"I think it was a combination of recruitment classes being over-rated and coaches not developing the players" kinda paraphrasing there maybe, but don't that hit the nail on the head. Bingo! I think you could say it was maybe 2 parts lack of development and one part the other, but pretty much right on. Butch had a freaking LOUSY staff.
I don't usually give much stock to "over rated recruiting classes", but not because they aren't overated sometimes (they are!) but because recruiting ratings are not an exact science anyway, so I just figure it affects all teams equally. Now...you can argue that a great recruiter will cut through all the BS, but IMO it's mostly a wash when comparing teams.
As for development...agree that Jones and staff were sub-par, but IMO the overwhelming reason for lack of success under Butch was game day management. I mean that's like 80% of the problem in my opinion. Player development could be the remaining 20%, or whatever, but no matter how many reasons assigned for lack of success, game day management was well over half of it IMO.
I wrote off some or even most of the game day tuff for the first two seasons, even into the third season part way, but by the end of season 3 it was obvious Butch just shizzle his pants every Saturday. And it got worse in season 4, so that beyond a doubt that was the leading cause.
I don't think player development was great, but we had a quite a few that did well as individuals...just not as a team.
IMHO