The recent college football recruiting season, followed in the last couple of weeks by the NFL draft, caused me to think about the vagaries of recruiting (or drafting) talent, versus training once the recruit has been signed up. Look at how many top NFL draft picks and first-round picks flop, versus the number of mid- or late-round picks that go on to have solid, if not stellar, careers for evidence that the recruiting/drafting game is not an exact science.
In the recent NFL draft, no University of Alabama player was taken for the first time since 1970. When a co-worker commented about this to me, I responded that Nick Saban will change that situation because he will recruit top-flight talent - as witnessed by the success Les Miles has had at LSU largely with Saban recruits and the fact that the Alabama had the top-ranked (by the recruiting services at least) signing class this year. While recruiting prowess is a great start toward producing a top-ranked team, what happens after the recruits are signed is just as, if not more, important.
Contrast Saban's recruiting style with that of Tommy Tuberville, the coach of his main rival across the state, my alma mater, Auburn University (War Eagle!). Tuberville's reputation is that he picks players with the necessary athletic ability but not necessarily those highest ranked by the media. He looks for players that fit his system and that fit specific needs. He has a track-record of taking good players and making them better.
So is one method better than the other? At the risk of sounding like an economist, it depends. Both have been highly successful over their past 6 years in the SEC (Saban was out for two years in an ill-fated tenure with the Miami Dolphins in the NFL). Tuberville does hold a slight edge over that time-frame (59-18 record/.77 winning percentage versus 53-22/.71 winning percentage for Saban); 4-2 record Tuberville's way in head-to-head meetings.
Whichever method works best for you in recruiting and training employees, it is best to avoid what I call the "Fulmer-syndrome", named for the perennially embattled coach of the University of Tennessee. Fulmer has been able to sign top-10 ranked recruiting classes almost every year for the past 10 years and has had relative success (52-25 record/.68 winning percentage). But in spite of the highly-touted recruiting classes, he has not been able to achieve a top-10 ranking since 2001 - apparently this is exceedingly frustrating to Volunteer fans and keeps Fulmer on the annual hot-seat.
So, for a high-producing team, recruit like Saban and coach-em-up like Tuberville!
