping.

Georgia Tech. Chan Gailey did the opposite of what most ex-NFL guys do in college and that is coach better than he recruited. On the other side is that the offensive minded Gailey won on the strength of his defense. I think Jon Tenuta is the reason the Jackets make this list.

Underachievers
Florida State. How to deal with the aging legend is a challenge for many programs. FSU is banking on Jimbo Fischer to get them off this list.

Miami. The 'Canes are similar to BC in that they don't have the history to justify their continued football success. Their recruiting prowess, however, can keep them afloat during a poor coaching regime. String too many bad regimes together and the swagger could be gone. The jury is still out on Randy Shannon, however.

North Carolina. Mack Brown left this program in fantastic shape, but they haven't been able to capitalize. Now with Butch Davis, UNC is in great shape to step forward in the mediocre conference. The hire of Everett Withers as defensive coordinator is a head stratcher though.

Big 12
Overachievers
Kansas. Amazingly, Mark Mangino's name hardly got mentioned for a different gig despite 18 openings. Jayhawk fans must have a grin the size of their coach's waistline over that fact.

Texas Tech. Offensively Tech doesn't require the typical type of talent to be successful. They could, however, use some road grates on the defensive line to tighten up their run defense which has plaqued Mike Leach his entire tenure in west Texas.

Colorado. It's very simple. Gary Barnett should be back in college coaching.

Underachievers
Nebraska. The oddity of it is that Callahan may have strung together better recruiting classes than Bob Devaney or Tom Osbourne ever did, but he also strung together worse seasons than they ever did. Bo Pelini has returned to clean up the mess left by ex-defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove.

Texas A&M. Similar to Nebraska, Texas A&M went with a slickster coach and in the process lost a lot of football games and a lot of their identity. It's pretty clear R.C. Slocum got a bad deal.

Oklahoma State. Good Ol' Boone Pickens has put up way too much cash for OSU football to be most known for "I'm a man, I'm 40."

Big Ten
Overachievers
Northwestern. The Wildcats are far from the laughingstock they were in the '80s. Expect the youngster Pat Fitzgerald to get better as a coach and a recruiter in the coming years.

Purdue. In a time when programs like Alabama, Notre Dame, and FSU struggle, Cowboy Joe Tiller has been amazingly steady in West Lafayette.

Minnesota. They will be on the other list in a few years. When poor recruiting meets poor coaching, you get the embarrasing 1-11 season that the Gophers just went through. Glen Mason is another guy who deserves another coaching gig.

Underachievers
Michigan. When good recruiting meets a great coach, things can be pretty amazing. Don't buy into the talk that it will take Rich Rodriguez a lot of time to get things going in Ann Arbor.

Illinois. The '06 Illinois team that went 2-10 may have been the best 2 win team ever. A little bit better ball secruity put them in the Rose Bowl the following year.

Penn State. A little bit of the Bowden factor going on here. The list of Big Ten underachievers shows that no one in the conference has really fallen flat on their face.

Pac 10
Overachievers
Oregon State. Charlie Weis won 19 games during his first two seasons at Notre Dame and was rewarded with one of the biggest college coaching contracts ever. Mike Riley has won 19 games the past two seasons and has hardly made a peep. Wake up people, the Beavers are good.

Arizona State. Dirk Koetter is a good coach. A flip-flopping quarterback decision cost him his job in the desert. He should get a second look at the college game, but he could be lost to the NFL for the long haul.

Underachievers
Washington. Is there a school playing further under their historic norm than Washington? Keith Gilbertson really screwed up this once proud program.

California. This is a stretch, but Jeff Tedford hasn't taken that next step everyone expected him to take. I don't know if this program has recovered from losing in the Coliseum like they did in 2004.

SEC
Overachievers
Arkansas. Ole Miss is getting a solid coach in Houston Nutt. The Rebels may have more talent that what he had in Fayetteville. The Grove will be rocking in short order.

Auburn. The Mississippi River Boat Gambler Tommy Tuberville picked up a huge recruit this off-season in offensive coordinator Tony Franklin. Watch out SEC West.

Alabama. The appearence of these guys on the list shows how well the SEC recruits. Former boss Mike Shula did do a nice job during the difficult probation years.

Underachievers
Florida. I think its pretty clear the days of underachieving are over, assuming they ever existed.

Tennessee. Bringing back David Cutcliffe probably saved Fat Phil his job. Now that he's gone, we'll see how long Fulmer can hang on.

South Carolina. I think everyone is a little surprised that the OBC hasn't gotten the offense going more in Columbia.