Wow, it never ends. We'll go through this AGAIN. If you were an alum of Army, and they tried to sell Dan McCarney to you, you would be angry. Look how angry people got when they thought Brian Kelly was going to be named coach here, and he actually had some real successes in coaching.
Regardless of what the remaining Dan McCarney people my want to believe, he is not perceived as an attractive candidate by BCS AD's. I don't know if he is even perceived as an attractive candidate by non-BCS AD's anymore.
What they see is actually pretty simple. If the guy actually did all that HE said that he had done, then Iowa State would have been playing in better bowls, and probably wouldn't have had to rebuild after 9 and 12 years on the job.
Plus, I think that the way that Dan presented himself in interviews rubs a lot of the potential employers the wrong way. Everyone is aware of the limitations at Iowa State, but when Dan did interviews it was always how much HE did for Iowa State, not the fact that we were the only school in the country that would have kept him as long as we did. AD's are aware of personalities in potential hires, and noone wants to be hung out to dry.