Both of those things IMO. In my eyes he's the 2023 version of Andre Johnson, and the fact that we didn't land him is a reminder of how this program has fallen in the last 20 years, even though I really do think we're on the right path upward. But Andre Johnson signed here, and Jeremiah Smith did not, and that just illustrates and highlights our problems today vs what worked back then. Are we gonna lose the next Sean Taylor to Georgia? The next Willis McGahee to Alabama?
I think it's a failure because this is a results business. I think Mario is a good coach and an elite recruiter, maybe the best recruiter in America. So I don't think losing JS is on him. We need to make sure he has the support he needs from a staff perspective and from an NIL perspective to get the most out of what he can bring as a recruiter. If Mario is the head coach at Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State, he's landing the #1 class in the nation every year. So in my eyes, the difference is the supporting cast around him including NIL and administrative.
The only thing that matters in the end is who we sign vs who our competition signs, and us having a good enough stable of players to compete for championships. The how and the why don't mean **** at the end of the day.