So what is the story on Snyder coming back? I have heard lots of good things about the guy, and he has done alot with the team.
You can make an argument that he's one of the greatest college football coaches of all time...and some very respectable pundits have done just that. He has 2 major flaws (and they're pretty big rough ridin' flaws).
1. He's loyal to a fault...a really big fault. He's never fired an assistant coach...EVER! And he's had some really bad assistant coaches that deserved to be fired midseason. In fact, our DC right now is a perfect example.
2. He's an absolute workaholic and demands insane hours from his assistant coaches. That may sound great, but he can't get any hot young recruiters or really good young assistants to come work for him anymore because he works them to death. They just don't want to put in the hours he demands of them so they either don't come at all, or leave the first chance they get.
So the result is a staff of really old guys that he's worked with forever and will never fire. And we have to rely on "diamonds in the rough" and "coach 'em up" because we don't have any great recruiters. It's an absolute recipe for disaster...which makes this second "turnaround" nothing short of a miracle. Those of us that had reasonable expectations going into the season are still in some sort of prolonged shock.