Every coach that takes on an Iowa State-type challenge has a window of opportunity to recruit. You can sell hope and change the first 3 or 4 years. IF you get results in year 5 and 6 (e.g. Mac's best teams) then you can live off of that a little longer in the recruiting world.....but if you are living off smoke and mirrors at that point you are doomed.
Seriously, what does CPR recruit with at this point? Kids and their handlers are not dumb. The RIDICULOUS phone/text phony-scandal surely is used against us. Recruits watch games and they saw the Pinstripe Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, and god-forbid they all saw yesterday. It is over. Who knows what happens next??? I would think almost anything.....I honestly could see us in ConferenceUSA or some wierd Mountain West arrangement.....anything could happen over the next 5 years, but I doubt winning football will be much a part of it. The Messingham disaster looms much bigger than we ever thought.
Hit the nail on the head with this post.
What do you sell at this point? Hope and change (to borrow a slogan) is used up.
Our facilities are being upgraded, but we're still going to be behind most of our BCS competitors by a long shot.
I can see selling Mangino to offensive players, but he'll have to show big improvement this year and yesterday was a BAD start to that.
Selling a 73 y/o DC can't be easy, especially with the results since AJ/Knott.
CPR could sell his passion back when he first took over until after the Okie State win, but we've squandered that.
Ames, the state of Iowa, our FB history, our stadium, ISU, climate are either very tough sells or at very least totally negated by what other schools offer.
The only thing I could see pulling us back into the black would be to somehow land a stud QB. A great QB can usually single handedly win a few games for you, even with a suspect supporting cast. With Mangino that is possible, but still a long shot.