Originally Posted by
Mike Corey
The clear familial connection aside between Ole Miss and Eli, there's a reason why the Manning brothers will be moving their camp to Duke this summer, and that reason is David Cutcliffe. He didn't land Eli solely because of connections; he did it because he did the best job of selling himself and his school to Eli and Archie.
Further, Orgeron's an outstanding recruiter, no doubt. But he was asked to leave outright. Consider that Cutcliffe only was dismissed because he refused to terminate his assistants.
That all aside, many Mississippi faithful bemoan the recruiting job that Cutcliffe supposedly did while he was in charge there. But the bottom line is that he brought Mississippi more success than anyone had in quite some time, and more so than Orgeron did during his brief tenure.
Cutcliffe's got a great staff in Durham now, and he has been the first to say that he is infinitely more prepared to be a head coach now than he was during his first go-around.
He's already brought one four-star quarterback to campus, drew enough respect to make Duke at least a minimal possibility for the best college prospect since Adrian Peterson, and will be spending every waking moment he's not coaching his current team to earning the right to be called a "good recruiter."
I appreciate the points you're attempting to make, but I humbly submit that a review of Mississippi's recruiting rankings under Cutcliffe are actually quite respectable, and that he's more than worthy of being given the opportunity to recruit at Duke before being shrugged off as an unproven recruiter.
Sure, there were "ins" that he had with Eli Manning. But he made the most of them.
There are ample examples out there of coaches buttressed by similar connections that are unable to capitalize. Cutcliffe did. That says something, IMO.