Same argument different year. X's and O's don't beat Jimmy's and Joe's in college football over the long haul. If you are close in talent it is a different story, but the fact is Stock has never and will never recruit at a high level for C-USA. We have some hits like Byard, but there's a laundry list of just ok players thrust into more than meaningful roles. If you go look at the teams who were successful look at how many NFL players they churn out. We have an average of 1 guy a year that probably has a legit NFL future. USM, LA Tech, FAU, WKU, had NFL talent and won the conference, UAB is only team in recent memory who didn't.
Hell, the only we reason we got the Brent (probably the best player of the Stock era definitely offensively) was because he's Rick's son.