Tom Davis get and unfair tag as a poor recruiter IMHO. He may not have loved it and he my have failed to take a step that other coaches didn't but the fact remains that all but one or two of Davis' classes were good to very good. Davis also seemed to be the last asked to leave the living room of a highly touted recruit or two it seemed like every year. Guys like Lafrentz, Deon Thomas, Jahidi White, Samiki Walker ect.. I think he picked up this tag when he lost out on some very highly rated instate guys.
Maybe he lacked some closing power. Who knows for sure, but he was working some very big recruits wether he liked recruiting or not. He also landed his share of great kids and classes. Guys like Murray, Kingsbury Street, Settles, Woolridge, Henderson, Davis, Range ect..
Davis' biggest issues, in my eyes wasn't his ability to recruit or develop what he had, it was that durng is tenure, shortly after the Marble/Armstrong class graduated, he bagan to loose players for one reason or another on a pretty regular basis. That bug has never left this program since the late eighties.
n short, Fran and Mr. Davis have a ton of simularities, right down to recruiting. Fran can seperate himself from other coaches here at Iowa simply by doig what he's doing froma coaching and recruiting stand point, and keeping his guys on campus until they graduate.