Florida, Florida State, LSU, and Ohio State all won national titles less than five years after replacing legendary coaches. And Penn State is better than they were under Paterno's last few years plus they had the whole pedophilia thing.
Yep. Florida State gave the reins to their HCIW (see Snyder, S.). Saban wasn't a legend at LSU...just a really good coach for 4 years. The rest had established good/great coaches come after the successor to the legend flamed out. KSU isn't going to hire a James Franklin, Jim Harbaugh, or Urban Meyer. If Bob Stoops decides he wants the job, the by all means...hire him. The reality of college sports is that coaches following legends have historically been fired even in the rare instances when they've done a good job. crap...Kansas fans were ready to sack Bill Self after 3 seasons.
Yeah so what you're saying is the coach you hire matters more than whether or not they follow a legend
Also Meyer coached at Utah and Harbaugh coached at San Diego and Franklin coached at Vandy so yes KSU could hire someone like that. (Just earlier in their career)
I can't believe everyone wants to take something this simple and make it complicated. Of course KSU can hire a relatively unknown coach who turns out to be good. What makes things difficult is that a coach who follows a legend is going to have to have more success at that school in order to get a fair shake than he would at a similar school where he wasn't replacing a legend. Expectations simply get out of whack, and the new coach becomes a victim of his predecessor's success. Hell, Snyder 2.0 is a victim of his own success and is being unfairly criticized.
Don't believe me? The two overarching criticisms on this board are that he 1. doesn't recruit worth a damn and 2. didn't compete for a conference title this season despite a bunch of returning talent. Which is it? Either he doesn't recruit talented players, or he shouldn't be expected to compete for a conference title given the returning talent. It can't really be both, can it?
If KSU wins in the bowl game, Snyder will have averaged 8 wins a season over the life of the outgoing senior class. That should never get a coach pushed out the door at a school like KSU. Your peer schools are teams like Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Missouri, and Iowa. None of those schools should ever fire a coach who consistently wins 8+ games a year. It's rarely a good idea for even the power schools as evidenced by Tennessee, Texas, LSU, Nebraska, etc.
Coaches who consistently win 8+ games at non elite schools leave for elite schools more often than not. Bill is an anomaly. Hell, Gary Pinkel is an anomaly, and he regrets not taking the Michigan job when it was offered. No up and coming coach is going to take a job at a non power school where an 8 win season is considered mediocre and there is a large faction who is pissed that your last name isn't Snyder. (The obvious possible exception is Venables, and I've repeatedly said that if he's the guy, it's way past time to loudly and definitively declare that Sean is not going to be the next coach.)
The longer you lead on Team Sean, the more likely you are to wind up with a circus on your hands if it isn't him. Missouri had a circus and had to settle for Odom because he was the only guy who would take the job. Tennessee just did the same thing. LSU just did the same thing. Nebraska's done it multiple times. Texas did it after Mack Brown. For the non EMAW crowd, there are a ton of generic schools that look just like KSU that don't come with all that baggage.