How does this win affect Caleb Cunninghame?

I don’t think it hurt things

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Do we have a chance to land him?

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What last night may have done is plant that little seed. That seed can take root if either Bama struggles and ends up losing multiple games after losing to Vandy and looking bad for long stretches vs USF and USC, or if he goes to Bama and it doesn’t work out.

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You know wins and loses dont really have the effect on recruits you would think, at least that is what I"ve seen

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This is definitely true with your average game, but I do think marquee wins can have an impact - it's not a matter of "im not sure about LSU if they finish 8-4 but if they finish 9-3 or 10-2 that changes things" so much as it's a matter of the staff showing they can get it done in big games under the bright lights. I think it's more about the fact that we clearly put a lot of stock in this game--it's a rivalry game with the big recruiting weekend and the 100yrs-of-Tiger-Stadium festivities and the whole production of the thing--and went out and got it done. It shows that the staff knows what it's doing and is trustworthy in what it's telling recruits behind the scenes. If the staff is talking to these kids hyping up this game talking about how we're going to make a statement and just generally representing that the program is at a particular level, and then we come out and get whooped, it hurts our credibility when we tell these kids where we think the program is at and where we think the program is going and where we think they fit into it.


Basically: If you're telling a defensive recruit "sure, the defense was bad last year, but we're MUCH improved; we've got the best staff money can buy, we're a totally different unit now, and we love where the defense is at going forward. If you come here, you're not going to be a part of a team playing 52-49 games; you're going to be playing on an elite defense, competing for national championships, and getting yourself drafted early" and then come out and get absolutely whooped, your message is going to lose a lot of credibility. Conversely, if a recruit isn't sure whether to believe all that stuff, then they come out and see a game like that, they're going to go home with a lot more faith that LSU can get them where they want to go.



Also: Wins and losses aside, I do think overall atmosphere makes a difference. It's cool to come in and feel like the whole world stops for LSU football, and see shaq and paul skenes and justin jefferson and an absolutely insane crowd in a cool arse stadium, and imagine that being you one day. Even if it's not always a conscious decision-point, that stuff is definitely a factor - and we pretty much maxed out that factor on saturday.




Does it mean we're going to land Caleb Cunningham? Ultimately, probably not. But you dont bring him in and put on that production because you think it's going to flip him on the spot or even be the #1 factor in his decision; you do it to crack the door open. Once the door is cracked, anything can happen. In this case, you're definitely rowing upstream a bit, but if there was zero chance before this weekend I'd say there's at least a little chance after this weekend. Which is exactly what you were hoping for.