has all of Texas and especially the Houston area to recruit from that Clemson does not. A&M also has more of a tradition, though I’m not sure 18 year old kids give a damn about tradition. (to back me up here is Barry Switzer on OSU’s facilities from 2007) I think they look for pretty and new facilities and locker rooms and weight rooms, and study halls, etc.

Which is why Kansas St, maybe a tough job. They started the facilities arms race in the early 90’s. Everyone else in the big 12 had to join in….making Kansas State’s stuff, old in comparison. Plus it’s in a small, fairly rural setting of the little apple.

…check out these two posts on my site.

Comparison to Mark Mangino’s first three seasons
Comparison to Gary Pinkel’s first three seasons

Because of the addition of the JuCo guys, plus this being Freeman’s (and Prince’s, for that matter) third year, we were expecting improvement. Certainly we didn’t want to see what happened at the end of last year, when the defense tanked and we got run by some pretty bad teams (Iowa State, Nebraska). This season has been a repeat of last November, and we are going the wrong direction in just about every measurable way. There is real fear among the fans, and administrators, too, apparently, that another year of Prince’s recruiting (we’re something like 68th nationally for 2009 right now) could set this program back for a decade.

Here’s how I put it: Giving a young, inexperienced coach a few more years could result in him finding his way and making significant improvement. However, the evidence we’ve seen from Prince suggests that a few more years would only result in more regression and possible disaster for our football program.