Edith's problem when he obsesses over recruiting under Doba is that he names three to five recruits in a class who washed out. Virtually any recruiting class will have five or more recruits that wash out, but it's just the basis for his denial of the miserable job done by Wulff, Chris Ball and the other turds that amounted to a flash flood that washed this program to 6 and 40.
As for the ex-Coug players working as assistants under Doba, there was a bit of complacency that was compounded by the rise of Phil Knight U, other conference schools' improvements, and V. Lane Rawlins' myopic assumptions that the winning would continue despite the crap facilities. As Bill Moos said, WSU was choking on the dust left behind by others racing to the top. Leach has been a difference maker. He's coached this program to 15 wins in its last 20 Pac-12 games. For those burping forth proclamations 30 minutes into the 2012 season that he "wasn't going to get it done" and who, to this day, wax moronic about his paychecks, they really should just go to a corner and quietly pee themselves. The program isn't perfect, but it's hard to dispute its direction at this juncture.
I am not naming "three to five kids" that washed out. The list is much more extensive than that. My concerns were in real time. I went to the Doba dinner and it was clear they weren't getting the same kids with the type of explosion they had from Trufant to Colemen to David to Paymah. The most impressive kid on tape was a kid who was signed, I believe either flunked out or never showed then transferred to Fresno State. He was a dlineman from Fresno. I take that back, Estes was the most impressive, but hne had a chance to play.
from the 04 class, coming off the most successful fun in WSU history, they signed 11 players that never suited up. (and that list included the likes of Morgan and Baird who weren't Pac 10 players) . We signed three 4 star JC recruits, and they were gone by December of 05. The other two JC players were Greg Prator and Myers a DE.
That meant the senior class of 08 consisted of Ward Roof, Graise (never gained a pound) Rogers, (Willis got hurt and retired), Rowlands (left team after 2 weeks of August practice) and Matt Eichelbarger.
In 2005 they had 7 3 or 4 star players suit up for a game. Again, they are only one year removed from 3 ten win seasons. Additionally they had a total of ten players regardless of their ranking never suit up. There was 1 player who was a JC player was gone by December of 2006. That means 11 out of I believe 21 of the 2005 class were gone by 06, combined with 18 of the 25 kids from the prior class.
The players that were left to play 2007 and 2008 were Gibson, Alfred, Hicks, Stripling, Evans, Trent, Tardyl, Eppelle, and Eichelbarger. In 2004 and 2005 they recruited three DT's. Townsend never made it in, Tarkenton was a JC player, and Eichelbarger.
Doba made two strategic mistakes, and I think he has even said as much. With Pflugrad's influence he changed how and who they recruited. They forget the A minus players that helped WSU to the 98 Rose Bowl and the 01-03 run. The second mistake was going more ball control while other programs were recruiting kids to play in a wide open system. I think both mistakes led to part of the recruiting problems.
I remember when Doba announced his decision to change what worked and thought probelms were ahead. And it was similar to Ken Bone changing what worked under Tony Bennett. When Bone made that decision I told a mutual friend that was gong to be a mistake. And in hindsight it was.
When Leon Burtnet becomes probably your best recruiter it says something about others that were on the staff. How much did Rosie and Levy actually recruit?
