Again, I never said Cristobal isn't a good recruiter. What Im trying to figure out is why he is having so much trouble recruiting QBs and WRs. He didn't seem to have as much trouble at Oregon. I don't buy the argument that the troubles are due to 1 year of Gattis.
And yet...it's the truth.
Take QB. Where is the "trouble recruiting QB", outside of Gattis? We got Jacurri's commit in March 2021. We RETAINED Jacurri's commit, and he enrolled in January 2022. So "Mario" was able to retain a QB purely on the strength of "Mario", since Gattis was not hired until February 2022. Then, BEFORE WE PLAYED A GAME, we had not one, but TWO QB commits, in Jaden Rashada and Emory Williams. Emory stuck (even as Gattis stunk) and we were outbid for Rashada. The REAL test of Gattis' impact comes after the season starts. Rashada decommitted in November 2022, and by that point everyone knew how bad Gattis was. And SINCE THAT TIME, we have not received a single new QB commit or enrollment. And now that Gattis is gone, that might be changing soon.
Clearly, the QB situation is closely linked to Gattis. TVD's incumbency might be scaring away 1-year rentals, but any QB who wants to compete is surely not terrified of trying to beat out Jacurri and Emory.
Now let's go to WR. This situation was baaaad before Mario arrived, so let's just try to figure out if Mario is problematic or if we can point to Gattis.
Horton (HS WR) - 4-star - committed under Manny, retained by Mario, enrolled May 2022
Young (JC WR) - 3-star - recruited under Mario, enrolled June 2022 before Gattis ever coached a game
Ladson (Portal WR) - 4-star HS/3-star transfer - recruited under Mario, enrolled January 2022 before Gattis was hired
Nathaniel Joseph (HS WR) - 4-star - committed in June 2022 before Gattis ever coached a game
Robby Washington (HS WR) - 4-star - committed in March 2022 before Gattis ever coached a game
So there are numerous reasons that establish that the WR (and QB) situation can be blamed on Gattis:
1. We got EVERY QB and WR recruit (3 QBs, 5 WRs) before anyone ever saw Gattis coach at UM.
2. We hit the wall with QB and WR recruiting once Gattis began to coach. Even though we had a QB decommit and we had plenty of WR spots to offer, NOBODY new wanted to be associated with Gattis once they saw his offense.
3. We almost lost a couple of the QB/WR names mentioned above BECAUSE OF Gattis.
4. We have now started to make headway with QB/WR recruits, getting our first WR verbal in 10 months (since Joseph).
I'm not sure why you "don't buy" that these issues are related to Gattis, but they are.