Just some food for thought, you could draw some comparisons to CMA. It looks like he is recruiting pretty well in the area as well as Louisiana. And if you recall from some other threads, people were talking about how it took Levine too long before he put Greg Ward in at quarterback. At the beginning of the season everyone was talking about how the fate of Levine was due to not making that call earlier. They then said that it could potentially be the same fate of CMA. Then CMA made a QB change and everyone seemed a little bit happier, and then of course King was put in and everybody feels confident that we have our QB for the future.
Also, Levine has been criticized fairly so for his inability to put in a good offensive coordinator. Do we not have a lot of questions about our offense of coordinator now?
Maybe Levine needed more time to figure it out and that more time was just too much. CMA figured it out a little bit sooner and hopefully he can right the ship and have success.
Levine’s recruiting was very good at the beginning of his tenure, which also happened to coincide with the aftermath of the 2011 season. He did a good job of maintaining Sumlin’s 2012 class while also landing a big-time recruit (Greenberry).
Here are the ranks of his classes during his tenure per 247 (I left the 2012 class on there as he was able to maintain most of that class and I included 2015 even though Herman came in and added some recruits to get it that high):
2012: 56
2013: 57
2014: 75
2015: 89
This also doesn’t include the fact that some of the higher-ranked players he recruited never made it in or left before graduating. There was definitely an alarming trend downward and is a big reason why we struggled this year as those 2014 and 2015 classes are your main juniors and seniors right now.
I think this is where you get into the age old debate of stars/recruiting rankings mean everything and where they mean nothing. I think recruiting comes down to two main factors-salesmanship and talent evaluation. Levine was a good salesman but an even better evaluator. Based on the ranking of the 2014 class of 75 you would think it was a poor class. However, digging deeper into the class and looking at the individual players reveals a different story. I’ll list some of the key player from that class:
Garrett Davis-2nd team all conference 2016
Howard Wilson-4th round pick
Jerard Carter-starter last year injured most of this year
Jeremy Winchester-2 year starter
Romello Brooker-started some this year
Isaiah Johnson-starter this year after position change
Mason Denley-started 6 games in 2016
Zach Vaughan-rotation player
Marcus Oliver-starter this year
Matthew Adams-Arguably the second best player on defense
Khalil Williams-2 year starter
Steven Dunbar-3 year starter
As a bonus he had Bonner as a walk on-2 year starter.
Overall, this was a great recruiting class and one of the better ones in recent memory. The real problem to me is the 2015 class which was Herman’s first year. While he was doing the “right thing”(and padding his resume at the same time) and coaching Ohio State thru the championship game, teams like SMU were picking our recruiting class clean. That class basically produced 4 guys that have even seen the field to date-eloph, Noble, Josh Jones, and Egbule and only two of those guys look like they are going to be really good players.
Two posts about Levine’s recruiting with dramatically opposite views.
Based on the results on the field this year with Levine’s juniors and seniors I’ll say it’s a combination of Levine not recruiting as well when he had time under his belt and cma not being a good manager.
2013 class: 1 2nd round pick 1 6th round pick, 3 NFL players, 1 Freshman All-American and Conference Freshman of the Year, 1 1st Team All-Conference, 3 2nd Team All-Conference
2014 class (so far): 1 4th round pick, 1 NFL player, 3 2nd Team All-Conference, 1 Hon Mention All-Conference
2015 class (so far): 1 Freshman All-American, 1 Hon Mention All-Conference
2016 class (so far): 1 Outland Trophy Winner, 1 2 Time All-American, 1 National Freshman of the Year, 1 Freshman All-American, 1 Conference Newcomer of the Year, 1 Conference Defensive POY, 2 1st Team All-Conference, 1 Hon Mention All-Conference
The 2014 class is the first time this decade we hadn’t had a 1st team All-Conference player (yet) and the first class that we didn’t have a Freshman All-American (2017 will be the 2nd). While there are some very good players in the class they haven’t reached the accolades that their predecessors have. (please don’t think I’m denigrating the contributions of these guys because they are Coogs and I love them),
I do agree that the 2015 class is worse, and there was one school that came in and picked off our players (SMU: Hicks and West), but when Levine left, there weren’t many recruits committed because of the losses to UTSA and Tulane. I will add three others to those that have seen the field as Postma was technically part of that class (he left and came back the next year), Leroy Godfrey played in every game, started a few games towards the end, and will probably start next year, and Jarrid Williams came in when Josh Jones was hurt and started the Tulane game.
Levine’s recruiting prowess, while strong at first, definitely waned towards the end of his coaching tenure at UH.
Someone around here sure caught a lot of flak for not jumping on the “Levine is the worst coach ever” group think. I mean a LOT of flak, like fake twitter accounts and s[tuff]!
Someone here, technically the old site, kept harping about how Levine shouldn’t be fired, especially before the end of the season, and that Levine should be given time to work out the kinks in his system.
We wouldn’t have a peach bowl if that someone had the ear of the administration.
Harping is in the eye of the beholder, points of view are different and people should be allowed to speak for themselves regardless of whose ear they have.
Was the same someone that had lunch with Levine after he was hired then came to the forums to say “Had lunch with Coach Levine and he is the smartest coach we have had since Yeoman.”