I think it is unrealistic to think Lovie would be knocking it out of the park recruiting wise at this point. We finished last year with a mid conference recruiting class which was very solid for his first year. Recruiting is also about relationships and many coaching staffs have been working these kids for a lot longer than Lovie has. Finally, I don't agree that Lovie is rusty - A lot of his staff knows how to recruit.
My bottom line is this: If we hired the right coach over time his recruiting will pick up and get better and better. It's just too early to draw any conclusions.
It seems people are talking about 2 different things in this thread. 1)Building a program into a consistent bowl team & into the upper half of the conference does take time. If we start to win 8 or 9 games regularly, of course we'll all be happy and at that point recruiting will be taking care of itself. We'll be alongside Wisc, Iowa, etc. where most of our fanbase believes we belong. But we're talking about the program as of now & how recruiting can help get us to where we all think we should be
2)The Lovie-affect hasn't impacted recruiting the way most of us hoped. It needed to happen last year & this year. Everyone in the sports world was in shock that the U of I was able to land Lovie Smith. But the further removed from the NFL, his name recognition doesn't mean the same, the more he'll become known as the coach of the Illini, a below average program. We had a solid class last year, and I'm hoping that we can add enough talent to equal that this year.
I have the utmost respect for Lovie & his ability as a coach, and still believe that he can get our program to where it needs to be. And I'm hopeful that the Trinity-Catholic relationship as well as others can add some top talent in '19 and '20, but the instant impact of the Lovie hire on recruiting hasn't had the results we'd all hoped for.