The Gators own beat writers talk about how he was rarely there to be the 'closer' on their biggest recruits, left almost all of the recruiting work to his assistants, etc. Florida is a job that virtually recruits itself, giving them a very high floor compared to programs like Virginia Tech. Even their worst recruiting class under their highly forgettable Jim McElwain years was only like 20-25th. Top 10 recruiting classes at Florida are more of the norm than the exception as long as even a modest amount of effort is put into it.

Virginia Tech is going to need a significant improvement in recruiting several years in a row if they want to get back to regularly competing for the division, let alone the conference. Given that need, and the fact that Tech is harder to sell to recruits than larger programs, I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker, but it does raise something of a warning flag to me. Could he go hire 10 ace recruiters and ignore most of the work himself? Sure, it's possible. But in all likelihood, Virginia Tech is going to need everyone, especially the head coach, to be very active/aggressive in recruiting. They're basically trying to convince 3-4 entire classes of 4-star recruits to come suffer at a 6-6 program for a few years, for a chance at restoring them to 10-win seasons and conference titles.