This is exactly the case. While I agree recruiting top talent is the easiest road to the national championship, it’s not the only way. Just like most things in this world, there are alternative ways to achieving ultimate success, the alternative is just more difficult.
It’s possible to build a championship contender on a mix of highly rated recruits and guys who had to be developed. It’s just a more difficult path. In order to do it that way, the coaching must be flawless, the S&C must be flawless, and the players have to be a certain kind of guys who completely buy in and as a unit of one. It’s takes developing guys like Garrett Nelson into all Americans but making sure the guys like Wan’Dale also pan out to their projection
Granted some old curmudgeons on this website will say that recruiting top 5 talent every year is the only way to go. And to the naked eye, this may seem to be the case but the same state of mind would have told us the world was flat & man could not land on the moon. Fortunately, this is not the case.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a system in college football actually challenge for a natty without it being built on recruiting top ten classes and it’s only happen a handful of times in college football. But it can be done. Part of the reason I don’t believe you see it anymore in college football is because staff retention in college football just isn’t what it use to be. Fans patients just isn’t what it use to be. Can frost win a title here? Yes but for those that believe he’s going to have to field multiple top 5 recruiting classes to do it, I just disagree. I think the path at Nebraska is a mix of talent and outworking everyone else, that be in the weight room, in the film room, & on the field.