The names thrown around as Mac's replacement were:
1. Gene Chizik---Got the job
2. Brian Kelly----Probably would have had the job but started talking
3. Jim Harbaugh--Maybe would have gotten the job but started talking
4. Tim Brewster---Never would have gotten the job but started talking
Pretty good list of Coaches IMO. Chizik's BIG problem is that he hired his friends to be his assistants rather than others that would have been more qualified. But then again, maybe GC was so much of an *** that other coaches wouldn't work under him at ISU while Auburn is a big enough name that they will tolerate him.
When CPR was hired, I believe that he was the best coach interviewed. I don't think we had quite as good of a list to choose from. And Rhoads was certainly qualified, ready, and a good fit for ISU.
I remember that the list included CPR, Turner Gill, Jay Norvell, and maybe one or two others.
CPR is great IMO. I think everyone is happy with who we have today. Plus CPR has a great staff. And seems to bring in quality guys when someone leaves. That was Mac's downfall. But in defense of Mac, he didn't have the budget for assistants like CPR does.
As far as Brian Kelly goes, I think he had a great shot at the ISU job, but then the Michigan State position opened up and he wanted to wait and see if he got that. MSU went after Dantonio from Cincy which put Kelly at Cincy. If MSU hadn't opened up, Kelly might have beat out Gene.
Now, the debate is still unresolved as to whether Kelly would have done more at ISU than Gene did. My guess is that Kelly would have hired more qualified coordinators, and with his previous HC experience, would have made less gameday mistakes. That, I believe, could have won us more ball games.
Another question is, what kind of talent would Kelly have brought to ISU as compared to Chizik? Chizik had some good recruiters on his staff. You can tell, because those are the guys he took with him to Auburn and preceded to give them non-coaching positions. Auburn has enough money to pay them more that ISU to just focus on recruiting. However, GC and staff did not stick around long enough to really build the recruiting ties for ISU. He also recruited a few to many JuCo players and had more than his share of no-shows. So, for every good recruit that GC brought in (LJ, Darks) he had a few guys that didn't pan out or make it to campus. That killed us. Chizik also did not recruit players for the spread like Kelly would have. We would be in better shape now if GC had recruited more high school players to develop. My guess is that he wanted to win as much as possible as soon as possible to get a better job offer, so he tried to bring in quick fix JuCos.
Kelly on the other hand did really well at Cincy, but most of that was done with players recruited by Dantonio. Kellys recruiting classes at Cincy were not that great, especially considering the amount of success he had there in a short time. Looking at Cincy now, it doesn't seem like they are particularly loaded with talent but time will tell. I do give credit to Kelly for getting a lot out of the players he had. It seems like Dantonio recruited some very good talent for Kellys system and Kelly got as much as he could out of them in a very short time. Chizik seemed to do the opposite. He floundered with the existing talent and pointed to better days in the future when he got "his" guys in there. I have a feeling that Kelly would have gotten more out of Bret Meyer and Todd Blythe if he had been the HC.
Now, the next question is, would Kelly have stuck around longer? Well, if he had as many losses as Chizik, he probably wouldn't have had a choice. GC going to Auburn was a rare deal. I doubt Kelly has those kind of connections. If Kelly was able to get more wins out of ISU than GC did, he probably would have jumped ship as well. My thinking is that he would have had to stick it out for at least 3 years and have won a lot more games to get a better gig.
