Let’s be honest here, Taggart made a decision that was bound to be made. Let’s just imagine that he stays and crushes it at Oregon for the next two - three seasons. Sure, he would have gotten a raise or two but that’s not stopping an SEC team or UF, FSU or in Cristobal’s case Miami from making a run at him.
I’d hope that we all knew when these guys where hired that Cristobal was / is going to get another shot at Head Coach somewhere in the South and that Leavitt was / is going to also get another shot, especially if they both stuck / stick around and continued to build a solid resume. If you didn’t accept that as part of the deal when Taggart hired them, you my friend were being pretty naive.
Fact of the matter is these bridges where bound to be burnt at some point, perhaps they’re getting burned before we all expected but none the less they’re potentially getting (or will eventually be) burned and no one should be surprised.
Even if we keep Cristobal AND / OR Leavitt ya’ll better expect that we’re going to go down this road multiple more times. IDC who’s named HC, we’re going down these roads at some point. Even if one of them ends up as our HC, someone bigger and with ‘more ties’ or ‘more tradition’or ‘closer to home’ or quite honestly someone with more money will eventually come calling.
Welcome to a) big time football and b) the business side of it.
We, as a fan base, were TOTALLY spoiled by the ‘keeping it in house’ way. The simple fact is as soon as the House was cleaned out this was / is bound to happen.
IDC what some of you think Nike doesn’t make us an elite program - does it set us apart? Sure, but it doesn’t makes us an elite program and unless we win 2 - 3 National Championships we won’t really be considered one. Hell, Bill Moos was being brutally honest and regardless of whether or not we think he was taking shots at us - he’s right. Nebraska has more appeal than we do and let’s not get confused here - Nebraska isn’t considered an elite program as of now but they STILL have more appeal than we do.
I’m not saying we need to settle, I am saying we’d better manage our expectations with the next hire. That is unless it’s someone like Peterson and probalby Wilcox who we all know probably wouldn’t bolt at the first really big opportunity. Sumlin, yep. McElwein, yep. Cristobal, yep. Leavitt, probably. Dredford, probably not, but he has no business even being mentioned for the job.
Some other names that we need to ponder are Koetter if he were to be let go from Tampa, Baldwin - terrible hire but he probably wouldn’t bolt, and believe or not Stoops if we’re willing to do what FSU wasn’t and that is agree to a short term contract with a HCIW situation. I literally think there’s Zero chance that Stoops calls but the FSU guy didn’t think he’d reach out to them either, so you never know.
Edit: Simply for the lols I’d actually like to see Gruden’s name be seriously considered. He’d be a terrible hire but the entire state of Tennessee might collectively vote to succeed from the Union (again) if they thought that we could even possibly land him. Same with Frost before he signed his Nebraska contract. The entire State of Nebraska would be on suicide watch. Hell, Peterson’s name even being brought up (which is entirely possible) would have the leg humpers ready to call up the National Guard and invade Oregon.
