If you're a coordinator anywhere and you have visions of being a head coach, I think you take the job that is offered. One bad year and you can go from hot prospect to "who?" in a matter of a season. I also think you need to look at places like the MAC. Lembo at Ball state has a nice resume, I think. He isn't a "sexy" pick but he's coached in the northeast and won everywhere he has been. If I had a wishlist, I also thin james Franklin would be somewhere on it. He has done wonders at Vanderbilt. You have to wonder if he might look at least. Other wise he risks ending up as Jim Grobe. Good coach in a long term impossible situation. Grobe had some interest a few years ago but elected to stay at Wake, but winning at Wake is a long term hard situation. Same with Vandy. Huge possibility that you have reached your ceiling there and it is downhill going forward.
I think Warde will go the coordinator/lower level head coach route, but hte other way to go would be the reclamation project. Not sure who is out there right now, but I'd like to get a guy who was successful but not quite successful enough at a major program. The model for this is Stolich. Who was a very successful coach by most standards at Nebraska. Just not successful by Nebraska standards.
I also think you want to look at a guy who has had a good career as opposed to a great season. That was the issue with a guy like Turner Gill. He had 1 good season and suddenly he's Knute Rockne's second coming...By the way, I think a guy like Tom O'Brien has zero chance of being the head coach at Connecticut. After the Pasqualoni debacle, we are not hiring a guy with even less personality. Though in an odd way I think he would have solid success here. He was a steady if unspectacular guy at BC and continued that style at NC State. I know one thing. If he were hired as head coach, the first guy fired would be George DeLeone. O'Brien built lines very much like UConn did under Edsall. Recruit athletic kids who had the potential to develop and coach them up.
