Lon Kruger vs. Travis Ford

Get dudes, right? Just get dudes and figure the rest of it out later. This is Alabama’s strategy in football. Kansas’ strategy in hoops. It’s one that has clearly been what Travis Ford has attempted to do in his eight years at Oklahoma State. It also clearly has not worked for him.

But it hasn’t been because he can’t get dudes. He just can’t figure out the “figure the rest out later” part. I got an email from friend of the blog Brett Allred recently. He highlighted just how bad Ford has been with his big boy recruits, and he used Lon Kruger to prove it.

A look.

That would be nine (!) four-star guys and two five-star guys (Smart and Nash) for Ford. Kruger, meanwhile, has accumulated four four-star guys total. And yet …

Ford winning percentage: 58 percent
Kruger winning percentage: 66 percent

It’s nothing we didn’t already know. It’s just tough to swallow when you see it written down. I wrote a blog post a few years ago entitled, “Is Travis Ford a good recruiter?” My conclusion was that he’s not, but my logic was all wrong.

Ford actually is a pretty good recruiter (see chart above) and he’s proven himself to be a decent developer of talent (see: Brown, Markel). But for some reason, for the majority of his time in Stillwater, he couldn’t get the two things to match up.