Recruiting: A Look Back to 2004

You want to know why this year's Canes were 5-7? Just look at the recruiting class Larry Coker pulled in in 2004. Those kids should be seniors and redshirt juniors by now. They should be team leaders. Most of the starters should be coming from that class. Instead, take a look at the utter failure that was the 2004 class according to Scout.com

Willie Williams, James Bryant, Rhyan Anderson, Bobby Washington, Andrew Johnson. All 4 or 5 star players that weren't even on the team last year. Same goes for supposed diamonds in the rough Rashaun Jones, Josh Kerr, Jonathan St. Pierre, and soon to be gone 5 star bust Charlie Jones (who I hear is transferring).

Right there you can see 1/3rd of the class didn't even participate on this year's team. Of the guys who were actually still on the roster, you've got George Timmons, Khalil Jones, Chris Zellner (a borderline guy who still might contribute), Dwayne Hendricks, Chris Rutledge, Carlos Armour, Joe Joseph, Derron Thomas and Tyrone Byrd who basically did nothing to stand out. Most of these guys played sparingly, if ever, and when they did it tended to be out of necessity. None of them became stars despite being semi-heralded recruits by recruiting services.

All thats left is the following: Lovon Ponder, who is an average safety at best. Antonio Dixon, who is up and down at DT and didn't enroll until the following season. Anthony Reddick, a 3 star stud who sadly has been slowed down by knee injuries. Lance Leggett, a colossal bust at WR and who is on his way to the NFL. Romeo Davis, a hard worker but really never a great LB for us. Kirby Freeman, a massive bust as the 5th ranked QB in his class. Tyler McMeans, who left to the NFL after a year or two of decent production. And finally: Calais Campbell, a future 1st-round draft pick who didn't always play up to his hype.

From 26 prospects and the 3rd ranked class that season, the Canes produced 1 good player. One. Reddick can become the second if he hasn't lost the excellent skills he displayed as a freshman. McMeans was pretty good but nothing special in the end. Regardless, you just can't have one or two contributers from an entire recruiting class and expect to do anything with it. You just can't.

And if you don't think that going off of Scout's rankings is legitimate, I invite you to go here. Of the top 10 recruiting classes that year, 7 of the teams are in this year's top 15. Ohio State was 11th in recruiting and made the title game. Michigan was top 10 and would have finished well this year without the injuries. The only two classes that disappointed were Miami's and Florida State's.

If you want a good example of just how devastatingly overrated our 2004 class was, we were only another 4 star commit away from being the top ranked class that year. We had 10 of the top 100 players in the country, 3 more than anyone else. How sad is that?

The reason for all this was because something was seriously wrong with the way Coker evaluated and developed his players. There's no way you can miss on 23 or 24 out of 26 commits in a single class. There just isn't. Lots of these kids had talent, and were rated as such, but for some reason Coker picked bad apples who weren't in it for the team or who simply were incapable of development. Thanks, Larry.