History of first-year coaches' recruiting success: ACC

CLASS OF 2019 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position

RELATED: History of Big Ten first-year coaches | History of SEC first-year coaches

This season, there are arguably more new head coaches at high-profile football schools than ever before. The 2017 season ended with 13 Power Five programs hiring new coaches, including several marquee names in the sport – Florida State, Florida, Nebraska, Oregon, UCLA, Texas A&M and more – adding even further intrigue heading into this season.

With that in mind, Rivals.com took a closer look at how head coaches around the country began their tenures on the recruiting trail. The Big Ten and SEC were put under the microscope earlier this week. Today, it's the ACC's turn. The Pac-12 and Big 12 will be featured later this week.

NOTE: Willie Taggart's tenure at Florida State was not included in this study because he has yet to complete his first recruiting cycle there as a head coach. Year one represents a coach's first full recruiting cycle as that school's head coach.

Observations: Each coach exploits the recruiting calendar at different points, and that timing can be beneficial or put a coach in a tough spot. Coaches like Duke's David Cutcliffe, NC State's Dave Doeren, Louisville's Bobby Petrino, Wake Forest's Dave Clawson, Pittsburgh's Pat Narduzzi and Syracuse's Dino Babers did not have a very active first three months of the recruiting calendar in their first full year as head coach. During this period, there are NCAA-mandated quiet and evaluation periods as well as spring practices and spring games. During the quiet period coaches are not allowed to have off-campus contact with players, so they have to either get a player to visit the campus or do a really good job of building relationships without in-person contact. These coaches clearly didn't do that right off the bat.

Most of these coaches really attacked the second three-month period of the recruiting calendar. That's a time mostly comprised of an NCAA dead period, which means coaches can have no in-person contact with players but can still communicate with them. Wake Forest's Clawson, North Carolina's Larry Fedora, Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson, Clemson's Dabo Swinney and Boston College's Steve Addazio picked up between 35 and 50 percent of their first commitments during this time. During that same period, Syracuse's Babers and NC State's Doeren got between 50 and 60 percent of their commitments and Duke's Cutcliffe got 70 percent.

The third three-month period of the recruiting calendar coincides with the college football season, and the only coach that put up pretty good numbers on the recruiting trail during this time was Louisville's Petrino. Nearly 30 percent of his first recruiting class committed during this period.

Petrino, Pittsburgh's Narduzzi, and Virginia Tech's Justin Fuente did a great job of closing during the final three-month period of the recruiting calendar, with each of them adding more than 45 percent of their first full recruiting class during this time. These last few months of the recruiting calendar are when many players conduct official visits and coaches are allowed to conduct in-home visits.

Farrell's take for new coaches: Taggart has done a good job of balancing between some early commitments and waiting for some big names who want to take their time. With room left in the class, he can now target some prospects down the stretch while still boasting a ton of talent from his early commitments. This is a necessary blend of early commitments with late commitments. He could have been tempted to take a ton of early commitments to prove his worth as a new hire, but he didn't.

Observations: A few states in the ACC's territory are considered some of the most talented in the country. That natural benefit was clearly evident at Georgia Tech, NC State and Miami, where Paul Johnson, Dave Doeren and Mark Richt signed more in-state players than out-of-state players in their first two full recruiting cycles.

It is particularly interesting that Doeren was able to take advantage of the abundance of in-state talent while Duke's Cutclife, North Carolina's Fedora and Wake Forest's Clawson were not. The same point could be made in reference to Virginia and Virginia Tech. The state of Virginia features some of the most talented players on the East Coast, but Bronco Mendenhall and Fuente were unable to capitalize on their in-state advantage.

Swinney had two fairly balanced years at the beginning of his tenure at Clemson but Boston College's Addazio, Louisville's Petrino, Pittsburgh's Narduzzi and Syracuse's Babers relied heavily on out-of-state prospects. In fact, Petrino leaned so much on out-of-state prospects in his first year at Louisville that he didn't sign any in-state prospects.

Farrell's take for new coaches: Taggart has landed most of his FSU prospects from in-state, but has hit North Carolina, Mississippi and especially Georgia for some nice out-of-state grabs. He needs to recruit a bit more out of state with Florida being so over-recruited, and that balance will come with experience and time.

Observations: Eight of the 13 ACC coaches in this study didn't see a significant change (plus or minus 10 spots) in their recruiting class ranking from the first year to the second year, but the majority of them did see their ranking get worse in the second year. Duke experienced a severe drop in its recruiting class ranking in its second year under Cutcliffe. The Blue Devils were just outside the top 50 after Cutcliffe's first full recruiting cycle, and then plummeted to No. 72 after this second cycle. Wake Forest's Clawson and Virignia's Mendenhall saw their recruiting classes fall more than 10 spots after their second recruiting cycle.

Clemson's Swinney and North Carolina's Fedora were the only two coaches that saw their recruiting class jump by at least 10 spots from the first year to the second year. Clemson made the jump from No. 19 after Swinney's first full recruiting cycle to No. 9, and North Carolina went from outside the top 40 to inside the top 25. Even though Miami's second recruiting class under Richt didn't make that big of a move up, it did go from No. 11 in the first year to No. 6 in the second year.

Farrell's take for new coaches: FSU should finish in the top 10 every year - and most likely this season - so it will be hard to see if it will improve or not from year to year. The 2020 recruiting cycle will depend quite a bit on how the Seminoles do in 2018 on the field. I can see small changes, up or down, for Taggart but he should always be in that top 10 range.