As many in the NC State community seem to work to convince themselves that hiring Navy’s Paul Johnson would be a great hire, 850TheBuzz’s Steve Logan did a fantastic job of highlighting some challenges that Paul Johnson is going to face on the all-important recruiting trail.
Remember, whomever NC State hires will be recruiting against Carolina’s Butch Davis who has NFL Head Coaching experience and has been extremely successful at a high profile Division One program.
On his radio show today, Logan stressed the importance of selling the NFL to the type of high school talent that comprise the programs in major conferences like the ACC. As he does with most topics on his show, Logan offered his perspective as if “he were the coach” in a situation. He stated that if he were at Carolina recruiting against Paul Johnson that he would stress the importance of the NFL to any player that he recruited on the offensive side of the ball.
Offensive Line – I will teach you how to pass block so you can make the NFL.
Quarterback – I will teach you how to throw.
Running Back – I will teach you how pass block for the NFL.
Wide Receiver – I will teach you to how to run block like the NFL, how to catch like the NFL, etc.
The message is clear – Paul Johnson has had legitimate success that deserves acknowledgement and recognition, but his system may create problems while trying to recruit the kind of talent that typically resides in conferences like the ACC.
We don’t have an educated opinion on this topic yet, but would love to hear your thoughts.
