A lot of AD's wouldn't have hired Fred. Pollard had the presence of mind to recognize Fred's plan for Iowa State and make a hire that received criticism. And if you really think Fred was our only good option, you really don't understand college athletics. As long as a school is in a major conference, they'll certainly have good candidates applying for their coaching positions.
I think you're overestimating our position on hiring a good coach after the Gmac fiasco. We couldn't even get any decent takers after LE got canned and Morgan got it by default (and he actually did a good job, giving us one of the better 3 year periods in ISU basketball history). Do you really think we were going to get any decent candidates with the horrible situation we were in when Gmac left? Fred said he expressed interest in the job when GMac was hired. Do you really think JP had any options anywhere close to as good as Fred 5 years later when Creighton saved us from the GMac era? Many of us on this board said hiring Fred was a no brainer before he was hired, you can check on that. Just don't see how hiring Fred was any stroke of genius at all. In fact if JP hadn't hired Fred when everybody found out Fred wanted the job, JP may have been run out of town.