Fans, fellow coaches and the media often have a hard time coming to grips with somebody taking (what they view) a lateral or slightly smaller job in college football.
We had a very good litmus test for just that this offseason in Dana Holgorsen, who made the interesting move from a Power Five, Big 12 program at West Virginia to a Group of Five job (albeit a very good one) at his old hunting grounds of Houston. Aside from Tommy Tuberville getting out of Texas Tech early to take the Cincinnati gig, there haven’t been a ton of such parallels but the new Cougars head coach told USA Today this week that he didn’t have to think hard about pulling the trigger on the change.
“It was an easy decision,” said Holgorsen “(Houston) has always been special to me … that always had a whole bunch of potential.”
Now before Mountaineers fans get upset, Holgorsen did remark that he enjoyed his time in Morgantown and with the WVU program but Houston felt a little bit more like home to him after spending years as an assistant at the school and recruiting the area heavily while in the Big 12.
It also probably helped that he signed a five-year, $20 million deal with the Cougars too.
That certainly would make any decision that much easier.