I like Barthel too & I think he'll develop into a very good RB coach. His issue right now is he's hitting the south hard but he has no natural ties there.
He is targeting HS RBs in places like TX, FL, SC, etc...and Barthel is from the northeast. Take the Kewan Lacy recruitment as an example: Garrett McGuire was crucial to getting that commitment (bc he speaks fluent Dallas Metroplex-ese). I don't think Barthel could have gotten that far with Lacy on his own, just due to not knowing the TX lay of the land like McGuire does.
So that's the issue with Barthel right now. All these RBs are from the sun belt and he's not. He can build up ties to three places it will just take time. When you're a new staff, the natural ties mean everything - look at Donnie Raiola: closed on Ben Scott (Honolulu), closed on Preston Taumua (Honolulu area), making progress w several Poly OL recruits in UT/NV/CA.
Barthel just doesn't have a natural 'in' right now w the places he's being asked to recruit. But he does have playing time to offer though and that can go a long way.
I don't read the Lacy de-commit as a relationship issue.
Even early on he was hoping for a bigger-time offer (Ole Miss)
If you now consider he doesn't even mention us anymore after getting his new suitors, it is pretty clear we were a placeholder. And, looking at his upcoming OVs (Hometown SMU, Alabama, Ole Miss and Florida) he likely never really wanted to go north. He said Bama was his dream school.
You could be right on his current search for a Lacy replacement. The bigger problem on the current search is that the vast majority of the top 100 RBs are already committed and the ones that aren't often have issues, like grades. We made a tactical decision to only take one RB in order to secure Lacy's commitment, and it didn't work out. The guy we turned away committed to UCLA in early August and is the 3rd highest rated guy in their class.
We are left trying to find overlooked guys/late bloomers.
The 2025 class will shed more light on your point. Right now, we have Conor Booth committed, and at most could take one more guy.