We ran into this problem with Coach Shafer and his staff. The only coaches who had any experience recruiting the traditional areas where SU gets its players were McDonald and to a lesser extent Lester. And they only had experience recruiting Florida. We had no one with experience recruiting the New England, NY, NJ, PA, the DC metro area, Canada, Georgia, etc.
It took years and hiring someone from outside of Shafer's inner circle (Acosta) to make any inroads recruiting these areas. We largely wrote off a couple of recruiting classes because of this and the impact of that is being felt now, and will be felt for a couple more years to come.
College football isn't an Xbox game. Successful recruiting requires establishing relationships with HS coaches, getting them to become comfortable with coaches, where they have confidence their players will be in a good environment where they can thrive on and off the field. That is why the hire of Acosta made a big impact in SU recruiting almost from the day he was hired.
If you bring in good people and if they work hard, make a lot of visits, do a lot of clinics, speak at a lot of awards ceremonies, show up at all star games, etc. than over time, you can overcome having no familiarity with a region. If you were a really good recruiter in another area, you can help to make up for the failings in your prime area by bringing in a few players from outside that area. The only reason Shafer's first couple of classes weren't complete washouts was that he and his staff were able to get a handful of good players out of the Midwest.
I would prefer to not throw away a couple of years by doing what Shafer did and going with a staff made completely of outsiders. We can't afford to write off that much time. I am down with bringing in someone with a strong offensive background. Just hope whoever that person is doesn't make the mistakes Coach Shafer made ignoring almost the entire the East coast. The area within a 5 hour drive of your college campus needs to be a big part of your recruiting focus, as does the area from DC to Florida, since we play there all the time in our conference.
If one of the first things the new coach does is announce that Acosta is being retained, it will be a great sign to me that the new guys gets it.
